NY Times Blames Victim For Rape *Public*

[shannon_elaine]

It is immensely important that the NYTimes apologies for this article. In the few short paragraphs of the piece, the paper sympathized with the numerous perpetrators of this horrific gang-rape (“they will have to live with this for the rest of their lives”) and firmly placed the blame for the rapes in the 11-year-old victim (“she wore make-up and

Comments

[stephen_c]

I think believing that she's being blamed for what's happening based on what McKinley was attempting to write in his article is to apply very narrow, black and white standards to something which originated in a lot of gray.

Do you think the girl would have been raped if she hadn't been in that neighborhood? Would the boys have sought her out at her home? This doesn't excuse the crime they're alleged to commit, but ask yourself this: if you walked home in a bad neighborhood late at night and were robbed or assaulted. Does it make the perpetrator any less guilty of his crime? Absolutely not. But could you have mitigated the risk of assault by taking a cab or having a friend walk with you? Probably. Does this mean you deserved to be robbed or assaulted? Of course not. But who's responsible for your safety? You are.

Likewise, an 11 year old girl needs a parent or guardian to ensure their safety until they develop the maturity and experience to make those decisions. Again, the girl did not deserve to be raped. But her mom was responsible for her, and allowing her to pretty much do anything she pleased or go anywhere she wanted is really irresponsible.

The article also mentioned what the community is saying about the boys, as to what got them to the point where they thought they could get by with gang-raping an 11 year old girl. How could they, the elders, parents, whomever, have allowed whatever influences to happen that helped create this terrible crime.

Long after the trial is over and the publicity fades, these questions are still valid, because if they aren't answered, and if no one in the community takes responsibility by parenting children and finding out what influenced all behaviors by both victim and perpetrators, it will happen again.

That's what McKinley was writing about. Seeing it as blaming the victim is the absolute most narrow, black and white interpretation of it.