UVA "Rapegate" Part II: Jumping Sharks with Jackie (edited 12/17)

So I guess you could say I was mostly right. And really, it has just gotten worse the further down the rabbit hole the Washington Post has gone.

Me, the past two weeks

I've stayed relatively silent about the progressive crumbling of the narrative presented by Rolling Stone/Sabrina Rubin Erdely/Jackie (who you actually blame depends on how much you care about political correctness) in the past couple weeks because quite frankly, a lot that has been written about it recently is stuff I already said two weeks ago.
Recap of points I made that have been made by others:

• UVA doesn't have fall rush/pledging (for the most part), so the whole "rape-as-initiation" assertion is invalid (didn't include a link because it is already linked above).
• The characters and their actions are less believable than characters in car insurance commercials. In the RS story, they might as well have been cardboard cutouts holding up #rapeculture signs.
• Rubin Erdely had a clear agenda; to choose the most sensational (and conveniently least verifiable) story she could find (instead of countless others deemed "too boring") that most closely supported the narrative of rape as the weapon of white patriarchal hegemony, literally and figuratively represented as college fraternity culture.
• Sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder is rare, violent sociopathy even rarer, and violent sociopaths with even the most basic social skills are practically non-existent (we are talking probably <0.0001% of the world population). To suggest there is a "top tier" fraternity at a prestigious university whose membership is entirely composed of the type of violent sociopath to use gang-rape as an initiation ritual is statistically impossible. In other words, somebody would have cracked, and this would have come to light a lot sooner.

If you remember, I was very hesitant to place any blame on Jackie. In fact, I went so far as to suggest that "Jackie" may have been a rough, very poorly-written composite character created by the author to provide an expository narrative validating "rape culture" presented for consideration in the context of UVA's lack of appropriate action. While I don't buy into "rape culture", I do believe that many standard practices conducted by law enforcement and universities in dealing with survivors of sexual assault/rape often amount to "victim-blaming", however well-intentioned the investigator(s) may be. Let's be honest; from the perspective of someone (often a male) investigating a crime, rape/sexual assault victims aren't exactly the easiest victims to deal with. While it's arguable that the primary source of trauma is physical, the degree and severity of emotional trauma inflicted upon survivors is far greater than any emotional trauma experienced by victims of other violent crimes. Try sitting in a room with someone after they have been through the worst event of their entire life and try to get them to tell you about it in a clear, articulate manner. Humans don't operate like that. Logic/rationality and emotion occur in completely different areas of the brain. In many ways for most people, rationality and emotion are best represented as being inversely proportionate to one another; more emotion = less rationality, more rationality = less emotion. Under this framework, it's easy to see why unfortunately, oftentimes rape/sexual assault victims' own accounts of what happened don't make a lot of sense, at least the kind of concrete, unfeeling "sense" that our criminal justice system requires.

All of that being said, I was wrong. Unfortunately, "Jackie" is a real person; a real person who seems to have fabricated her entire story in an attempt to make a guy jealous. It's bad enough to lie about rape, but it is especially enraging that of all the reasons Jackie could have had, it just HAD to be the most misogynously frivolous one of them all; a tangible instance of the completely incorrect but widely accepted suggestion that "women lie about rape for attention".

Furthermore, it certainly doesn't help that Jackie appears to be a fucking nutcase. Her behavior goes far beyond the kind-of-crazy-but-still-common practice of a girl who gets rejected finding some other guy to ostentatiously parade around with to stir up jealously in the guy who originally rejected her. Jackie made up a person. This "person" was named "Haven", ostensibly a third-year at UVA that "types lyk this lol ;):P". Really??? REALLY??? At least now we can confirm that Jackie has no future in writing.

Okay, so she created a fake guy... alright. Maybe she could just casually mention it in conversation. But no. Instead, she did this:

"Jackie told her friends that the number belonged to an upperclassman who courted her, and then lured her back to a college fraternity party where the gang-rape occurred.The cellphone number, when matched through telephone databases, is an Internet phone number that came through on two of the friends’ phones with an Internet domain attached. Several database phone searches confirmed that Internet domain matches an Internet phone and SMS text service called Pinger.Internet phone numbers enable the user to make calls or send SMS text messages to telephones from a computer or iPad while creating the appearance that they are coming from a real phone. They also let users create multiple, untraceable phone numbers for little or no cost while concealing their true identity." 

Ladies and gentlemen, the shark has been jumped.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! (Billy Mayes hologram)

"Mr. Duffin said Jackie gave him one cellphone number to text, but when he sent the first text, he received no response. Instead, he received a response from a second phone number he did not recognize. The sender announced himself as Haven explaining that his phone was not working so he was texting from a friend’s phone. Haven then said he would start texting from a third number that was his BlackBerry device, according to the friends.
Mr. Duffin said he eventually asked Haven for a photograph, which the upperclassman sent from the BlackBerry number. Last week, The Washington Post confirmed that the man depicted in that photograph never attended U.Va., but did go to high school with Jackie. The Times called all three numbers supplied by the friends. The third ‘BlackBerry’ number was forwarded to a voice mail with a female voice asking the caller to leave a message, and the other two were “not in service.”
All three phone numbers were labeled as an “Internet Phone” on a database background check; two were labeled as “Pinger Internet Phone,” and the other from “Enflick Internet Phone,” services that allow users to send SMS text messages from a computer or iPad without having a phone number."

EDIT: MORE JUMPING OF THE SHARKS

"Five days later, Duffin said he inexplicably received an email titled "About You" from Haven, the man allegedly behind the alleged sexual assault. (When CNN tried the email address, the message came back "undeliverable.") 

