It seemed to be a promising year in the realm of victim blaming and shaming. Universities across the nation started discussions about active consent. Allies rallied behind a Columbia University student who vowed to carry the mattress she was raped on until her attacker was expelled. People were showing real promise. Two steps forward …
One step back …
In late November, Rolling Stone published a piece about a ghastly gang rape of a University of Virginia student by a bunch of frat boys. Within weeks, some contradicting claims surfaced, and Rolling Stone decided that their source’s credibility was shot. And then they said so, in a half-assed retraction that to them looks like an admission of guilt, but which reads a lot more like they’re trying to distance themselves from an unreliable source. Because you know the only thing less trustworthy than a woman is one who says she was raped. With one fell swoop, it seems that Rolling Stone may have undone this year’s accomplishments, and compromised discussions about active consent.
In other rape headlines, there’s finally public support for the victims of Bill Cosby (though it came only after Hannibal Buress, a man, pointed it out, even though there have been outcries from women for decades). But even though the world finally got it straight about Cosby being a rapist, the media still couldn’t let the victims go unscrutinized. That’s what must have gone through CNN talker Don Lemon’s skull when, in a televised interview, he asked one of Cosby’s victims why she didn’t use her teeth to avoid being raped. Thank you, Don Lemon, for your important contribution to journalism and social justice.
And finally, something we can’t forget—won’t forget—is the blaming of young black lives taken by cops. Murders justified by innocuous circumstances. Eric Garner had been illegally selling cigarettes. Michael Brown had shoplifted that day. John Crawford III was holding a toy gun in a WalMart. Tamir Rice—a 12-year-old boy—was holding a BB gun. These and the audacity of being alive while black have been, if not arguments for a rightful execution, then excuses for a wrongful one. This, a grotesque style of victim blaming, saying not only that they deserved it, but that they were not even the victim at all. In response, thousands have rallied and continue to rally in honor of black lives.
There will continue to be victims of sexual violence, of racial prejudice and police brutality. But if this year has told us anything, it is that these victims will no longer be silent, and shall not be forgotten.
