Hey, Can A Woman "Ask To Get Raped"?

In 2010, an 11-year-old girl in the tiny town of Cleveland, Texas, was repeatedly raped by 21 men and teenagers in a squalid trailer. The suspects who pleaded guilty received sentences between 7 and 15 years. Two men who took the case to trail were given 99-year terms behind bars.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2656647/Six-Texas-men-face-1-600-years-prison-gang-raping-15-year-old-high-school-student-skipped-class.html#ixzz34xXOMrpz

Rape, dislocations, concussions some of the abuse wrought on boy naval recruits
By Ben Brumfield, CNN
June 18, 2014

CNN) -- Rape by mop handle, smashed teeth, broken bones, lacerated faces, concussions and dislocations. That's a short list of sexual exploitation and physical maltreatment that teen boys suffered at a naval training school in Australia.

The abuse at the HMAS Leeuwin naval base occurred mainly in the 1960s and '70s, according to a report released by a defense department task force investigating abuse in the country's armed forces. The victims, mostly aged 15-17, were junior recruits at the school.

They were mostly abused by higher-ranking junior recruits, who were not reprimanded for their behavior, but staff also committed much of the brutality, the Defence Abuse Response Taskforce said.

Investigators heard 238 complaints of abuse, which detailed instances of forced sodomy, naked beatings and brutal rituals including genital abuse, and verbal and physical intimidation.

The nightmarish mistreatment scarred young men for life, many of whom sought solace in drugs and alcohol or, in later years, suffered breakdowns of their careers and relationships.

The youth training program at HMAS Leeuwin ended in 1984.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/18/world/asia/australia-military-boys-abused/

Australia's naval base from hell: Hundreds of boys brutally sexually abused
By APF
June 18, 2014

Hundreds of teenage boys suffered brutal physical and sexual abuse at an Australian naval base, a taskforce said Wednesday, as it slammed the Defence Force for failing to protect them.

The Defence Abuse Response Taskforce said the shocking and systemic treatment at HMAS Leeuwin between 1960 and 1984 was "much more serious and widespread" than previously acknowledged.

"The pattern of abuse at HMAS Leeuwin was such that Defence knew or ought to have known that abuse was occurring, yet failed to take appropriate action to stop it," said the taskforce head, retired judge Len Roberts-Smith.

A national inquiry into abuse in the Australian military was set up by the government in 2012 after the service was rocked by claims of rape and sexual assault, a culture of cover-ups and a failure to punish perpetrators.

The abuse at Western Australia's Leeuwin navy base, which has since closed, was considered so serious that a separate report was instigated to deal with more than 200 complaints from junior recruits, many of whom were 15 or 16 at the time.

It heard that they suffered brutal assaults, including rape and sodomy, often during humiliating initiation ceremonies at the instruction of senior sailors.

Victims told of being stripped and scrubbed with brushes so hard it left them bleeding.

Others were held down while an object such as a mop handle was forced into their anus or a vacuum cleaner forcibly applied to their genitals.

Many of them told the inquiry the experiences ruined their later lives and careers, with some blaming it for bouts of depression, broken relationships, and alcohol and substance abuse.
http://www.emirates247.com/news/australia-s-naval-base-from-hell-hundreds-of-boys-brutally-sexually-abused-2014-06-18-1.553356

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has dropped columnist George Will and told readers that his provocative column on sexual assault on college campuses was a factor in the decision.
“The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier,” the editor’s note read. “The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/george-will-sex-assault-column-st-louis-post-dispatch-108052.html#ixzz356SPqhbN

" we published a view that goes against the feminists story line, we apologize for publishing it.”

Quote:

" we published a view that goes against the feminists story line, we apologize for publishing it.”

An the war on young college men march on with banners held high.

When A Rape Threat Is “Not A Big Deal”
By
Chloe Angyal

“It’s just one rape threat,” I told my mother. “It’s not a big deal.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted saying them. No mother wants to hear that her child is being threatened, especially not when that child lives on the other side of the world. More than the fact that I had spoken the words aloud to my mom, though, I regretted — I was appalled by — the casual tone in which I had said them. It’s not a big deal? I thought to myself. A stranger is emailing you and threatening to rape you and you’re calling it not a big deal?
How the hell did you get here? How did this become your normal?

