Re-post of an entry that NEEDS to be shared

[purerandomness]

Originally posted by lavenderfrost at ...WTF.

NYTimes, the bastion of quality reporting, reported on the gang-rape of an 11 year-old girl in Texas  that's led to charges against 18 high-school boys so far - all well and good so far, right?  Shit like this NEEDS publicity to raise awareness.

Only problem is, they repeated - without refutation or critical

Comments

[tooby3]

It's just interesting to me: I mean much like it's truly bothersome that the perpetrators are being left off the hook while those in the community blame the victim and her mom for how they dressed / behaved, the people who started that petition are similarly leaving the community off the hook and blaming the new york times and its reporters for not taking sides.

The thing to do is probably find the local version of that story in the newspaper of that community and posts comments there making clear you think they community members are behaving horribly. It's impossible to say whether they'll have a moment of clarity from that - typically it seems online comments pack little to no weight. But at least then you're getting your POV in front of the right people.

It reminds me of a similar story that got a lot of attention about a midwestern high school where a lesbian couple were refused the right to attend their prom because they wanted to wear tuxedos (or something like that.) It was totally appalling to those of us in the northeast and the story was killed with comments from people outside of the area, condemning the behavior. I seriously doubt that changed many minds in the community (everyone loves to dismiss us northeast liberals) but I bet it made those girls feel a lot better to know some where people supported them.

The gang rape scenario is obviously more upsetting - particularly that the girl was 11!!