"It was from Haven Monahan ... and it looked like Haven had written, 'You should read this, I've never read anything nicer in my life,' with a page worth -- an essay -- that Jackie had written about me," Duffin said. "Which seemed really weird to me, even at the time, because here's somebody who allegedly just led a brutal sexual assault on a friend of mine, and now he's going to email me this thing about me?" 

Jackie told her friends that Monahan dropped out of the university after the assault, but a university record check by CNN revealed that no one by that name ever attended the university. Another check found no one by that name in the United States."

WTF.

 So this brings me back to a point I wanted to make in my first piece but never got around to it; it seems like the only person Sabrina Rubin Erdley (who I will start referring to as SRE) even tried to interview was Ryan Duffin ("Randall"). The article said that "Randall", "citing loyalty to his own frat, declined to be interviewed". This raised red flags for me. I don't know if she was directly quoting him, but no one who is in a fraternity calls it a "frat". Just a simple lexical tell is one of those idiosyncrasies that made me so suspicious of the veracity of the original article.

But as it turns out, Duffin was never contacted by RS. Furthermore, Duffin isn't a member of any fraternity. This leaves us with two equally possible scenarios.
1. Rubin Erdely is lying
In the past couple weeks we've seen again and again that SRE is much more concerned with promoting her personal agenda than reporting what actually happened. However, she has been open about not contacting any of the accused rapists (due to an agreement with Jackie). Admitting to that is basically saying "I am a really shitty journalist and I don't care about facts as long as the story fits". I mean, she must have known people would tear this story apart- why would she lie about actually doing her fucking job and attempting to contact a source?
2. Rubin Erdely is telling the truth
Taken at face value, this would be the one that people would naturally want to believe. However, consider the implications; no one at RS ever contacted Ryan Duffin, so who in the world denied to be interviewed by SRE? Well considering that Jackie has already catfished/spoofed/I-don't-know-if-there's-a-word-for-it her friends, is it really that much of a stretch to suggest that Jackie gave SRE bogus contact info for Randall, and that she was the one to decline an interview in his stead?

Kansas is going bye-bye

So what does that leave us with? The generally accepted narrative is that "something happened" to Jackie that night, for the one thing everybody agrees on is that Jackie seemed extremely distressed. Distressed enough for rape to be a plausible explanation. 

Except what if nothing happened? What if Jackie abnormally reacts to situations with extremely intense emotions that aren't justified by whatever caused them? What if Jackie was having an intense emotional reaction to feelings of rejection and isolation that night? Just explaining "I'm upset because this whole manipulate Ryan into liking me thing isn't working how I thought it would" doesn't exactly justify that level of emotion... and it sounds "crazy". What if Jackie felt the only way for her (very real) emotions to be validated was to present a situation justifying that level of emotional trauma... like gang rape?

Maybe you're thinking no one would ever do that. But they do. It's called borderline personality disorder. Go ahead and read about it there, because there is absolutely NO way I could ever present an unbiased summary of BPD due to my experiences in relationships with women who have BPD. Spoiler alert: I got lied to and manipulated. A lot.

So here's the thing. Just calling Jackie "crazy" is stigmatizing and insensitive. She is obviously a very sick person, and she needs to get appropriate help. But she also needs to quit feeding everyone bullshit. She needs to come clean about what (if anything) happened. For herself and for everyone else. 

Assorted thoughts and observations for Sunday, December 14th

Johnny Manziel Might Be the Hugest Douche to Ever Play in the NFL
A lot of people are saying "Johnny Football" is just the "new Tim Tebow". Comparing Manziel to Tebow is FAR too generous. Yes, Tebow finished the 2011 season with the lowest pass completion rate for any quarterback in the NFL. Except Tim Tebow pretty much single-handedly carried the Denver Broncos to the playoffs that season. Furthermore, as one of the most talked about players in the league, Tebow's NFL career ended in the most unceremonious manner possible. It says loads about his character that he has been able to roll with the punches, because I really think about 90% of the people who watch football every Sunday wanted Tebow to fail. Even among Florida Gators fans, Tebow was a very controversial figure. Broncos fans were equally divided. Pretty much the only demographic to unconditionally support Tebow were Evangelical Christians, due to his much-maligned public displays of faith.

But here's the thing; Tebow seems like a generally good human being. Like the type of good human being who you wouldn't mind being stranded on a deserted island with because you would trust he wouldn't kill you in your sleep to cannibalize you. Think about it. There aren't that many people in your life today who you could trust to not eat you under those circumstances. Tim Tebow wouldn't eat you. Tim Tebow would protect you with the circle of Jesus fire surrounding him. But unfortunately for Tim Tebow, being a good human being doesn't make you a good NFL quarterback.

On the other hand... Johnny Manziel would eat you. Not only that, he would probably take fucking selfies of himself feasting on your leg, "medium rare lol!!!!". Keep in mind this is on a desert island, no possibility of rescue. No one is going to see these. The phone itself might even be dead by this point. Maybe there isn't even a phone. But unless it's a Johnny Football selfie, it didn't fucking happen... because as of now, the only thing of note he has done in the NFL is take a bunch of selfies.

Did you know that "Johnny Football" is a registered trademark?

Furthermore, his signature sign/taunt/mark of being a fucking asshat is "money". Really dude? The best fucking thing you could come up with in thousands of Instagram posts is either two middle fingers or the "money" sign?

No one else in history has behaved in a fashion as such to beg humanity to punch him in the face then take a picture doing the "money sign" while teabagging him.