I’ll tell you how. I became a feminist blogger, and I started writing about gender, body image, and sexual violence. And now, rape threats, and other forms of abuse, are my normal. They’re just part of my job.

Last week, the long-time feminist blogger Melissa McEwan posted about the harassment she receives as part of the work that she does, and about the need for those of us who experience similar harassment to talk about it. McEwan, who runs the blog Shakesville and has been doing feminist advocacy and blogging far longer than I have, shares my frustration that, when she tells people about the torrent of abuse that she and her colleagues face for saying things like “I don’t think being fat doesn’t make you a lesser human being,” or “I think rape is bad and men should stop doing it,” or “I don’t think the government should be able to force me to give birth against my will,” those people are surprised. They’re surprised that we receive rape threats, death threats, and so much more:


Death threats. Rape threats. Threats to kill my family, my pets. Detailed emails describing what it would be like to rape me, to murder me. Emails imagining what sex is like between my husband and me, and how he must hate it because I am disgusting. Hopes that someone else will hurt me. Admonishments to kill myself.

Pictures of weapons that people want to use on me. Photoshopped images of me being jizzed on, raped, sliced, diced, murdered. Pictures of dead fetuses.

Pictures of my house. Emails the entire text of which is just my address. Comments the entire text of which is just my address. Comments with threats. Comments with slurs. Comments with insults.

Harassing phone calls. Voicemails with threats of violence. My home address and phone numbers published. A publicly posted campaign offering a reward to anyone for proof of my rape and/or murder.

Private images stolen and published. Photoshopped images of me as various historical tyrants. Hate sites. My image used in fake Twitter accounts, online dating profiles, blogs. My life scrutinized, my privacy invaded, lies told about me, my appearance mocked, my reported experiences audited.

People have pounded on my front door. Dumped garbage on my lawn. Smashed a phone just beneath my office window, as if to say this is how close I can get.

Melissa’s full list is considerably longer than what I’ve excerpted here, and you should read the whole thing. I’ve been fortunate enough not to experience the level of harassment that Melissa has. But I’ve experienced enough to make me wonder whether or not I want to keep doing the work I do — which is, of course, the purpose of such abuse. The point is to scare you off and shut you up, to frighten you into silence. Melissa’s argument is that we — the people who do this kind of work — can’t be surprised or frustrated when people outside of our circles are surprised to hear that abuse is our normal. Because we don’t talk about it. And as a result, people are surprised when we tell the truth about what people do to us when we speak our minds, when we dare to suggest that sexism exists and that we all have a role to play in ending it. “I am tired of people being surprised,” Melissa wrote. “I am tired of hearing ‘I’m sorry this happens to you.’ I don’t want shock and I don’t want pity. I want your ******* awareness and I want your ******* anger. I want us to talk about the real costs of being a woman who does public advocacy.”

So let’s talk about it.

Last month, I wrote an op ed at CNN about sexual assaults on college campuses. I was threatened with rape as a result. Last summer, I had the temerity to point out that yes, Andy Murray was indeed the first Brit to win Wimbledon in 77 years unless you think women are people, and count the several British women who had won single’s trophies on those hallowed courts in the intervening years. For that, I had several teenage British boys tweet diagrams at me titled “how to disable a woman.” They felt perfectly comfortable threatening me in public, in full view of their school administrators, the police, and, in theory, everyone else in the internet-using world. Last year, I pointed out that a sign encouraging people to consume fewer calories because “summer’s coming” was shaming fat people, and requested that the sign be taken down. For that, I was called a fat, ugly, unrapeable ****, amongst many, many other things. These are just the three incidents that come most easily to mind, but really, it’s only a taste, just a sample of the abuse and intimidation that have become normal for me in the five years I’ve been doing this work.

