I was told to “lighten up” today. Indeed, there are things about which I may need to lighten up, but let me tell you about one that I do not need to lighten up about.
We all know that Justin Bieber was
arrested on various charges this past week.
There has been a meme circulating on social media that has Justin’s mug
shot with the lyric “as long as you love me” superimposed. On the other half of the meme there is a
picture of a menacing looking man in the same type of orange jumpsuit that
Justin is wearing with the words, “Oh, I’m gonna love you.”
I am not going to apologize for not
liking and for objecting to sexual violence or, in this meme’s case, implied
sexual violence jokes. This isn’t
funny. Justin may have lots of problems;
he may be a pseudo-musician; he may be an over privileged punk who is running
amuck. He is a celebrity, yes, but more
than that he is a human being. And, like
any other human being, he does not deserve to be the victim of sexual
assault. Whatever you think of him, I
bet if you stop and think for one second, you will agree that while he needs to
answer for breaking the law, he certainly doesn’t deserve sexual violence. Put your best friend’s, your brother’s, your
cousin’s, your son’s picture in there instead of Justin’s – still laughing? By posting and giggling about this kind of
post, you are conceding that sexual violence should serve as part of a
punishment for running afoul of the law.
If your response to that last sentence
is anything like “Well, yeah, too bad, that punk deserves what he gets” or “It’s
all in good fun.” Then, I suppose you
think if a woman dresses in a certain way she deserves to be raped. That’s funny, right? How about if a young woman on a college
campus drinks too much, does she “deserve” a sexual assault? Hilarious. Did you know that “[seven] percent of male students [have]
admitted to committing or attempting rape, and nearly two-thirds of them said
they had done so multiple times — six on average”? Are you laughing?
The
situations are different, but the implication is the same: if a person does
certain things, then he or she deserves sexual violence. If a celebrity breaks the law, he should
answer for that just as anyone else should.
Does he deserve to be raped or otherwise violated in prison? According to a 2012 Justice Department study,
“nearly one of every 10 state
prisoners is sexually victimized during confinement.” (Cited article.) Is that
really funny?
Rather coincidentally, this meme was
posted on the same day that President Obama created a task force to make a
study of sexual violence on college campuses and gave that task force 90 days
for the study and to “to recommend
best practices for colleges to prevent or respond to assaults, and to check
that they are complying with existing legal obligations.” (You can read about this task force here.)
Sexual assault is a problem among all
populations – women, men, gay, straight; and, in all areas – rural, urban, suburban,
college campuses. I would posit that the
president can create as many task forces as he likes and review as many best
practices as he wants, but that will change precious little when there are
significant segments of America that thinks sexual violence is just what
happens in prison, or just what happens when a girl gets drunk at college, or is just that funny.
Nope, I’m not going to lighten up about
this.
I am not laughing.
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