Shit that Pissed Me Off – 6/10
Judge Sentences Convicted Rapist to Six Months Because He Was Drunk
In a case that involved a brutal sexual assault, the rapist has said he’s going to do everything he can to educate people about the dangers of the drinking culture on College campuses.
As his victim pointed out in an eloquent statement she read in court, he doesn’t seem to have any desire to speak out on the subject of stopping sexual assault. He seems convinced that if people stop drinking the sexual assault will go away.
The rapist’s father also made a statement in which he argued that his son should not be punished for the rest of his life after “20 minutes of action.”
I’m just going to point out that this young man was apparently a star swimmer and that means he was regularly rewarded for just a few minutes’ work. Somehow, however, he should not be punished for twenty.
The judge listened to the boy’s father and the victim’s statement and decided that the father was the one who was mostly in the right and a young man who sexually assaulted a woman behind a dumpster so violently that she had pine needles in her vagina is going to jail for – at most – six months. Probably more like three.
And his lawyer is appealing.
The concern voiced by the father and the judge has everything to do with the “ruined” life of the rapist. It has literally nothing to do with the ruined life of the victim. But who cares about her, right?
She wasn’t the one on trial.
Except, in our justice system, she actually was.
Having written this blog for several years, I have friends who occasionally advocate for certain stories. This is both flattering and frightening.
Alex Radita was a Canadian boy who was a diabetic. He died, according to his doctors, of starvation and neglect. It appears his parents denied him treatment and eventually, his body just couldn’t take it any longer.
If you go further into the details of this trial, things just get more and more disturbing. He may have been dead for as much as 36 hours before paramedics were called. He was fifteen years old and weighed 37 pounds. His parents admitted that he had been diagnosed as a diabetic at age 3 but they didn’t believe the diagnoses was accurate.
Honestly, I have no idea how that poor kid managed to live to be fifteen. Even more scary, his parents have seven other children. Seven. And they all live at home. Which wouldn’t sound so bad if five of them weren’t between the ages of fifteen and twenty five.
Being a parent is a tough job. I don’t think anyone has yet figured out how to get it 100% right.
Doesn’t it bug you just a little bit, though, when you find people like this couple who didn’t just fuck up one life but are actively working on fucking up another seven?
In Pakistan, a Young Woman was Strangled and Burned for Eloping
Well this is a week of bad parenting, isn’t it?
This story is about an eighteen year old girl who was strangled and set on fire when she tried to reconcile with her family after eloping with her long time boyfriend.
Now these kids were pretty impetuous and I don’t know how the whole thing would have worked out. I can understand her parents might be a bit cross. I no longer understand when her mother and brother tie her to a bed and set her on fire. I feel that goes well beyond being “a bit cross.”
The mother fully admits that she burned her daughter alive and has shown no remorse.
The reason, of course, is because this is something they do to young women in this region of the world. And they are taught that it is not just OK, but righteous.
It is days like this when I recall the greatest line Keanu Reeves was ever given.
Oh and hey – guess what happened to the man she eloped with? Nothing. Because it was her fault.
A Story About Sexual Harassment in a Chicago Theater
Buckle your seat belts. This article is a long one. But at least it isn’t about someone being a shitty parent.
This is just about someone being a shitty actor and director. Actually, he’s apparently a very good actor and director. He’s just a shitty human being.
Allegedly.
As a theater professional, I’ve long been aware that our little liberal corner of the world is not free of sexism. Ask any actress you know. Ask them how easy it is to find work. You can’t ask actors for the most part.
Know why? Most of them are working.
As a playwright, I’m constantly thinking of how I can create more roles for women in what I write. Part of my reasoning is selfish – I presume that most of the great actresses I know aren’t working and I want them in my play. The other part is simply thinking I have a responsibility to create roles for women.
The problems are worse than a simple lack of representation on stage, though. Most directors in theater are men and they are placed in positions of power over (predominantly) young women who need that man’s approval to further their career.
While this doesn’t lead to abuse most of the time, you can see how it could.
And the insular nature of the community means if a cycle of abuse begins, it continues because if the abuser is talented enough, a theater will ignore his darker behavior. The bottom line is not just something that drives poor decisions in the corporate world. It happens in theater as well.
The article is, admittedly, one sided. Mostly because the only people willing to respond were those willing to provide evidence that Darrell Cox is a serial abuser. Still, when you have enough women talking about the abusive behavior of one man, I think you have to believe that the women didn’t get together to make the whole thing up.
The theater community is supposed to be better than that. We are supposed to be inclusive and cognizant of boundaries and intolerant of abusive behavior.
We aren’t, though. We are just as capable of victimizing women on stage because it is dramatic. We are just as capable of pretending that the stories of a talented but abusive artist are made up because we believe they are too talented to be punished.
In the end, though, if the allegations in this article are true, they point out that some things are more important than talent.
And really – there are a whole lot of talented people out there. Maybe we should show the abusive ones the door.
One more thing! I wrote a short story this week called The Cargo and if you wanted to read it, that would be cool.
Grail Diary 