Serena Williams: teen rape victim 'lucky'

by biometrics 55 Replies latest members adult

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  Band on the Run

  Simon,

  I've witnessed situation after situation with men that shocks me. The nicest, most respectable men lose common sense and endanger all they achieved already when they form certain male groups. When the dorms went coed, universities saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on damage to dorms b/c men are less prone to act out if a sister or mother is watching. I don't know why. Knowing the individuals, I would swear to their character on ten Bibles. I think it is adolescece but I don't know. Sadly, sometimes they suffer tremendous consequences.

  If I had a daughter, she would hear certain common sense speeches in utero. Parents have responsibility. I must confess to reckless acts as a teen and young adult. Society, in general, can't let these male networks to have the power they once had. I don't think the old boys clubs is always destructive but it certainly can be.

  Serena Williams has traveled the world. She competes in tennis, not baseball or football. Her endorsements prob. bring in far more than she earns from tennis. Because she is black, people around the world want better from her. It may not be fair to her. How do they manage the JW thing and do what they must to win matches? She has professionals, lawyers, business advisers, all around her. Serena must be so sophisticated compared to any of us here. She walks a very tough line. The dresses she wears, the jewelry, the makeup -- the Williams sisters have contributed so much as American ambassadors. I can't imagine the difficulty of her position.

  She did not do anything for women with her remarks. Indeed, she may lose lucrative endorsements. Her point of view is not wrong but trite. Regular people can't understand her background. I only hope that she has accumulated such good will over the years that she can weather the storm.

  Also, she is aging. It would be sad for people to remember this and not how awesome she has been.

  What is it with parents? I meet young kids who truly believe there are no consequences to stupid behavior. We were probably raised in the opposite extreme. A balance would be nice.
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  designs

  Lord of the Flies- the study of human nature and will it protect or destroy the common good in a given circumstance.
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  OnTheWayOut

  Nobody can be quoted to say this was mostly or even partly the victim's fault. Serena mentions how these guys made a stupid mistake and insinuates they did not deserve their punishment, adding how the victim's parents should have taught her better than to be in such a situation.

  So she has combined contributing to the risk on the victim's part with reducing the blame to the rapists based on that factor. Just apply that to murderer to see how silly it is: Sure, they murdered her, but she was too drunk to get out of there, so a slap on the wrist will suffice.

  Does anyone buy that?
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  Stealth

  What if someone were to walk through the section 8 projects on a Saturday night at midnight yelling out the "N" word as loud as possible.. over and over and over again.

  If this led to this person getting shot or killed, do they bear ANY responsibility for what happened?

  They were just exercising their first amendment right to free speach and all.
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  Quandry

  Just because someone is good at some sport doesn't mean they should not be respectful and a decent person and maybe, just maybe, we should put less focus on the former and more on the latter. A town having a winning team should be way down on the list of priorities. We shouldn't treat the athlete as the cool kid who gets to do whatever they want or behave however they want but unfortunately, this is the structure that society is creating where stars and celebrities get different standards to live up (or down) to.

  I totally agree. Sports figures are sometimes little more than thugs who get away with things, likewise hollywood actors-constantly getting "probation" and special treatment.

  It is just so sad that no one stepped in to help this girl. Didn't any of the boys have sisters?

  And also, I have a daughter. I am sorry that this happened to the girl, of course, but I must add.....I always taught her to be aware of her surroundings and not get into dangerous situations. Knowing that there are people out there that are so callous towards others means that we should stay in control at all times. No, I don't agree that there was nothing wrong with a sixteen year old getting so drunk she didn't know what was going on. Way too young to get involved with this kind of partygoing.

  Call me oldfashioned...I'm 61...I think families should have fun together instead of opening the door and letting teens out to make poor choices.
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  designs

  Professional Athletes today don't offer the best social commentary but they should given how the public looks up to them as role models. I admired Olympic champion Decathlon Gold Medalist Rafer Johnson. He came to our High School and gave one of the most inspirational talks I ever heard and he was active in the Civil Rights Movement.

  Serena- if you try to defend your comments it will trash your persona, time to put your fame and notoriety to use for the common good of society and of women's issues.
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  Marvin Shilmer

  -

  “What if someone were to walk through the section 8 projects on a Saturday night at midnight yelling out the "N" word as loud as possible.. over and over and over again.

  “If this led to this person getting shot or killed, do they bear ANY responsibility for what happened?”

  Assuming the individual has at least ordinary intelligence, the person is neither guilty of nor responsible for the homicide, but they are guilty of (read: responsible for) placing themselves at increased risk.

  Marvin Shilmer
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  Barrold Bonds

  Marvin Shilmer said:

  I haven’t read Williams’ statement and don’t care to spend time reading celebrity “news.”

  But on the subject of personal choice and harm I’ll say this:

  Choices represent risk. Willful choices that increase our risk increases our culpability for associated harm we experience as a result of those choices. This is only to say each of us is responsible for our actions, which includes choices we make about how we choose to present ourselves to the world around us, where we spend our time and/or who we spend our time with. If I opt to spend my time with people I know are violent and involved in criminal activity and I get wounded in a crossfire, I bear a ("a" not "the") responsibility for that consequence. That does not minimize, shift or lessen the culpability of whoever fired the shot that wounded me. It only means I bear responsibility for my own choice.

  Not too long ago there was a stream of advertisements on American television of men and women running through rural African landscapes clothed in raw meat. Guess what? Tigers were chasing them because those tigers saw their next victim, and those tigers were looking for a victim. A tiger is always going to be a tiger. We can count on that. In the human world criminals are always going to be criminals. We can count on that too. Men and women running around dressed in raw meat does not make a criminal any less a criminal, and no one should blame a victim for criminal activity. But each of us is responsible for voluntary choices that increase our risk.

  Had Lady Gaga’s choice to cloth herself with meat at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards resulted in a tiger assaulting her at those awards I’d say she bore no responsibility for the consequence.

  Had Lady Gaga chose to cloth herself with meat while strolling through the free range sanctuary of South Africa with result of a tiger assaulting her I’d say she bore responsibility for the consequence.

  Sooooo if a woman wears a sexy outfit and is raped the outfit is a contributing factor?
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  Paralipomenon

  Sooooo if a woman wears a sexy outfit and is raped the outfit is a contributing factor?

  I would say drinking to the point of passing out at a frat party without a friend there to watch your back is as dangerous as strolling through a free range sanctuary in South Africa covered in raw meat.

  Sexual predators are opportunists.

  To think otherwise is naive.
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  Laika

  Seriously stealth, do you think a girl drinking too much is akin to someone shouting denigrating racial epithets in a black neighbourhood? WTF is wrong with you?

  Serena's comments are indefensible, firstly she suggests the boys were being punished too harshly, raises irrelevant questions about the girl's virginity and suggests she was lucky because she only got gangraped rather than killed? Seriously? How do you put that down as lucky? Anyone who reads those comments and thinks she 'had a point' should be ashamed of themselves.

  As should anyone who, like Serena, when hearing about a story of a group of boys gangraping a girl and filming it, response is to spend more time criticising the girl for drinking too much than the boys for raping!