Today, Mr. Football got his first start of the (mostly done) season. The Browns lost 30-0 to the Bengals. Manziel was 10 for 18 with two interceptions, and was sacked three times.


$$$$$MONEY, BITCHES$$$$$

(I was going to take that picture with cash and a gun, except I don't have any cash on me and I don't own a gun)

Part II: The Misguided Racial Politics of Rape Culture

Before I begin, I will posit that if "rape culture" was real, this figure wouldn't exist:

Self-Explanatory

Nor would this statement from the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network (RAINN) in a letter to the White House: 

"In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming “rape culture” for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campuses. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important to not lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime"

You would think that the nation's largest and most respected survivor's advocacy group debunking rape culture would mean something. Apparently not, because you can't go two days without reading about the ubiquitous "one in five" statistic, which has been repeatedly shown as highly misleading.

I encourage everyone to read the original study that produced that figure. I won't go so far as to say (as many conservative pundits have) that the study was "highly flawed", but I will say as someone who has designed and conducted similar studies (and knows a good bit about research methods) that the conclusions many have drawn from its results are incredibly unfounded. The study was a self-response, web-based online survey. I've run a couple of these, and can say that half the time, people either won't finish or they will skip questions. Most researchers who care about getting good data will only resort to this design as a last resort. Additionally, if you look during the portion of the paper that discusses the survey itself, you can see that all the questions are pretty ambiguously worded; researchers thought this was the best route to take rather than specifically ask participants if they had been raped or sexually assaulted. While in theory this sounds like it would strengthen construct validity because it gives accounts of situations rather than relying on the participants' own personal definition of "rape" and "sexual assault", items were coded as such in the analysis. For example, "sex while intoxicated" was considered rape under the justification that one cannot give consent while intoxicated. True, but the majority of responses interpreted as "rape" came from this response or a couple others like it. In other words, while researchers designated participants' responses to be rape, many of the participants (both men and women) probably wouldn't consider themselves rape victims. Have you ever had sex while drunk? According to the interpretation of this study, you were raped. Have you ever had sex with a drunk person? Guess what; you're a rapist.
I won't even get into the problematic demographics of the study, which like most studies of this kind using college students as participants, was over 80% white.

Now here are some more figures from RAINN. Black women have a slightly higher rape/attempted rape prevalence rate (18.8%) than white women (17.7%), mixed-race women are higher than both (24.4%), but Native American women have the highest at 34.1%. Rape is a legitimate epidemic on reservations, yet I never hear ANYONE talk about it.

Rape on reservations is an empirically confirmed problem, but why isn't it a focus for activism? Short answer: the victims and perpetrators aren't white, so it doesn't fit in with the convenient assumption of rape as the weapon of white patriarchal hegemony. There is this dimension of (mostly) white women who seem to think that the "oppressed" status of their gender due to rape culture's ubiquity negates any privilege afforded to them by their race. The fact that anyone even tries to make this assertion is fucking laughable considering a century of demographic/sociological data that clearly establishes race as a much stronger variable in predicting socioeconomic status than gender. It is even more absurd considering that the majority who make this claim are upper-middle class college-educated white people. 

Look no further than the viral "10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman" video; white privilege is being able to afford to get offended when black and Hispanic men catcall you when you walk through their neighborhood. Furthermore, it isn't like these guys are just black and Hispanic men on their lunch break, it's dudes loitering. Forget calling attention to how easily the racial disparities in unemployment can be seen just by walking through non-white neighborhoods, this is men behaving like pigs on camera. Street harassment isn't okay, and maybe you could go so far as to say that for these individuals, similar patterns of behavior might be why they can't hold down a job. Women shouldn't have to be fearful to walk around in public. But guys that catcall women are only slightly less pathetic than guys who drunkenly creep on/grope women at the bar. Call people out who behave as such, and tell them that it isn't okay... or just punch them in the face. I'm not a huge fan of cultural relativism, but in this case, ask yourself whether or not anyone who is inherently sexist will really change their behavior just because a white woman got offended? Fuck no. Just take a minute to consider how much it sucks to live amongst people who treat women as such on a daily basis. These women are in the most unfortunate position possible because they literally can't afford to get offended for their own safety and livelihood. That is true oppression. 

How about a followup video called "10 Minutes of Walking in Johannesburg/New Delhi/Islamabad/Kinshasha as a Woman"? Probably will never happen because rape culture actually exists as the status quo in these places. It isn't just some nebulous concept supported by bad science thrown around by women's studies majors and feminist bloggers, it is a sad and horrific reality for many women of color around the world. 

I'll probably come back to this later at some point, but these are just a few of the points I wanted to make in my previous piece today that felt much better addressed on their own. A note on the statistics: every study that has ever been done on how vastly underreported rape is compared to other violent crimes has confirmed that only a small fraction of rapes that occur are ever reported to police. The figures above are only a reflection of reported rapes, not the prevalence of how many are actually committed. Judging from the points I've made above and in other pieces, I think one can reasonably infer that non-white women are significantly less likely to report being raped, whether it be due to cultural stigma, fear, distrust of authorities, or all of the above. I find this unacceptable. I find it equally unacceptable that many who promote rape culture conveniently whitewash the fuck out of it, conveniently ignore situations that don't support their own understanding, then attack anyone who opposes their views as a rape-apologist or misogynist. I hope that I have sufficiently demonstrated that I am neither. I just don't like misguided agendas.


EDIT: 12/12/14 12:08PM-

Yesterday (or maybe the day before), the Department of Justice released the results of a study comparing the rates of rape and sexual assault victimization of college-age females from 1995-2013. Guess what? Women ages 18-24 who are not enrolled at a college or university are 1.2 times as likely to be raped or sexually assaulted compared to their student peers. Again, we can probably infer that the "student" sample was predominantly white and the non-student sample was predominantly non-white. However, contrary to my original hypothesis, students were more likely to NOT report being raped/sexually assaulted than non-students. This is probably the most troubling finding of all, and (I believe) accurately reflects the way many colleges and universities handle sexual assaults- keep it internal, don't get the police involved. Anyway, read the study for yourself. Either way, I think we can put the nail in the coffin for the "one in five" figure.