It could be worse, of course. My friends and colleagues — Anita Sarkeesian, Sady Doyle, Kate Harding, Jessica Valenti – all get it worse than me. And then there’s Feministing’s Zerlina Maxwell, who is Black, and Jos Truitt, who is a transgender woman, who get called things that white and cisgender women can’t even imagine — in addition to all the things we can. And it’s true that most people who do public advocacy, regardless of their gender and regardless of what they write about, have to deal with trolls. But rape threats are not trolling. Let’s not pretend that a man who writes about economic policy is up against the same barrage of bullshit that awaits my women friends when we write about abortion rights.

So, what are the costs of working in the face of this kind of hostility? People drop out. People burn out. People decide it’s not worth the risk. This is not because they are weak, or inadequately committed to the cause. It’s a rational reaction to an utterly irrational situation. It is also the intended outcome of all that abuse.

For me, the costs have been hard to measure, but entirely real. In some ways, I’ve reshaped my life around the possibility that people will try to do me harm as a result of the work I do. I don’t tweet about where I go anymore — not in real time, at least — unless I absolutely have to. When I’m speaking at an event, and the location and time have been advertised to the public, I’m on high alert. I rarely post photos of myself with my friends or family. I don’t go by my real name on Facebook, after enough rape threats made their way into my inbox there.

Those are all real, and difficult to quantify, and so too is what, to me, is the greatest cost: the blasé tone in which I reassured my mother that one piddling rape threat was nothing to worry about. Or rather, it’s what that conversation represents. The extent to which, at 26, I have internalized this way of living, without even realizing that I was doing it. The fact that I am no longer surprised. The matter of fact tone in my voice when I tell teenagers who aspire to do this kind of work that this is just something they’ll have to learn to live with if they want to speak their minds in public. When rape threats are your normal, and when you find yourself trying to convince people — not just any people, but your own mother — that it’s no big deal, something is wrong. And Melissa is right: we need to talk about it.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/chloe-angyal/2014/06/when-a-rape-threat-is-not-a-big-deal/

The administration’s crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition; Joe Biden has been heard from. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009 to 2012 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent — too high but nowhere near 20 percent.

Education Department lawyers disregard pesky arithmetic and elementary due process. Threatening to withdraw federal funding, the department mandates adoption of a minimal “preponderance of the evidence” standard when adjudicating sexual assault charges between males and the female “survivors” — note the language of prejudgment. Combine this with capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching. Then add the doctrine that the consent of a female who has been drinking might not protect a male from being found guilty of rape. Then comes costly litigation against institutions that have denied due process to males they accuse of what society considers serious felonies.

U.S. News
Sally Kohn
06.10.14

George Will, a Worthy Heir to Todd Akin

The pundit’s comments about the “supposed” campus rape problem continues conservatives’ very real “war on women.”

If Republicans don’t like everyone accusing them of launching a “war on women,” they would be wise not only to stop pushing extremist restrictions on women’s bodies and health. They might also consider not saying stupid **** that offends 51 percent of the population.

The archetype of GOP offensiveness once seemed to be Todd Akin, who during his 2012 Senate race said that in cases of “legitimate rape,” women’s bodies magically shut down to prevent pregnancy. The Republican had been steadily leading Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill in the polls right up to that moment, and then suddenly and massively fell in the polls thereafter. The same curse attached nationwide, as voters realized that many other Republicans maybe hadn’t said the same offensive things but had voted in lockstep with Akin for some very offensive policies, like limiting or even banning coverage not merely of abortion (which they’ve done for years) but contraception.

Voters flocked to Democrats and re-elected President Obama by wide margins. Women in particular put Obama over the top; he won women voters overall by a 11-point margin. Sure white women broke for Mitt Romney by 14 points, but notably, young women backed Obama by an even wider margin—fully 66 percent of young women overall voted for him, which certainly points to even more trouble down the road for Republicans.

But that was 2012. Now Republicans are anxious—not to change their political views, certainly, but at least to change the narrative. No doubt they will be more careful and less offensive, right? Wrong. Enter George Will.

The Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist recently wrote about “the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. ‘sexual assault.’” That’s right. “Supposed,” he said, literally casting a cloud of doubt over the reported one-in-five college women who have survived rape in America, a number experts say is almost certainly lower than the real figure due to clouds of shame that also hang over rape survivors. Then Will went on, blaming this “supposed” epidemic not on misogyny or rape culture but on liberalism, because according to Will, when politically correct universities “make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate.”

