Apathetic Heart of Gold

Almost everyone has heard of the Stanford rape case. Almost everyone has Brock’s doofy-ass man-child mug splattered across their newsfeed. Hopefully many of you have read the victim’s open letter, as well as Brock’s father’s note to the judge. Neither of these are easy reads (for VERY different reasons) but both are important. The juxtaposition of perspective is key here, and I don’t think we’re focusing on it enough.

Before I really get in to this, please note: Brock did a fucking terrible thing.  A life ruining thing. A thing that no one will ever be able to fix. He deserves to be in jail for a very, very long time. He is not a good person. 

As a survivor of sexual assault, this point is very important to me. I know what it’s like to come out of a situation like this, confused and hurt and stalled, only to find that my rapist was folded right back into society in the blink of an eye. I understand the burning and want to ruin his life. I used to have dreams where I painted his name in big red letters all over the school walls, declaring him a rapist (only to be promptly brought to detention).

I learned something though. Over time all that hurt was no longer represented by him. Instead I felt it every time my guy friends talked shit about the girls they were hooking up with. I felt it later, as a high school teacher, when an 18 year-old male student of mine asked me what consent was. I felt it watching a little boy at the park smack his sister over and over until she cried. I felt it even more when the people sitting next to me gasped but then said “boys are a handful” and continued their conversation. I’ve felt it in restaurants, on the sidewalks of NYC, in job interviews. Hell, I’ve even felt it within my own family. This pain is bigger than one human. It surrounds me (and you) every single day.

Let me be real– I could give a shit about Brock past the basic description of ‘strong white male ivy-league athlete’. That’s all I need to paint this fucked up picture. You know why? Because this happens every single goddamnd day. We hear it on the news, from friends, colleagues. We’ve all been touched by it somehow. Sexual assault is alive and well in 2016, as is unchecked privilege.

I’m tired of seeing his deer-in-the-headlights expression over and over again. And really, honestly, I’m tired of hearing people focus their energies on condemning him to wildly creative, hellish scenarios. Does he deserve these things? Sure. But I don’t give a shit either way. We need to zoom out. 

Focusing in on him as this source of evil is narrow, and truly takes away from the horror of the entire picture. It’s saying “he is what is wrong, and once he gets what’s coming to him, things will be less wrong.” It dismisses the weight of the system, takes responsibility off of the rest of us, allows us to sleep at night. 

We all know better. We know we currently live in a time that breeds Brocks. The entitlement alone is an issue. Entitlement mixed with unchecked sexism and violence is where things get dangerous. The judge, Brock’s father and mother, his coaches, his teachers growing up, his role models – these people need to be in question right along with him. Sure, he could’ve been a bad egg. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s fucked up for a convicted rapist to get off essentially scot-free. That part is not Brock’s fault. That part is much bigger than him, and bigger than the case itself.