When the verdict was read in court during the Steubenville, Ohio rape trial, Ma’lik Richmond, the 16-year-old convicted of raping a teenage girl back in August, seemed to collapse in his lawyer’s arms.
Guilty. The word settled heavily on his shoulders as he slumped down in his chair. It moved over his once smiling face like a dark, ominous cloud. The ashen expression came first. Then, the tears. The impossible had happened.
He was going to jail.
Here he was, by some accounts a man, in other’s eyes just a baby, being sentenced to jail for actions that he probably still cannot process as something that would warrant such punishment. It seemed, throughout the trial, that neither Trenton Mays or Ma’lik were able to grasp the gravity of the situation – even as they sat before a judge and listened to witness testimony as all the dirty secrets they tried to hide reemerged in the courtroom.
But those tears from a convicted rapist are what finally jerked Trenton, Ma’lik and America back to attention. Here it was…the emotion and concern I had been searching for since the incident came to light back in August.
Yes, it was hard watching Ma’lik weep in front of the courtroom.
Yes, it was hard to hear him gurgle, through heavy sobs, that his life was over.
Yes, it was hard to imagine that this boy, just barely an adult, would now walk around with the scarlet letter of rape on his chest for the rest of his life.
But our emotion was displaced. That concern and sympathy that America now feels for two convicted rapists should have been meant for the 16-year-old victim. Yet, here we are, unsure about the severity of their punishment and what it will mean for their once bright futures. Here we are, hearts full of emotion as we wonder how a teenage boy, who was otherwise a great student and football player, will cope behind bars.
To America, he still isn’t a rapist. To the public, the tears and broken future are what make this case “sad.”
But it didn’t seem sad for the world to watch as a 16-year-old girl endured the humiliation of living out that night over and over again through media coverage.
It wasn’t sad when she courageously came forward only to be labeled a “whore” and “ho” for “getting herself in that situation.”
It wasn’t even sad to America when we all saw the infamous picture of her being dragged from party to party; just a bit…shocking.
Nope, because society makes it so these images don’t warrant the same emotion that tears from a young boy do. Those images aren’t sad because this girl is at fault for getting taken advantage of, somehow. This is the world that we live in, where objectifying a woman by her anatomy is acceptable, rape is tolerated because women should be more careful, and tears from a rapist elicit genuine concern because he’s a teenager.
CNN made that apparent this week when they ran coverage about the verdict that sympathized with the crying rapists.
“It was incredibly emotional, it was difficult for anyone in there to watch those boys break down,” Poppy Harlow said.
Candy Crowley perpetuated the “we must feel sorry for the rapists” theme:
“These two young men — who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students — literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.”
“What’s the lasting effect though on two young men being found guilty juvenile court of rape essentially?”
While we are so concerned about what will become of Ma’lik and Trenton, no one has given a flying fuck about the underage victim, who now has to live with the scar of sexual assault that is never easily overcome.
Unfortunately, what will come of this trial is not what I hoped. It hasn’t proved to start a functioning conversation about rape intolerance in this country, yet, it put the focus on the assailants, and not in a way that this could even be a lesson learned for them.
What we have done could be as grave as the crime itself. We’ve diminished the heinous crime and almost revered the assailants as two young boys who did “something” wrong. And by feeling sorry for them and being concerned about their well-being, we have forgiven the crime and forgotten about who this will effect more severely.
America, you are wrong.
It all started with tears.
But we need to let Ma’lik and Trenton feel the pain of those tears without jumping to wipe them away.
I’m sure they weren’t “sorry” when they did this:
Christina Coleman is the News and Politics Editor at GlobalGrind. Prior to this she was a science writer. That explains her NASA obsession. She crushes on Anthony Bourdain. Nothing explains that.
Follow her on Twitter @ChrissyCole
