Former Stanford Swimmer Convicted of Rape

I feel like we are watching a cultural tipping point. First I live to see legal gay marriage, and now maybe the end of mainstream acceptance of rape culture. What a decade.

Rasmussen is a very unlucky young woman, finding herself on the wrong side in the middle of a pretty major social upheaval. I hope this won’t impact the rest of her life.

I keep thinking about what happens when women find their voice. First Emma, and now this letter writer. They have changed our thinking. I know a lot of folks, some on this thread, were disgusted by Emma but I can’t help feeling she paved the way. This looks to me like some sort of progression…

One way or another, the world just changed.

eta: I keep editing because I really am at a loss for words thinking about what all this means

Like most things, this will eventually blow over in the face of the next outrage. The public has a short memory.

Agree. To me the two most important issues that get over shadowed by the public noise is the disparity in sentencing across our country depending on ethnicity and socio-economics and lack of understanding about the basic mechanics of our judicial system. Anyway in my opinion anyone making death threats to the judge or this family are thugs :slight_smile:

Brock Turner may be the most hated person in America today, but it won’t take long for someone to step up to take his place.

Right. As for Rasmussen, no one will remember that letter a month from now. She’s “safe” from any long term consequences.

@alh, I am with you on the thought that we are witnessing a cultural tipping point. Seeing Mike Golic on ESPN calling out the judge and the rapist/his father is significant. (I had never heard of Mike Golic before this.) I think the discussion of the case on ESPN, which I assume has a largely male audience, indicates that dismantling the rape culture/calling out the “boys will be boys” mentality signals a very positive shift.

Also, if Google is to be believed, this is Turner’s brother’s job:

He is very clearly in a position of dealing with the culture of sexual assault on campus …

Not as optimistic that this is a tipping point, as this particular crime is such that nobody (or almost nobody) can argue that it is a he said she said, two dunk kids kind of scenario. Certainly, there was a lot of support for the Yale basketball player that was expelled earlier this year, although the details of the events that caused his expulsion are not known.

I agree Pizza. I think most that bother to read entire threads will “get” that I understand the position she has and why, as a character reference…which is what she was asked to do" she said the things that she said. I am sorry for her that she, too, is being attacked by media vigilantes. I know I am not alone, perhaps on CC but not in the greater society, that we have a very real situation with our young people and alcohol consumption and to simply set that aside as “not relevant” is probably not the means to an end. Clearly we are evolving in our societal expectations around how men and women interact sexually and the evolution of women’s rights to self determination thank goodness, but we must also evolve on how we manage, educate and handle the transition of our young people with alcohol.

I think MADD did a marvelous job of suppressing drinking and driving among our youth. Partnership for a Drug Free America did a good job of education about drug use with “Your brain on drugs.” I would love and totally support a movement that works for similar efforts around youth and binge drinking along with a re-examination in some states around restrictive drinking laws for youth that do nothing but flood the money coffers and court dockets of the local jurisdiction and those attorneys (sorry lawyers out there.) 3 days after 4th of July our local district court had over 150 MIP hearings…something is very wrong in my state.

I totally support that sexual assault on a passed out drunk woman as criminal and should be universally understood in every state, but it’s a well-known on CC fact, I cannot support that considering the drunken state of BOTH parties is not a mitigating factor and calling that “victim-blaming” falls on my deaf hears and to me goes to the heart of rehabilitation or restorative justice. I will defend that position to my proverbial death. I am grateful for CC that at times we can have really good conversations in an intellectual and dispassionate and inquisitive manner and with the exception of a few outliers - not you @dstark my friendly protagonist – can set aside the name calling. The “kids” can learn much from all of us if they read more than 140 characters of each post, I know I do.

Gnocchi - I can “see” online that Brock Turner has a brother named Brent, but Brent Turner is a common name, so I’m not getting why you believe this particular man is him. Anyway, what does it matter? It doesn’t make it any right-er to start outing the members of his family, especially when it’s very plausible that one could be mistaken. This kind of thing has the potential to ruin completely innocent lives by dragging people who have nothing to do with any of this into it.

Yes, MADD did a lot to raise awareness about drunk driving and to discourage it. Maybe we need a drunk raping wake up call. This may be it.

Of course binge drinking is bad, but the vast majority of people don’t react to it by sexually assaulting someone. I’m sure the victim regrets drinking so much, but the only thing she should have gotten from it is a hangover. That is lesson enough for most people.

Sexually assaulting someone in the dirt behind a dumpster - that just isn’t something that someone does because they drank too much. There had been a complaint about him from another woman the week before at the same frat house. He was being a predator and as she said in her letter, she was the “weak antelope” of the herd due to being too drunk. If not her, then he likely would have gone after someone else.

He wasn’t a member of the fraternity. Can you source that there had been another complaint? I am pretty sure the “weak antelope of the herd” comment was from the victim herself as she described that in her letter – not from someone else, but open to being corrected.

Yes and he was found guilty in a court of law as well he should be thanks to the personal strength of the victim and I think highly of her for not backing down. I think that fact,his guilt, has been established.

As a marketer I think that would not work for that age group. “Just say no” didn’t work very well either combined with DARE, I think it was tone deaf for the audience for which it was intended and appealed more to parents not the young. “Bad things happen to good people” or “Binge drinking can hurt more than a hangover” something like that might be more effective, I think the idea is not to try and fix a psychopath, but to fix attitudes with the rest.

@Pizzagirl I noted that the info I posted – in which I cut out the name (you were the one who posted the name of Turner’s brother) – is what came up in a google search for either Brock Turner brother or sister or siblings. I did not say that it was correct information, and I noted that it was what Google returned.

My purpose in the posting is that, if the google results are true, I found it interesting that the convicted rapist’s family member may be in a unique position to influence campus dialogue on sexual assault on one particular campus. That was a followup point from the first point of my post, that I hope that public discourse is changing as a result of what has gone on in this case.

If my intention had been to, in your words,

I would have posted all of the information I could find – starting with the names – of his siblings and family members, which I did not do. Instead, I posted the minimum amount of information, redacting the name, noting that it was not verified, to make my point about how the discussion of sexual assault may be changing because of this case.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-stanford-sex-assault-case-called-fair-respected-072826036–spt.html

@mom2and I’m not seeing the “He said,she said” as part of this particular case. She didn’t “say” anything as she was being violated in an unconscious state. He was observed by multiple witnesses as he violently attacked her while she was in a state where she could not defend herself nor consent to the sexual activity. In some cases, maybe. In this one , no.

People still drink alcohol. MADD did not stop drinking. MADD helped cut down drunk driving. Drunk driving isn’t tolerated anymore.

We aren’t going to be able to stop young people from drinking. We aren’t going to stop young men from drinking. There are other Brocks around. Society has to stop tolerating assaults.

@Pizzagirl - from dstark’s link in post #402

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_29962311/former-stanford-athlete-brock-turner-years-prison-or?source=infinite-up

To me the key issue is that felonious sexual assault is still being treated as if it is a misdemeanor. I kind of think that’s what all the public noise is about.

No, “white trash” carries the implication that white people are so superior, it’s actually unusual for them to be “trash”.

It is imo an insult still rooted in racism.