4/3: Rape Allegations, Opening Day
• By now news of the alleged rape committed by members of Duke’s lacrosse team has been all over the media. Did these rich white kids have their way with a black stripper at an off-campus party? I don’t know. Rape is a serious allegation, and it can be extremely difficult to prove in a court of law. My rule of thumb regarding rape allegations is if the incident recently took place, I’ll wait until more facts/evidence is presented; the Duke situation falls into this category. Let the evidence present itself first, then make a decision.
When Kobe Bryant was accused of rape, I took the same stance. Because the incident was reported in a timely manner, I let the alleged victim make her case. Even though in the end I decided for myself that this wasn’t a rape incident, I didn’t just blindly go “OMG here’s another white girl is just trying to collect a payday.”
One of the most unfortunate aspects of these kinds of cases, other than the actual incident itself, is that just applying common sense could have prevented many of them. Girls, don’t go to a man’s hotel room at 3 a.m.; guys, don’t go to a party that is likely to get out of control. Do I sound like a fuddy duddy? Probably. But this is the way I lived my life for the most part (there have been exceptions, of course), and thanks in large part to my choices regarding not getting involved in situations that had the potential to be disastrous, I have stayed away from trouble.
Like I said earlier about my rule on how I treat a rape case, I give the benefit of the doubt to an alleged victim if the incident is reported shortly after it occurred. However, when claims are made years after the fact, I don’t want to hear them. A prime example of this came with that female kicker for the University of Colorado some years back. In 2004 she alleged that she was verbally abused, harassed and molested by other players and raped by a teammate back in 1999. The fact you waited five years to present this information leaves me with zero sympathy. Likewise that alleged rape of Juanita Broderick by Bill Clinton. The fact this (allegedly) happened several decades ago made me indifferent to whole thing. (In addition to this being my general opinion on rape cases, I also share the same sentiment when it comes to molestation cases dealing with priests.)
It should be interesting to see the fallout from this. If it turns out the alleged victim is making this story up because someone called her the “n” word, then there’s going to be a lot of apologies (at the very least) due. However, if this is a case of rape, then I say lock up the perpetrators and throw away the key.
• Well, today’s opening day for Major League Baseball. Now I’m not even going to pretend I know what I’m talking about regarding this sport, especially when there are other people at this place like Bored, who eat batting averages and on base percentages for lunch. I wasn’t into baseball during my late-teens/mid-20s, but over the last few years I’ve started to warm up to the sport again. I’m not sure why I have this change of heart; it’s certainly not due to the performance of my hometown team. Maybe this could be the year the Pirates reach the .500 mark. Believe me, if that’s the case it will be like the Pirates won the NL Central around here. Actually, back in the late 90’s (I think the year was ’97) the Pirates were in a division race for most of the season, yet they never got above the .500 mark. I was in college at the time, and many of my friends were going crazy over the fact the Pirates were in first place, yet were losing more games than they were winning. In the end, the Houston Astros woke up late in the season and took the division, only to get swept by the Braves in the first round. However, when your hometown team has experienced 14 consecutive losing seasons, I guess fans will take anything they can get.
2 Comments
Recommended Comments