On March 17th, 17-year-old Trent Mays and 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond of Steubenville High School were declared guilty of raping a 16-year old female. Mays was also charged with distributing a photo containing a nude minor. Both boys may be detained in a juvenile jail until they turn 21, and will be placed on the registered sex offenders’ list upon completing their sentences.
This truly is a tragic and horrific event that will have life-lasting effects. When I say this, I am placing my sympathy with the rape victim. CNN, on the other hand, seems to have placed theirs elsewhere.
Immediately after the case’s verdict was announced, CNN went live on the scene to Poppy Harlow, who gave a beautiful show of empathy as expected from broadcast journalism. Yet, it appears that Harlow has given the majority of her pity to the guilty defendants and not the prosecutor.
“It was incredibly emotional, incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their life fell apart. One of the young men, Ma’lik Richmond, as that sentence came down, he collapsed,” Harlow reported.
Star football players? Yes. Good students? Yes. Two young men who raped an intoxicated and unresponsive 16-year-old girl in the backseat of a car and again in a basement? Yes. Two young men who left the victim naked on a couch afterwards, and then went on to circulate pictures of the event? Yes, again.
Don’t worry, though. CNN says the boys are sorry and showed the pair apologizing. Trent Mays apologized for sending around the picture, but failed to express his remorse over the rape. Ma’lik Richmond did apologize for the rape. “I just want you to realize I’m sorry. I know I ruined her life, for life,” he said while choking through tears. Yet, this quote was unable to be heard clearly through Richmond’s sobs, and was not mentioned in either the original TV broadcast or online report. CNN focused more on Richmond’s sobs than this statement that would have showed the severity of Richmond’s crime and would have drawn things back to the victim, not Richmond.
Additionally, while Richmond and Mays were referred to as “star football players,” the victim was repeatedly called a “severely intoxicated 16-year old.” In doing so, CNN has fed into the disgusting, widespread occurrence of victim blaming.
Victim blaming occurs when any recipient of abusive maltreatment is held responsible for the crimes committed against them: She was drunk. She was wearing provocative clothing. She was asking for it.
Victim blaming in rape occurs because men (and women, too) are not properly educated about what constitutes as rape. It is because of victim blaming that 54% of rapes are never reported as the victims are terrified of having the situation turned around on them, and 97% of rapists never see a day in jail.
While CNN reported their story the way they did in order to have a strong emotional impact, they also unintentionally fed the monster that is rape culture. The two young football players should have been referred to as the two young rapists. It is a horrible title to place on someone so young, but if they are old enough to commit the crime, they are old enough to wear the title.
In another recent event, rape survivor and feminist blogger, Zelina Maxwell, was bombarded with rape and death threats after appearing on Fox News with Sean Hannity and simply saying, “I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there with prevention.” As a society that attacks all that we do not understand, the uneducated masses rose up against this as reports like CNN’s coverage of Steubenville have led people to believe that it is the women’s duty to make sure she is not raped.
Overall, it is disgusting and terrifying. My heart goes out to the Steubenville rape victim, Zelina Maxwell, and all other victims, both male and female, of sexual assault. I leave you with these lines from Andrea Gibson’s poem on rape culture and victim blaming, “Blue Blanket”:
She’s not asking
what you’re gonna tell your daughter, she’s asking what
you’re gonna teach
your son.