I know I said last week that I was going to use my passion blog to share inspirational stories and videos for the rest of the year… but with the verdict for the Steubenville rape trial being decided over the weekend, I wanted to focus on that this week.
Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, two football stars at Steubenville High School, were charged with raping a sixteen-year-old girl at a party. The girl woke up the next morning naked and confused about what had happened… until she read obscene texts on her phone and saw videos and pictures of herself posted on the Internet (Mays was also charged with illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material due to the videos and photographs that surfaced).
The defendants were found guilty, but the sad thing is, coverage of the trial seems to be more sympathetic towards the rapists than the victim. I watched CNN’s report of the trial, in which they talked about how the defendants broke down crying after the verdict was read, and in that moment didn’t seem like tough football players but sixteen-year-old boys (though Mays is seventeen); they talked about how the boys had had such promising futures, and about the lasting effects that this guilty verdict will have on them; but they failed to talk about the lasting effects that this will have on the actual VICTIM.
I think this is exactly what’s wrong with society today – it’s almost as if we’re condoning rape. Who cares if they’re sixteen and seventeen; who cares if they were football stars with promising futures? They still raped someone, and while CNN can lament the fact that they were found guilty all they want, they deserved that guilty verdict.
On a brighter note – in case anyone did come to my blog looking for a little inspiration, click here for the 30 happiest facts of all time! (My personal favorites: otters sleep holdings hands, blind people smile without ever having seen someone smile before because it’s a natural human reaction, the voices of Minnie and Mickey Mouse got married in real life, and turtles can breathe out their butts.)
Amen, sister. Seeing all the headlines of news articles that were oh so sympathetic to these boys about being found guilty for a crime they committed just disgusts me. People talked about the victim as if she weren’t a real person. They presented the facts about what happened involving her (notice how I didn’t say what happened TO her), and didn’t say a word about sympathy for her. How this will affect the rest of her life. Ugh. I can’t stand it. Anyway, I love love love that link you posted, too! I read it and smiled! I really like that Norway knighted a penguin, spiders can’t fly, and that picture of a “grumble” of pugs!