Why White People Should Shut the Fuck Up and Listen

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Being White

I thought about making a post consisting entirely of "Condescending Wonka" memes, but half the time there was too much text to fit. If I had to make just one, it would be:

Top Caption: Oh, so you're an upper-middle class white person who went to college and now fights for social justice?
Bottom Caption: Please, tell me more about white privilege and racism in society.

In the words of Matt Stone (co-creator of South Park), "I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals". 

A short explanation of that quote is that for a sizable portion of conservatives, religion trumps all. Naturally, they expect and welcome any criticism since godless liberals are in a conspiracy with Satan to destroy Christianity and America.

Yeah.... right. But practically speaking, there are only so many jokes you can make about that, and the most of them are already overdone.

Liberals, however, with almighty secular "science" and "reason" on their side, tend to take an intellectually enlightened stance on social issues; they believe they are above reproach. In Parker and Stone's view, this is exactly why liberals need to be put in place- no one is immune to criticism. That also is kindof the theme of this blog (if you haven't figured it out already).

I should clarify here that I do in fact identify as a liberal. I am a registered Democrat, and (for the most part) have voted as such in every election cycle since I turned 18. 

So naturally, I guess I should go attend a "die-in", change my profile picture to #BlackLivesMatter on Facebook, and lecture about white privilege and how fucked up it is to anyone I come in contact with.

This is blatant "whitesplaining", a term that I hope hasn't already been coined by someone else.

whitesplain (wAHYT-spleyn)

verb

1. Portmanteau of "white" and "explain"; an unintentionally condescending (though often well-intentioned) attempt to describe issues such as racial/gender/socioeconomic inequality from a privileged perspective.

2. Anything said on social media about current events coming from a "white liberal" between the ages of 18-30.

noun, whitesplanation

Here's a little bit of history for you. A very popular literary genre in 19th century America was the "slave narrative". Two of most highly regarded works in this genre are the eponymous Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. 

Side note: If you haven't read either of these, I highly recommend them. Both stories portray a graphic depiction of slavery's moral and physical brutality much better than any movie ever could. 

Usually, slave narratives were serialized by Abolitionist publications and were as such written to an audience of (mostly) wealthy white New Englanders who composed the core of the Abolitionist movement. Considering the place which slavery held in public discourse prior to the Civil War, it isn't difficult to see how these stories became widely read and won many formerly apathetic individuals over to the Abolitionist cause. 

One of the trademarks of the genre was that the accounts were often published with a foreword/prologue by a prominent (white) Abolitionist, usually praising the author's integrity and providing validation to the story (I've linked Douglass's piece above, check out the foreword). So maybe you can see where I'm going with this. Former slaves became figurepieces of the Abolitionist movement. After the Civil War, a lot of Abolitionists felt that it was their duty to help "the feeble Negro" fully exercise his newfound freedom. So they aren't slaves anymore... but they aren't fully people yet either since they couldn't be expected to get far without the white man's help and validation. So yes, while well-intentioned, white people trying to "guide" black people to equality is patronizing, ignorant, and an implicit societal message that black people are "less-than". I guess I should take this opportunity to point out that the most widely-read book of the nineteenth century is often lumped into the slave narrative genre even though it is fiction written by a white woman: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book had a much larger impact on society than any real slave narrative, and although it was indeed written with the most noble objectives, it is responsible for many negative stereotypes of blacks that still exist in our culture over 160 years later.

Let's get back to the present. People are outraged over the happenings in Ferguson, New York, and everywhere else where black people are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement (which is most places). People should be outraged. But this is turning into a fucking cause célèbre for a bunch of white people to tell everyone else how radically inclusive and egalitarian they are and how much they care about how fucked our society is; all of this at the expense of drowning out the voices of those who exist at a societal disadvantage.

Yes, black lives matter. But black lives are lost every day at a rate much higher than any other demographic group. In this case, the outrage was spurred mostly by the (white) media circus surrounding Ferguson. You know what message this sends? That the grievances of blacks aren't "legitimate" or "real" until white people get involved to provide the figurative supporting foreword to their frustrations.

It doesn't matter how much you care about racial inequality, how many classes about it you took in college, or how many student activist groups you were a member of, if you are white, you don't know shit about discrimination or injustice, and you need to quit pretending that you do. This isn't your fight. It is trite and patronizing for you to think that you can actually contribute anything new or meaningful to a very real struggle that you can't even begin to understand. Additionally, it devalues the experiences of black people who have dealt with adversity since birth; adversity that they didn't ask for or deserve, but became an inherent aspect of their existence only because of the color of their skin. No amount of empathy will ever amount to you "understanding" the non-white experience in America.

So as a white male, I am pleading with my white peers to shut the fuck up and listen. Not understanding is okay. You can still be supportive of the black community while simultaneously acknowledging your own whiteness (and thus, undeserved privilege) by not joining into the fury, but taking it all in and trying to learn how best you can be of service to people who are disadvantaged. Don't assume you know how to help best, or you know what the "right" thing to do is. If you really care that much, show some fucking humility and ask.

White privilege is not getting arrested

Bill Maher probably made the best point of anyone I've heard comment on the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown as the direct result of police using unnecessary force.

"I'd just like to know what a cop WOULD have to do to get indicted - and what good are cop cameras since Eric Garner IS on tape?"

I do remember a case that was in the news here in Charlotte a few years ago of a police officer killing an unarmed black man. Read about it here, because this case closely mirrors recent events; the main difference being that there wasn't an extraordinary effort by prosecutors and police to try and shield one of their own from any consequences.