“Rape culture” exists because too many men feel inherently superior and dominant over women and as though they have some sort of right to do with a woman’s body whatever they want.

“One of the lessons of the Todd Akin disaster is that Democrats will not hesitate to tie the statements, behavior, and controversies of one Republican candidate to all Republican candidates,” a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee told The Washington Post recently. Yes, that’s because multiple Republicans keep saying these incredibly offensive and disgusting things that make Akin seem like less of an aberration and more of a trend.

Wall Street Journal editorial board member James Taranto wrote earlier this year that rape victims should basically be considered just as guilty as their rapists if both were drunk. Mutual drunkenness doesn’t absolve one person of a crime against another in other cases, for instance murder or larceny, but Taranto is concerned with protecting men against “an effort to criminalize male sexuality.”

No, Mr. Taranto, what America wants to do is criminalize rape. That is sensible and reasonable and just. What is crazy is conservatives like Will and Taranto and Akin constantly making excuses for rape and rapists.

“Rape culture” exists because too many men feel inherently superior and dominant over women and as though they have some sort of right to do with a woman’s body whatever they want. That’s misogyny; the kind of tyranny of masculinity that leads to rape and sometimes mass violence. Will and Taranto and other rape apologists on the right are plainly and simply perpetuating that culture by casting suspicion and blame on women and their actions while making excuses for men and putting aggressive male sexuality on a pedestal.

Republicans object to the accusation they are waging a “war on women.” “If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus once said. Ah, but Republicans aren’t constantly saying insanely offensive things about caterpillars, are they? They’re repeatedly, systematically, and recklessly undermining the autonomy and dignity of women, their bodies and their choices.

Republicans don’t have a women problem because of the accusations or labels of Democrats. Republicans have a women problem because they keep opening their mouths and saying what they actually think.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/10/george-will-a-worthy-heir-to-todd-akin.html

Man convicted of rape was outed in college essay
By Josh Saul
June 19, 2014

A Brooklyn man eluded justice for almost 10 years ­after he raped his ­8-year-old stepdaughter ​— ​until she wrote ​a college-application essay mentioning the attack.

Finally bringing some closure to the now-18-year-old victim, a jury on Thursday found Albert Tarrats guilty of rape and other counts for forcing himself on the girl in the bedroom of her Brooklyn home in 2003.

“My intention for the essay was not to report it. My intention was to tell about how I became the person I am ­today,” the brave young woman, whose identity is being withheld, told The Post.

“I’m happy now that I included it in the essay because it led to him being convicted.”

Tarrats, 62, escaped arrest until 2012 when his victim — then a high-school junior who had relocated to Florida — wrote about the rape in the application essay she submitted to a Christian college.

“My mom got married . . . Toward the end of their marriage he began to rape me,” wrote the woman.

Tarrats showed no reaction when the Brooklyn Supreme Court jury handed up the guilty verdicts. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

The victim — now an ­Orlando community-college student who enjoys water polo, singing and crocheting — said she didn’t plan to ­include the rape in her ­writing.

“Before you plan an essay, you write down ideas you have — you brainstorm. Writing about the attack was one of the last ideas I thought of,” she said.

“It was hard not to include that because I kept thinking that if that incident hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” she pointed out, adding that the attack turned a trusting little girl into a more wary and standoffish person.

After writing it, the young woman was reluctant to show it to her mother, but eventually gave in. “She usually checks my essays for errors but I didn’t want her to read it because I didn’t know what her reaction would be,” the young woman said.

The mom finally read the essay and reported her ex-husband to police.

Jurors praised the young woman’s decision to write about her pain.

“I don’t think it would have come to light unless she wrote that essay. She would have kept it in all her life,” said a female juror, 20.
http://nypost.com/2014/06/19/man-convicted-of-rape-was-outed-in-college-essay/

A woman unlike a man at least in the area of sex is not responsible for her actions under the voluntary influence of drugs or alcohol and can not grant a valid consent for sex....

