By Gayle Crabtree
Could someone please tell me what an alleged reporter was thinking when he wrote the piece called Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town.
In this article, the NY Times reporter James C. McKinley, JR writes about how the rape of an 11 year old is reverberating through a town. What he doesn’t write about is how the rape is reverberating through the child’s life and the life of her family.
Beginning with the title, the article takes the fast track downhill. You bet the town is shaken. It should be. The reported gang rape of an 11 year old should shake any town to the core! Rape should never be condoned. Further, there is no excuse for an article to even suggest that a child (or adult) is to blame.
The problem is that the tone of this article seems to side with the alleged perpetrators. (I say alleged because everyone is innocent until proven guilty under the law.)
I’d like to know who told the reporter that it’s ok to quote comments about the way a child dresses. In the article he says that unnamed neighborhood residents said that the girl “she dressed older than her age”. Another quote asks “Where was her mother?”
Statistics from the Rape Abuse Incest National Network tell us that someone is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes in the United States
The truth is that it doesn’t matter what she wore, where her mother was or who she took a ride from. No one deserves to be raped. The fact that she was only 11 and gang raped, makes the crime more horrendous not less.
Making matters even worse is that the article says that parts of the rape were video taped on cell phones which were passed around at school.
The article goes on to mention that basketball players from the high school may be involved. There is mention of an adult son of a prominent person in the town may also be involved.
Then, there is a mention that the monsters who allegedly did this will have to “live with this the rest of their lives”. The child who was raped will have to live with it too. Any survivor can tell you that rape is a life sentence for the victim.
Missing from the article is any information about that. Nothing is written about how many rape victims develop post traumatic stress disorder. There is no mention of any of the ways this could affect such a young girl. A girl, who is young enough that her mother says “still loves stuffed bears”.
Change.org has a petition calling for the NY Times to apologize to the child for blaming her for being gang raped. So far just over 29,000 signatures have been collected. Would you like to add yours? Click on the Change.org link to speak out now.
Gayle Crabtree is the Founder of Hope For Healing.Org, a nationally recognized speaker with RAINN, and a survivor of sexual assault.
Editor's note: This positive statement was recently released. There is power if we take a stand!
Gayle Crabtree is the Founder of Hope For Healing.Org, a nationally recognized speaker with RAINN, and a survivor of sexual assault.
Editor's note: This positive statement was recently released. There is power if we take a stand!
Big news! After a massive outcry from more than 40,000 Change.org members -- which led to news coverage in the Huffington Post, Village Voice, and even London’s Daily Mail -- New York Times public editor Arthur S. Brisbane has issued a strong rebuke of the victim-blaming in a recent article by reporter James McKinley about the gang-rape of an 11-year-old girl and her community's response.
Brisbane wrote said that the outrage was "understandable" and that the piece conveyed "an impression of concern for the perpetrators and an impression of a provocative victim" that "led many readers to interpret the subtext of the story to be: she had it coming."
The apology isn’t perfect -- it decries the lack of "balance," as if the paper should be providing equal voice to the concerns of the victims and her alleged attackers. And unfortunately, while the story ran in section "A" of the Times, Brisbane’s commentary showed up only online, not in his weekly column.
But because the Times is so high-profile, this condemnation still sends an important message to reporters all around the U.S. that readers will hold them accountable for insinuating that victims are somehow responsible for playing a role in their own sexual assaults. And you made this happen.
Hear Hear Gayle! Where is the empathy for the victim? Where is the call for Her justice? Where is the call to get help for her and the future night terrors she is likely to have?
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm am so sick of picture not respecting each other, let alone this horrendous crime. Rape is rape and it is horrible and we need to do just what you wonderful people did and hold the reporter accountable for his wrongly worded account of her hell and now lets hope justice is done in the court. Rapists should get more time. The balance is still wrong between men and women. Thank you! Patrice
ReplyDeleteThank you Gayle.