Other Charlotte police officers (here, and here) have been indicted for sex crimes.

So it apparently seems that Charlotte Mecklenburg Police are fairly accountable. Personally, I've only had excellent interactions with CMPD. "Excellent interactions" is a euphemism for getting caught with a bunch of drugs and walking away from it with no consequences because I'm white.

So way back in November of 2008, I was back in Charlotte for the weekend. My band was playing a show at Lunchbox Records that night (a Friday I believe), and per usual, this involved brown-bagging 40s and FourLoko before, during, and after we played because Plaza-Midwood used to be sketchy like that. After the show, the plan was to go to some party up near University, which at that time was not the safest place in town. I drove up there and parked near the entrance to the neighborhood to wait for some friends who I was going to follow to the house (this was before everyone had iPhones with GPS). Before I know it, I see blue lights behind me. And ironically enough, I was listening to NWA's "Fuck Tha Police" very loudly.

Yes, this really did happen.

So instead of taking the time to hide everything, I was too busy trying to switch my iPod to Hank Williams... since I figured cops like Hank? Well as the cops walked up, I decided I would just get out of the car to talk to them and maybe they wouldn't search my car.

Turns out the two cops were black. Maybe Hank wasn't the best choice. The one I talked to looked like Terry Crews with a moustache that not so subtly screamed "I made the 1970s my bitch". So basically imagine a 6'4, jacked-as-fuck Steve Harvey.

I don't know why, but I actually told the cop the truth... well, most of the truth. Admitted that I'd been drinking, that I had open containers in the car, and that there "may be some other stuff". But no guns! I promised him he wouldn't find any sort of weapon in the car as he told me that he had probable cause to search the car.

I knew what was in my car. I was about to go to jail for a long time. I also knew that making this dude's life difficult was only going to make anything else that followed much worse for me.

So in all, I had Schedules I, II, and III covered, in addition to a few open containers.

I was fucked. I didn't try to make any excuses at this point because I knew there was no way out.

But instead of cuffing me, this cop started asking me what I was doing with my life. I told him I was a freshman at UNC. I will never forget what he told me next: "Son, you've got everything in the world going for you right now, why are you killing yourself?"
I don't even know how I answered that. I just know that next, he was asking me if him taking me in would get me kicked out of school. I said something to the extent of "well I think I've got two felonies as it stands now, so yeah, I think I would get expelled". Then he asked me what I was doing in that part of town, so I told him.

He said "alright, wait for your friends, go to that party, and I better not see you driving anywhere else tonight. We only stopped because there have been a number of car jackings and assaults in this area recently, and we wanted to make sure everything was alright. A nice car in this part of town, you'd be an easy target." And then he left.

If I wasn't suffering from opiate-induced constipation, I definitely would have shit my pants at some point during this encounter. But I had clean underwear, and off I went.

I've thought about this a lot over the past 6 years. I don't know why that cop let me go. Me being white certainly had something to do with it- despite having drugs on me, I wasn't seen as a threat. Also, it probably wasn't worth the paper work. I also think that the cops' race had something to do with it as well.

Most police officers are white, and come from working-class white backgrounds (i.e., probably hold more racist views than other segments of white society). A lot of career cops only have a high school diploma, maybe a 2-year degree. These aren't the smartest guys in the world. That's why they became cops. I don't know this as a fact, but I would be willing to guess that on average, black cops are much more educated than white cops. A combination of education and experience on both sides of the legal system (experience as a young black male and experience as a law enforcement officer) give black cops a much more complete perspective to apply to their work. Let me put it this way; white cops are more likely to be white cops because they come from a long line of family who have worked in law enforcement for generations, and thus it is a career path that is virtually handed to them. In the back of their minds, they are thinking "well, if ______ doesn't pan out, I can just become a cop like my old man". Black cops? There is a lot of (COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED) distrust in the black community against police. As a black man in 21st century America, you don't just wake up one day and say "I guess I'll just be a cop". You work hard for that shit your entire life. You don't get that gun and badge because you think you're entitled to it; you get it because you earned it and you intend to use it justly to make the world a better place. You work your ass off because you know that once you reach that goal, no matter what you do, all these white people around you who just got into law enforcement for shits and giggles will just assume you got there because of affirmative action.

That being said, if I were black, I would have been arrested, regardless of the officers' respective races. Because unfortunately, being a black male in 2014 is still probable cause.

I wonder how things would be different if most cops were black?

Now on Eric Garner

As described in one of my previous posts, from a legal standpoint, I could understand why Darren Wilson wasn't indicted for his killing of Michael Brown.

The fact that Daniel Pantaleo isn't being charged with manslaughter at the very least is a fucking insult to any notion of police accountability for misconduct.

Differences between this case and Ferguson make it even more outrageous.

1. Eric Garner didn't resist arrest.
2. Police officers have guns and are allowed to use them under certain circumstances. Police are NEVER allowed to detain suspects using a chokehold.
3. The coroner who examined Garner's body ruled his death a homicide
4. Eric Garner was selling bootleg cigarettes in a city that charges $14 a pack. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe tobacco bootlegging is under the jurisdiction of the ATF, ie the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Not the NYPD. If convicted, I'm fairly certain that not only is it a felony, but you have to repay whatever amount of money you are convicted of defrauding from the State via tax dollars.
5. IT WAS ON FUCKING VIDEO. THE WHOLE THING. GO WATCH IT.

We aren't ever going to know what REALLY happened in Ferguson. But we know what happened in Staten Island. And there is no justice.

If Eric Garner were white, there still wouldn't have been an indictment because Eric Garner wouldn't have been killed because police wouldn't have deemed the use of a chokehold "necessary force" against a white man.