Oh, you are also not allowed to pointed out to young women that it is not a wise thing to get wasted at a party full of people she does not know and trust as to do so is blaming the victim for her ending up being "rape".

A man who waked up with a hangover and with a regret of who he picked out as a sexual partner the night before only solution is not to drink that must in the future however a woman is a victim and can file sexual assaults charges the next morning if she is unhappy about who she picked as a sexual partner while under the influence.

'Vulnerable' woman raped in park, court hears
Jun 10, 2014

A man accused of raping a woman in Whyteleafe Park took advantage of a "drunk and vulnerable lost soul", a court has heard.

The trial of Colin Ford, of Fernhurst Road, Croydon, who denies two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault by penetration, began at Guildford Crown Court on Monday (June 9).

The 58-year-old is accused of raping the young woman at Whyteleafe Park in May last year.

Jurors heard Ford met the woman in a pub last year.

Prosecutor Alexia Durran said: "She was just a stranger to him, she was a young woman, who he met in the pub.

"She was vulnerable that night because she argued with her partner during the course of the evening and had been drinking.

"In her inebriated condition, he drove her to Whyteleafe Park where he raped her."

She continued: "The prosecution say she is a credible witness and a woman who in all possibilities had drunk too much and at times did not know what she was doing.

"That fact may explain her inability to recall some events that night.

"Mr Ford took advantage of a drunk and vulnerable lost soul and had sex with her."

Ms Durran said the doctor who examined the woman after the alleged attack found "injuries consistent with her account".

'You've got to stop'

The woman - who cannot be named for legal reasons - sent texts saying 'help me' and 'I need you' to her partner's mother around the time of the alleged offences.

Footage of her police interview, filmed 36 hours after the alleged rape, was played to the court.

The complainant said after a "disagreement" with her partner following a meal she went to a pub with only £10 for drinks.

She met Ford who she described as a "friendly bloke".

The alleged victim recalls visiting a different pub, which she did not know the name of, and then getting into a white van.

"I remember feeling ill, not vacant, like I didn't really know what was going on but I did," the woman told officers in the interview. "The next thing I remember is driving into the park. I remember being on the ground and he was having sex with me.

"I said 'you've got stop, you've got to stop' and he said something like 'it's fine'.

"I don't recall pushing him away or screaming but just the fact that I was not really with it."

Ms Durran said that Ford had told police the woman "instigated the sexual activity" and had been "winking at him all night" and touching his leg.

Ms Durran said Ford told officers the sex was "consensual" and she "never told him to stop".

Court told alleged rape victim was 'deluded' about what had happened
Jun 12, 2014 16:36

A woman who was allegedly raped by a man she met in the pub sent a text saying she had done "something stupid" before reporting the attack to police, a court has been told.

Colin Ford, of Fernhurst Road, Croydon, who denies two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault by penetration, is on trial at Guildford Crown Court.

The 58-year-old is accused of raping a woman in Whyteleafe Park in May last year, after he met her in a pub.

On Wednesday (June 11), jurors heard the woman had sent a text message to her sister before calling the police, saying: "I did something stupid last night, I feel so bad."

Under cross-examination Flora Page, defending Ford, asked the woman: "Is this the case where you have remembered having sex and felt guilty about it?

"You feel guilty because you had sex with someone else after fighting with your partner, I don't mean physically, I mean after having an argument.

"I am going to suggest this is you not wanting to believe what you have done.

"You began to put two and two together, and explained that you assumed a date rape drug had been used on you.

"I am going to suggest that you tried to tell the truth about what has gone on but deluded yourself in the aftermath."

'State of shock'

But the woman - who cannot be named for legal reasons - said she felt "stupid" because it was "dangerous" getting into the van with Mr Ford and his friend after drinking with them.

The court heard the alleged victim dialled the Surrey Police number 101 around the time of the alleged rape but did not speak with anyone.

"Why didn't you call 999? That would be the most obvious thing to do if you have a clear idea that you had been raped," asked Ms Page.

The woman replied: "I was in a state of shock. This has never happened to me before. All I wanted to do was go to someone who could help me."