ReplyDeleteNone of this shocks me- being from Ireland where the victim is always to blame- especially if it is an Eve ill female.
We see the church men of god using the same excuse in child rapes - the girl led the priest on, she looked at him with those eyes."
I know it all as i experienced it as a child.
All that was important was that the mans reputation was kept clean.?
Then last year age 55 I decided to report it - for healing reasons- and the police man asked "if I had considered the MAN'S REPUTATION AND HOW THIS MIGHT DESTROY HIS FAMILY"?
I was shocked believing things had improved from the 1960's. No.
I researched to find the answers - this rape of women and children goes back thousands of years to the start of the patriarchal system when the priestesses and children were enslaved and raped by the babbarian armies.
When we look at war today, what is the first thing the victors do? like in Iraq etc? Rape the women and the children - because that is how patriarchs destroy communities.
Were the rapists punished in Iraq, Afghanastan Vietnam etc. No.
Why? Because our "enemies" are dehumanised by the conquerors in the same way that women and children were all deemed to be born Eve ill and without souls.
Women were only given souls a few centuries ago.LOL
We have souls all along- but men in dresses decided that God said we had none.
In the ancient sacred texts women and children are the chattels - slaves, possessions of MEN and were given free reign to rape and take from women and children as they wanted.
The native American women never knew rape until the white men of god came to civilise them and teach their men that rape keeps women under control. Sick but true.
As to gang rape. I have dealt with a child last year who was gang raped- why?? because she dared to expose that she was raped and sold for sex while in state care and social workers arranged the gang rape- drugging and rape- so she came across as incoherent to police and it was all covered up by police and child protection.
Everything was done to aid and abet the rapists and their masters- child protectors- paid by tax payers.
Rape of the female affects the feminine energy of our human people and our Mother Earth- all of us and that is the intention.
There is no profit in love and peace, but violence and rape keep business going.
Sick thinking but true.
The reporter is programmed by our own society to see rape as he sees it.
ReplyDeleteGo to any court when a rape trial is in progrss and you will hear the same thing from the judges and lawyers and barristers- hence only about 3% of rapists are ever prosecuted.
The female is always to blame in the eyes of our patriarchal society.
That is how we have been brainwashed.
The just us system sees it this way too.
If we wish to bring change, then the training of police, social workers, lawyers, judges etc must be changed first so that the truth about rape is spoken openly.
That the impact on victims is spoken of.
That the perpetrator is not seen as the victim of the child.
Then we the people must hold writers like the man here accountable and visibly accountable, so that people will wake up and see that we need to change and that we are ALL that change.
Oh yes, recording the rape on phones is the big thrill and it is shared and SOLD to others worldwide.
ReplyDeleteI know how traumatic this is for the victim and her family.
I have witnessed the near suicide of the victim here and her mother when the video was sent around the world.
But drug users will do anything to feed their habit and as there is a demand for pictures of rape and videos of rape, then of course the perpetrators will prey on children.
These "beings" get a sadistic pleasure in gang rape.
They celebrate together, gloat together, brag together and belive that they are above the law.
They have no feelings whatsowever for their prey, so when the woman says "they have to live with it for the rest of their lives"- she is so wrong.
THESE RAPISTS HAVE NO HUMAN FEELINGS.
This is a great article! Before I even read this, I saw that very article you were discussing and thought the same thing! How can there be "two sides" to a heinous crime like this? It definitely had misogynistic overtones.
ReplyDeleteAs a two-time rape survivor, I agree wholeheartedly with your opinions and thanks for bringing a voice to this little girl.
Good new now is that there are over 46,000 people who signed the petition. Goodness, what is wrong with our world when people have the audacity to talk about what a child is wearing, and looking and acting older than her age and insinuating that she asked for it. Lord help us!!! It's just plain evil when people aren't outraged at gang-raping a child!! May the Lord bring about repentance in all the rapists and the people who justified their evil behaviors.
ReplyDelete