#ACAB

Why UVA Gang Rape is Becoming Duke Lacrosse Part Two

WHY UVA GANG RAPE IS ANOTHER DUKE LACROSSE CASE

Except this time around, there are no facts anywhere to be found

For the sake of length, I won't even go into all the ways that the 2006 Duke Lacrosse rape scandal was a colossal fuck up; William D. Cohan wrote a 600+ page book on the subject, brilliantly reviewed and summarized here by Laura Miller in a piece for Salon. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go read about it. Go read about it anyway just to refresh your memory. If you're more into skimming Wikipedia, that page is found here.

...So now that we're all on the same page here, let's get started. Crystal Mangum's accusations ended up being false. The three men she identified were chosen at random from a suspect lineup pool composed ENTIRELY of members of the Duke Lacrosse team (everybody wins!) as District Attorney Mike Nifong and the Durham Police Department had apparently never watched an episode of Law & Order: SVU. But despite the dubious credibility of the accuser (who is now in prison for murder), the shady tactics of law enforcement and Nifong (who has since been disbarred), and the knee-jerk reaction of Duke University and Duke faculty, certain facts about the case remain:

1. On March 13, 2006, two strippers were hired to perform at the off-campus residence of members of the Duke Lacrosse team.

2. The players, who had requested white strippers, were not pleased when two non-white strippers arrived at the party (one of whom was accuser Crystal Mangum).

3. A vulgar exchange of words took place between the strippers and their audience; this abruptly stopped the performance, and the two strippers left.

4. The exchange of words reached a pinnacle as the women drove away.

Somehow, some way, this culminated in Mangum reporting to authorities that she had been gang raped by three of the men present.

*cue firestorm*

The main difference here is that it was (rightfully, although ineptly) investigated by police, not the university (more on that later). But here's the thing; facts are present in this incident. As unsavory as they may be, we have a pretty clear picture of what happened. Are the Duke lacrosse players guilty of being huge douchebags? Absolutely; I think anyone who has ever met a Duke lacrosse player could attest to that (joking... kindof).

If you look at it from an unbiased perspective, it becomes increasingly more ridiculous to suggest that entitled young white men who have had their futures already handed to them would be willing to risk any of that by raping a mentally unstable black stripper. Especially in Durham, NC. Being a consummate example of douchebaggery does not make you a rapist.

The story of the UVA gang rape as reported in Rolling Stone is similar for many reasons. Firstly, it provides a narrative that panders to the readers assumptions about college, fraternities, and the behavior of the men who join these groups; they are over-privileged white kids who feel entitled to whatever they want... especially innocent, working-class freshman women. Richard Bradley, who as editor of George was duped by Stephen Glass, said it much better than I can:

"Stephen wrote what he knew I was inclined to believe. And because I was inclined to believe it, I abandoned my critical judgment. I lowered my guard.The lesson I learned: One must be most critical, in the best sense of that word, about what one is already inclined to believe. So when, say, the Duke lacrosse scandal erupted, I applied that lesson. The story was so sensational! Believing it required indulging one’s biases: A southern school…rich white preppy boys…a privileged sports team…lower class African-American women…rape. It read like a Tom Wolfe novel.
And of course it never happened."

When I first read Sabrina Rubin Erdley's piece, I felt extremely uncomfortable. Not because of the subject matter, but it was a strange feeling I couldn't place. Part deja vu, part feeling like I was being fed a story that just seemed "too good to be true". Again, in Richard Bradley's words:

"Let me be very clear: I don’t doubt that it’s possible that this happened. People can do terrible things, things that one doesn’t want to believe happen. And I certainly don’t want to think that this could have happened. 

But more than that: I don’t believe that it happened—certainly not in the way that it is recounted. 

Remember: One must be most critical about stories that play into existing biases. And this story nourishes a lot of them: biases against fraternities, against men, against the South; biases about the naïveté of young women, especially Southern women; pre-existing beliefs about the prevalence—indeed, the existence—of rape culture; extant suspicions about the hostility of university bureaucracies to sexual assault complaints that can produce unflattering publicity."

To roughly paraphrase a buddy of mine during a recent conversation we had on this topic, he put into words what I could not articulate; he noted that in trying to present a perfect story that hits all the right nerves to serve as the backdrop for some very real and very disturbing actions by UVA's administration in handling sexual assaults, the end product was a narrative that is "100% outside the realm of possibility". In my own words, my first reaction was "that doesn't fucking happen".

Before I move on to this next part, I do want to put out this disclaimer: Rubin Erdley's reporting on UVA's handling of sexual assaults was excellent. I have no doubt that universities do a shitty job of handling sexual assault. I have no doubt that administrators would much rather silence survivors by investigating reported assaults internally rather than through the proper channels of the criminal justice system.

But the account of gang rape is 95% complete and utter bullshit, at least from the perspective from which it was presented.

After this next clarification, I will tell you why (and rather than read this part, a lot of you will just put a "rape apologist/misogynist" stamp on this and move on).

Firstly, although I did not go to UVA, I was in a fraternity at UNC. If you had to pick any college that is most similar to the campus culture and Greek system at UVA, it would be UNC. For the most part, I would say that the general public's conception of the "frat boy" stereotype is mostly accurate for fraternities and their members at most colleges and universities in the south (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, other SEC schools). UNC and UVA are extremely different, however. It's probably the result of a combination of different factors, including but not limited to:

• Virginia and North Carolina didn't get completely fucked by Reconstruction. Generations of well-off Southerners in these two states remained well-off and could afford to send their kids to college. They are two of the more socially progressive states (relatively speaking) south of the Mason-Dixon Line. In fact, I would say most "Southerners" don't even consider Virginia to be a part of the South.
• Selectivity; UNC and UVA are widely considered "public Ivies" for both the quality of the education, the acceptance rate for applicants, the subjective "prestige" of the institution itself, and a very wealthy alumni base. As noted in the RS piece, the "study hard, play hard" mentality is central. UVA and UNC are party schools that are actually schools.
• Greek organizations at UNC and UVA exercise a disproportionate degree of influence on student life considering their numbers only amount to somewhere between 15-20% of the student population at both institutions. This leads to a certain degree of distrust and animosity between fraternities and non-affiliated students.
• Both institutions have long-standing "honor codes" as a central standard of student conduct; violations of the honor code are heard by a student-run forum/committee/whatever at both institutions. This is a central problem to the way in which both UNC and UVA handle sexual assaults.