Ms Page accused the woman of performing a sex act on Mr Ford in the van and directing him to Whyteleafe Park.

The court heard the woman could not recall what had happened between Mr Ford stroking her thigh in the van, driving into Whyteleafe Park and then him being on top of her.

Jurors were told the woman "in the last six months" had also remembered that Mr Ford held her arms down.

Ms Page said: "That just did not happen at all. These flashbacks happen when you're asleep - it's all a dream that you have had."

The woman also denied "winking flirtatiously" at Mr Ford while drinking and "holding his hand" while walking between the pub, the jury heard.

Man jailed for raping 'drunk' woman in Whyteleafe Park
Jun 20, 2014
By Amy De-Keyzer

A man has been jailed for 10 years after jurors found him guilty of raping a woman in Whyteleafe Park.

Colin Ford, 58, of Fernhurst Road in Croydon, was sentenced at Guildford Crown Court on Thursday (June 19) following a trial.

He was found guilty of one count of rape. A second charge of rape and one count of sexual assault were left on file by the court after jurors were discharged from delivering verdicts on either.

During the trial, the jury heard Ford met the victim - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - in a pub in May last year before driving her to Whyteleafe Park and raping her.

Prosecutors claimed he "took advantage of a drunk and vulnerable lost soul", but he denied the charges and claimed the sex was consensual.

Ford was jailed for 10 years. He was also put on the sex offenders' register and given a sexual offences prevention order meaning he must not carry any woman in any vehicle without them being aware of his convictions.

Detective Constable Andy Cooper described Ford's actions as "sickening".

He said: "I welcome the sentence passed to Ford for this sickening crime where he preyed on a vulnerable woman and has shown absolutely no remorse for his actions.

"The sentenced passed cannot undo what happened to the victim but I hope it will go some way to help her seek closure from her ordeal and will allow her to move on with her life.

"She demonstrated a great deal of courage throughout the trial and must be commended for doing so."
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/whyteleafe-park-rapist-colin-ford-7300084

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-central-park-jogger-case-20140620-story.html

A proposed settlement of the civil rights suit brought by five men falsely imprisoned in the Central Park jogger case has gone to the New York comptroller’s office, a key step on the route to final approval.

The proposed settlement of the racially sensitive case needs approval from the federal court and from city agencies including the office of Comptroller Scott M. Stringer.


“The Comptroller’s Office has received the proposed settlement between the City and the Central Park Five,” Eric Sumberg, the comptroller’s press secretary, said in an email. “As with all proposed settlements, under our Charter-mandated authority, we will do our due diligence and provide feedback to ensure that any settlement we approve is in the best interests of the City.”

Sumberg and other city officials would not discuss details of the proposed settlement, but a variety of media reports put the cost at $40 million. The New York Times first reported on the case on Thursday.

The proposed settlement averages roughly $1 million for each year of imprisonment for the five black and Latino men convicted in 1990 of raping and brutally beating a white woman jogging in Manhattan’s Central Park a year earlier. One defendant, Kharey Wise, served 13 years in prison and his share would be the largest such payout in the city’s history. The defendants became known as the Central Park Five.

The sensational case came at a time when New York was back on its heels at the tail-end of the Mayor Edward I. Koch years. Crime was a major issue and city services, including police, were still reeling from lack of funding caused by the city’s financial problems.

Middle-class whites were feeling besieged and dispossessed. They were angry at minorities who were being blamed even as blacks and Latinos were pushing for a piece of the political pie. The city’s first black mayor, David Dinkins, would be elected and take office in 1990 after a bitter Democratic primary and a tough polarizing race against Republican Rudy Giuliani, who would take the office four years later.


It was with race, crime and politics heavy in the air that a white woman who worked at a Wall Street investment bank went for her nighttime run on April 19, 1989, a practice that she had done before. She was found, badly beaten and raped, at 1:30 a.m. the next day and officials said they feared she would die. She eventually recovered.

