...WTF.

[floranna]

Didn't write this, but I just have to send this forwards.

Alkuperäinen tekijä lavenderfrost otsikolla ...WTF.

Well, there goes my good mood for the day.

NYTimes, the bastion of quality reporting, reported on the gang-rape of an 11 year-old girl in Texas  that's led to charges against 18 high-school boys so far - all well and good so far, right?  Shit like this NEEDS publicity to raise awareness. 

Only problem is, they repeated - without refutation or critical commentary - the claims that the girl brought the rape on herself because of the way she was dressed.

Choice Quotes (No cut b/c everyone needs to see this - DEAL.):

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”  As opposed to the victim, who's gonna bounce back lickety-fucking-split, right?

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.  TOTALLY BEGGING FOR IT.

THIS IS RAPE CULTURE, PEOPLE.

Now, what's being said and done in this community is bad enough, but the NY Times should be fucking ashamed of themselves right now.

( Here's how to contact NYT: )

Comments

[epistolic.livejournal.com]

Oh my God, that is utterly disgusting. I cannot believe they'd write something like that. Thank-you for letting us all know, this is entirely unacceptable.

ETA: And the whole "Where was her mother" thing - as if the whole thing happened because the mother was irresponsible and not because a heap of boys broke the fucking law and RAPED A MINOR FOR JESUS SAKE

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I am horrified, and utterly unsurprised, and that horrifies me all over again.

[jellyjay.livejournal.com]

Face, meet Desk. Desk, this is Face.

*FACEDESK*

You're making it too easy for the universe to decide it needs to go rampant, world. WTF. WTF. WTF.

[pinumbra.livejournal.com]

This.

and also, they make it sound as if the way the girl dressed makes it less of a crime, because rape is totally acceptable nowadays.

[hiza-chan.livejournal.com]

I am actually physically nauseous from some of the descriptions in that article. Nearly encouraging rape? Saying that she dressed older? That it was HER fault that EIGHTEEN fucking older guys GANG RAPED her? What the fuck kind of world do we live in, where people are more sympathetic for the people who did the raping than the ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL that got raped? Just. Goddammit.

[stillthere4me.livejournal.com]

That is awful. I did sign it and post it to my twitter and facebook last night, though I didn't comment here. Thanks for spreading the word and letting us know.

I usually respect and like the NYTimes, but this was really terrible wording. :(