You could say I am very familiar with what goes on at UNC because I was there for six years. I should also note that the last four years I was there, I was sober, and was still an active member of the fraternity I pledged in fall 2008. So it would be entirely accurate to say that I've "seen a lot of shit". And this is why the RS story bothered me; it was portraying an image of fraternities that would seem incredibly accurate to anyone who hasn't been in a fraternity at either of these institutions.

AND HERE IS WHY NONE OF IT HAPPENED (at least in the way it was told)...

1. First-year students can only (officially) rush/pledge in the spring semester (via IFC 2012-2013 manual). Fall rush/pledging is only available for transfers/second-year students. Fraternities put much more focus on recruiting freshmen as opposed to upperclassmen simply because they will be around (and paying dues) for an additional year. Looking at the schedule, it can be easily seen that fall rush is a formality, and the focus is on spring. It was the other way around at UNC- everyone did fall rush, but spring rush was entirely optional until a few years ago. I imagine it's similar at UVA (other way around of course).
This puts a lot of doubt on the assertion that the gang rape was some sort of pledge initiation ritual, suggested as such in this paragraph of the RS piece:

"As the last man sank onto her, Jackie was startled to recognize him: He attended her tiny anthropology discussion group. He looked like he was going to cry or puke as he told the crowd he couldn't get it up. "Pussy!" the other men jeered. "What, she's not hot enough for you?" Then they egged him on: "Don't you want to be a brother?" "We all had to do it, so you do, too."

"
Bid day in 2012 was on September 22, the attack occurred September 28. For a minute, let's assume that Phi Kappa Psi does require their pledges to take part in a gang rape in order to be initiated. Why the fuck are they doing it in the FIRST WEEK of pledging; furthermore, the first week of pledging for SOPHOMORES? That isn't how this works. All I will say about my own experience with the pledging process is that it is the best time of my life that I never want to have again. The entire purpose of pledging (whether or not hazing is present) is to take your pledge class of X number individuals and turn it into a single unit. The first week of pledging isn't when you decide to arbitrarily inflict the most deranged, fucked up hazing ritual of your brotherhood onto some unsuspecting kids that still have the leftover idea from rush that you're their best friend. You know what would happen? They would fucking quit. I think anyone in their right mind would quit faced with that incredibly fucked up scenario. Additionally, it being an initiation ritual and all, means every active brother in Phi Kappa Psi has taken part. Do you even realize how fucking retarded that suggestion is? In the age of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YikYak, etc, PEOPLE FIND OUT ABOUT SHIT (KD blumpkin girl- need I say more?). This would have come to light A LOT sooner. Phi Kappa Psi would not have their "upper tier" reputation (which according to a friend who went to UVA, saying PKP is "upper tier" is like calling Applebee's "gourmet New American-fusion cuisine"), and soon enough that reputation would lead to them not having any kids wanting to pledge there at all. Furthermore, any sort of activity for pledges that takes place isn't for the purpose of uniting them with older brothers, it's for uniting them amongst themselves. The pledge class wasn't only those 6 dudes. An "upper tier" fraternity is looking at at least 25 kids. So do they take shifts or what? That would defeat the fucking purpose, a purpose which has already been thrown out the window due to the fact that FUCKING RAPE is the activity. So this already is flimsy because it is strongly suggested that the individual in one of Jackie's classes was also a first-year. I'm not dumb, and I know PKP is most likely rushing freshmen before "formal recruitment". But having pledges off the books? It's stupid and there is no reason to do it. The risk greatly outweighs the potential benefit of having a few individuals pay dues for an extra semester.
2. Other inconsistencies-
The article says the event where the rape took place was a "date function". What the fuck is a date function? To my knowledge, there are really two kinds of events; a cocktail, which is brothers and their respective dates, and a party, which is brothers and whoever the fuck else decides to show up. So Jackie was Drew's date, but where were the other guys' dates for the multiple hours they were raping Jackie? The ultimate lame thing to do is to not get a date to a cocktail. If we are still going to assume these guys were pledges, they would have had dates. If we are going to keep assuming PKP are all serial rapists, an upperclassmen brother would not be sacrificing HIS date to get raped by pledges, it would be a pledge's date, because that's just how pledging works. I HOPE YOU CAN SEE THAT THIS IS GETTING MORE ABSURD THE FURTHER IT GOES. Additionally, in what world is gang raping a girl "cool" or "manly"? Furthermore, how is watching your buddy commit rape a bond building activity? Do fraternities tend to objectify women? On the whole, absolutely. Are pledges who have sex with lots of attractive women going to gain more respect from brothers? Unfortunately, yeah, probably. But no one is ever going to think rape is cool except 12 year old Portuguese kids on Xbox Live that beat my ass at FIFA.
I won't even go into asking how Jackie managed to identify everyone in the room despite it being pitch black. Or how she got tackled and went through a plate glass table and didn't have serious lacerations needing stitches.