Throughout the night, police said there had been roving bands of some two dozen black and Latino youths rampaging through the park, looking for victims in an earlier version of the so-called Knockout game that became infamous years earlier. In the modern version youths, usually minorities, were accused of attacking innocent victims, usually white, with a punch, trying to score points by knocking them out. In 1989, the youths, police said, were wolf packs and in a word that became part of the urban lexicon, said the blacks and Latinos had gone “wilding.”

The case was like a spark inflaming passions and fears -- and was fed by the tabloid press, mired in a fierce newspaper war. The mainstream media printed names and addresses of many of the suspects, which civil rights leaders said they did only because the defendants were minorities. In retaliation, the press that served the black community printed the name of the woman, whose identity was protected by the mainstream press.

Eventually, authorities narrowed the field to five suspects who were charged in the crime. From the beginning there were questions about the arrests and the police investigation.

“The first thing you do in the United States of America when a white woman is raped is round up a bunch of black youths, and I think that's what happened here,” the Rev. Calvin O. Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem told the New York Times at the time.

Authorities charged Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson and Wise. All were teenagers when convicted, largely because of statements they made to police. They served from 6 3/4 to 13 years in prison.

Their convictions were overturned in 2002, when Matias Reyes, a convicted serial rapist and murderer serving a prison sentence of 33 years to life, told authorities he alone attacked the jogger. DNA tests confirmed the confession. Reyes has not been prosecuted in the case because the statute of limitations had passed.

The five men filed a civil lawsuit against the city in 2003, saying their confessions were coerced. Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's administration fought the lawsuit for 10 years and police insisted they acted properly in their investigation.

The Bloomberg years turned into the new government of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who ran against many of his predecessors’ positions including on race and police stop-and-frisk rules. Taking office in January, De Blasio said he wanted to settle the case.

We had come a long way since the 1990s as it used to be that you need to be black or another minority before you need to worry greatly about being railroaded into a false conviction for a sexual crime now all you need to be is a male

it used to be that you need to be black or another minority before you need to worry greatly about being railroaded into a false conviction for a sexual crime now all you need to be is a male...

Bob Jones University told rape victims to repent and look for ‘root sin’ that caused their attack
By Tom Boggioni
Wednesday, June 18, 2014 19:02 EDT


According to an investigative report from Al Jazeera America, rape victims searching for help at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., were told to repent and seek out their own “root sin” that caused them to be raped.

Within the past year BJU has opened its own investigation into sexual abuse and rape, and now former students who were victimized are coming forward to tell their stories about life on a campus where they were shamed and told to keep their stories to themselves.

Coming from a conservative Mennonite family, Katie Landry, who at age 19 had never even held hands with a boy, was raped multiple times by her supervisor at her summer job. Two years later, haunted by the attacks, and attending Bob Jones University, she sought help from then dean of students, Jim Berg.

According to Landry, Berg asked whether she’d been drinking or smoking pot and if she had been “impure.” He then brought up her “root sin.”

“He goes, ‘Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin,’” Landry explained. “And he said, ‘We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.’ And I just ran.”

“He just confirmed my worst nightmare,” she added. “It was something I had done. It was something about me. It was my fault.”

Landry eventually withdrew from the school and didn’t tell anyone else for five more years.

In interviews with Al Jazeera, other victims of abuse related how Biblical scripture was used to lay blame for the rapes on their own sins, and that their trauma was a sign that they were fighting God and would never be at peace until they forgave their rapists.

Called the “Fortress of Fundamentalism, ” Bob Jones University’s philosophical approach to almost all mental problems, beyond medical issues, is that they are the result of sin.

In a 1996 book, ‘Becoming an Effective Christian Counselor,’ written by former BJU Dean of Education Walter Fremont and his wife, counselors are instructed to emphasize that the blame lies with the abuser. However, the authors also state that being sexually assaulted is not an excuse for “sinful feelings” of discontentment, hate, fear, and especially, bitterness; calling unresolved anger “rebellion and bitterness against God.”

Previously Al Jazeera reported on a BJU student named identified only as Lydia, who had been raped off campus and, seeking help, reported it to the school authorities only to eventually be expelled for dwelling upon it and questioning the schools handling of the incident.

Bob Jones University is your argument, they who are about on par with a Saudi Madrasa