Outrage
OUTRAGE # 1: I woke up this morning to NPR reporting about the police reaction to protesters and thought they were talking about Egypt when in fact they were talking about UC Davis. What is the difference between a police officer dragging a protester away by the hair (Egypt) and a police officer pepper spraying protesters directly in the face and eyes (UC Davis)?
Where is Governor Jerry Brown on this?
Why does UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi still have her job?
Egypt reacts to free speech with violence.
America reacts to free speech with violence.
OUTRAGE # 2: Jerry Sandusky was seen raping an 11 year old boy in the showers of the Locker Room at Penn State, among other alleged charges involving sexual abuse (rape) of underage boys. He is a free man, awaiting his fate.
If the same Jerry Sandusky at Penn State had been seen raping an 11 year old girl in the showers of the Locker Room at Penn State, among other alleged charges involving sexual abuse (rape) of underage girls, would he be walking around a free man, awaiting his fate? NO.
Would Joe Paterno and Penn State have behaved differently? YES.
So raping underage girls is taken more seriously than raping underage boys? YES.
Take a moment and ponder this:
An 11 year old boy is being raped by a pedophile in the showers of a college football locker room. The pedophile says to the mainstream media: “I may have touched his legs in the shower, I love children.”
An 11 year old girl is being raped by the same pedophile in the showers of a college football locker room. The pedophile says to the mainstream media: “I may have touched her legs in the shower, I love children.”
I do not think a crowd would have gathered outside Paterno’s home and spread their love to him if Sandusky’s alleged victims were underage girls.
The difference?
1. It is still acceptable for mouthpieces in the mainstream media to spout their demonization of adult men who have sex with adult men. . . And it is also a firmly held belief by these same mouthpieces, spoken or implied, that underage boys must have deserved their “due” since they didn’t fight back.
Like I said, outrage.
November 29th, 2011 at 10:16 am
I’m so glad you wrote this piece, David. I, too, confused a report about Egypt with one on the Occupy protests and thought it alarming I could not tell the difference.
But more importantly, you point to a very real bias — because homosexuality is viewed by so many only in terms of sex, when a boy is raped many squirm and presume the boy must also be gay — and if he is, he could not be raped. The attacks on one of the victims in this case demonstrate just how readily people will demonize a target of abuse, rather than confront the troubling possibility that they or their own children could be potential targets.
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:35 am
I so agree. The thoughts of the world seem to be in a cesspool without any hope of being washed clean.
December 5th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
These couple of interviews with Sandusky make me sick to my stomach. It reminds me of Michael Jackson. “Oh, they wanted to be touched.” Maybe they did. But not in the shower or in the bed.