Furthermore, the whole "gang rape at a fraternity" is an urban myth in the vein of pledges fucking goats during hell week. There is always a rumor that fraternities spike their punch with drugs. That type of shit doesn't happen at UNC or UVA in the 21st century for a number of reasons. First off, if you are the type of person who thinks rape is cool and uses drugs to incapacitate your victims, go kill yourself. Since you won't listen to me there, maybe you'll listen when I will tell you how you're fucking up by using a chainsaw to trim the flowers. Alcohol is plenty sufficient to incapacitate any 100-pound 18 year old girl whose life you feel like ruining. People don't understand that alcohol is a central nervous system depressant. Women metabolize alcohol faster than men, and many times the effects are more profound. If you're drugging a girl, you're more likely to end up adding "defiling a corpse" to your list of charges (which include rape and murder) instead of just hoping they won't remember. In combination with the fact that college is where kids start drinking so they have no tolerance, drugs aren't necessary. Secondly, WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WASTE MY DRUGS ON YOU? Do you have any idea how many Xanax bars would be required in a 50-gallon trash can full of punch to have any sort of effect? You'd have to rob a fucking pharmacy. And if you did rob a pharmacy, why the fuck are you spiking punch? Just take that shit and wake up in 2016 with no idea how you got there.

One time my sophomore year, we had this crazy party for which I made the punch. A bunch of people got stupidly, dangerously drunk. Therefore the punch must have been drugged. I have a confession: the punch was drugged. In the words of the preamble of Narcotics Anonymous, "alcohol is a drug". The punch was only drugged in the sense that I put SIX FUCKING HANDLES OF EVERCLEAR in it, and only God knows how many other handles of Aristocrat vodka as filler. I have to admit it was really fucking stupid. But I was only thinking of myself, because like the good alcoholic that I am, I was aiming to black out after like 3 cups... with little regard to the welfare of everyone else. Pretty sure I achieved that goal.

So yes, dumb shit occurs. But nothing like a lot of people suggest. I would like to say that yes, there are places where fraternities will spike their punch. That is the main difference between Greek systems there and at UVA and UNC. Maybe its some sort of notion of being a "Southern gentleman", or maybe we just aren't creeps.

3. The other characters are less believable than actors in a car insurance commercial
Two of the rapists had nicknames of "Blanket" and "Armpit". Nicknames like that exist solely in the realm of straight-to-DVD American Pie spin-offs, not reality. Fraternity nicknames are (at least 95% of the time) some bastardization of the person's actual name, preferably a bastardization that makes sense for the person. My nickname was Xanax Bar/Xanzibar/Xanny Bar/Zombie Xan. Why? Because my name is Xan and my modus operandi was blacking out on Xanax and smoking cocaine freebase in my cubby while watching The OC for days at a time. Find me a name that is similar to Armpit or Blanket and also supposedly describes kids that would get bids to an "upper tier" fraternity and I will suspend my disbelief. Also, WHAT HUMAN IN AMERICA IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WOULD SUGGEST NOT REPORTING A RAPE BECAUSE IT MIGHT HURT THEIR SOCIAL STANDING??? Furthermore, WHAT HUMAN IN ANY CENTURY EVER WOULD SUGGEST THAT JACKIE SHOULD'VE "HAD FUN WITH IT"????? Or that her rapist would say something like "I had fun the other night" when he sees her. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? THIS IS MORE RIDICULOUS THAN ANY EPISODE OF SVU IN THE PAST 5 YEARS. I studied sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder in school. I can tell you that Patrick Bateman is 100% fiction. Violent sociopaths (the type that would orchestrate a gang rape and then feel no empathy for the victim after the fact) are almost never high functioning individuals. They have no social skills, no care for their physical appearance, usually have extensive criminal records spanning back to childhood, and most likely never finished high school. They are the type of people whom you meet in passing and they make the hairs on your neck stand up; humans are extremely well adapted to unconsciously recognizing subtle cues such as an emotionless stare or flat affect as a potential threat, which triggers a physiological response. Even the sort of sociopaths that become materially successful in their careers are easily recognized as being rather inauthentic in conversation, though usually the feeling is something along the lines of "something just seemed off". All of that is to say that a violent sociopath is extremely unlikely to attend UVA and receive a bid from an "upper tier" fraternity. A real-life example of a violent sociopath is UVA student Hannah Graham's accused killer Jesse L. Matthew Jr. He wasn't a UVA student. But he was a serial offender, possibly even having killed before. But he's a big black guy, wasn't a student/fraternity member, and doesn't exactly fit the "perfect" narrative. Granted, his abduction/alleged murder of Graham is not typical of most campus assaults. But he is an individual capable of orchestrating a gang rape and being able to sleep at night. It takes a certain kind of monster to be able to hurt others without at least feeling a little pain yourself.

I stand behind the statement in bold above.



So this has been long and rambling, and I might update it later, but this has been bothering me. Do I think Jackie is lying? Not exactly, because I don't really think "Jackie" exists. At best, she is a composite character. At worst, a complete fabrication to put a "name" to what accounts to an urban myth. I intend to criticize both the writer and the editors at Rolling Stone for not adhering to journalistic standards, but producing a piece that while it may be factual, is easily discredited as sensationalist for a variety of reasons. The part of the piece on UVA's "response" (or lack-thereof) to the rape is excellent because it is fact checked, corroborated, and backed up by research. Everything else? Not so much. The author chose an incident which was incredibly compelling but embarrassingly unverifiable. I'm sure there were plenty other survivors who could have shared their stories, but their stories were probably deemed "too boring". No survivor's story is ever "boring", and it should never be considered as an expository narrative towards an investigative piece in order to sell issues or "go viral". I think this is a fucking insult to all survivors of sexual violence that Rolling Stone published this story.


****k bring the hate****