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This is pretty fucked. Lucky is the book that helped my wife identify and start the process of coming to terms with what happened to her. It's my understanding the book talks about this guy a lot and the trial process. So, idk I'm conflicted in just up and telling her the news. Probably will, but it feels like an uncomfortable thing to do.
As a sexual abuse victim I can fully empathize with the trauma Sebold felt, while also thinking that her racial discrimination and carelessness ruined an innocent man's life. Like, she couldn't even tell the difference between two unrelated black men, but decided to go forward with the prosecution anyway. That's just straight up unacceptable. She can be a victim and be guilty of racism at the same time. I hope she reflects on it now that he's been exonerated, and I hope she does what she can to make things right with Anthony Broadwater.
Pleasantly surprised at the executive producer who put time and money into examining the case when something felt off about it. It's the right thing to do, but very few would have ever done it.
Pleasantly surprised at the executive producer who put time and money into examining the case when something felt off about it. It's the right thing to do, but very few would have ever done it.
Seriously. Massive props to him.
I hope the man sues the author. She's likely rich and she needs to give that man money for the years she stole of him.
An absolute travesty.
But I just love how the talk about junk science in the article with regard to microscopic hair analysis, but casually throw in that he passed two lie detector tests (which is the junkiest of junk science).
But I just love how the talk about junk science in the article with regard to microscopic hair analysis, but casually throw in that he passed two lie detector tests (which is the junkiest of junk science).
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What's with racist ass America being so horny to convict innocent black men of rape ??? . Do racists have deep fear of black men stealing their pure white women or what the fuck . What's more funny I think white people committed more rapes through slavery alone .
What if instead of rushing to judgment and assuming the worst about a victim of sexual assault we didn't have to have a hot take? Like my god, some of these replies are beyond the pale. I understand the anger at the system that leads to these injustices, but seriously stop and think about what you're saying about people, they are real people not hypotheticals or movie characters. I know she isn't here to read the comments but the message it sends is awful.
She also said they looked exactly the same.
Where is that "racism is quantum locked" post?
Amen.
I'm curious if she'll make a public statement and if she does I'll surely have opinions, but right now my ire is directed at the prosecution that didn't stop at "she IDed the wrong guy "
Yes actually, "big scary black man raping dainty pure white girls" has been a racist narrative that has been taught since the early 1800s in the US, and has been pushed hard and essentially normalized as 'fact' in the US.
It's been one of the bedrocks of white supremacy in the US, so much so that the KKK was partially birth/strengthen through the film Birth of A Nation that reinforced and cemented the idea in white America that black men were running around raping white women, a film that got played at the White House.
Its scary how much junk science gets tossed around as evidence, even in courtrooms today. Bite-mark analysis is another one that's pure pseudoscience.
Honestly fuck anyone who is co-signing her bullshit. "What could she do?". How about be fucking honest about not knowing or recognizing who her attacker was. Fucking bullshit.
you are right that she may have needed him to be the attacker for the sake of her own resolution. But if this is the case, her resolution came at the expense of an innocent man.
yes, this will possibly open up all sorts of mental health issues for her. But that doesn't absolve her.
the system is largely to blame, yes. But she allowed for this to not only occur, but continue unchallenged. She played an essential role in his conviction and promoted this as the truth.
There absolutely are two victims. But only one of them is responsible for wronging the other.
She identified the wrong guy and let this dude rot in prison. Combine that with the obvious racist connotations here. She's not the only person at fault and she obviously went through something unimaginably traumatic, but there's pretty clear culpability.
Exactly. Or that brock turner kid who got like 3 months jail time for a rape because according to the judge he had a bright future ahead of him and this would jeopardize that, or some such bullshit.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to Sebold's situation, but she did make a career out of the Broadwater's wrongful conviction and if he decided to sue I wouldn't consider it unjustified. Let's not forget that spending 16 years imprisoned and reviled for a crime you know you didn't commit is also traumatic.
This right here.
Fair enough she was initially railroaded by an ugly prosecution, but in all the years that passed she did nothing with her doubts and confusion over three different men, yet she had the wherewithal to detail it while writing and profiting from a book? But didn't want to bring any of that information to his five parole hearings? This is peak sketchy white woman.
If you read why the book is called Lucky in first place, it still fits.
The justice system is to blame but its the way it is because white/rich people support it.
The case hinged on her pointing out Broadwater as her rapist, as much as the system went out of its way to bring Broadwater in court, he would not be convicted even tried if she did not play along with white supremacy.
She knew she did not id him and could have walked away, but decided to condemn him in court, and made a living out of it.
The case hinged on her pointing out Broadwater as her rapist, as much as the system went out of its way to bring Broadwater in court, he would not be convicted even tried if she did not play along with white supremacy.
She knew she did not id him and could have walked away, but decided to condemn him in court, and made a living out of it.
they are both victims, but she needs to take some responsibility as well. Any black man will do in this system and she played her part.
While I agree with other posters that Alice Sebold shouldn't be blamed for her initial misidentification as a teenager, I find it incredulous that in all the 39 years afterwards, when she was writing her memoir, or when she was pitching it for a film adaptation, she never looked back on that time with a mature adult perspective and thought "hmm, what happened then doesn't seem right..."
I've read the context. Nothing "lucky" about losing 16 years of your freedom for a crime you didn't commit because you were randomly picked out off the street.
The book is called "Lucky" because the police called her lucky for only being raped and not dismembered. A police officer with that level of empathy would certainly think Broadwater is lucky for getting released.
The guy who spend 16 years in prison and was branded as a rapist for decades more is a real person too and what happened to him is partly her fault. The prosecution is obviously more at fault but she isn't innocent, she blamed a random person she didn't even know, was then unable to identify the same person in a line up and pointed at someone else, was informed of her mistake and identified the the guy she accused first "correctly" in court and in the decades since never reflected on the fact that she got it wrong and what that means when it comes to being sure you accuse the right person.
I would actually say the producer investigating the story and pushing for it to be reevaluated is his lucky circumstance in the first place.
Several things you say are definitively wrong. We don't know the person she accused in the street was this man. She did not "decide", to accuse him in court knowing she got it wrong, the prosecution convinced her the two men conspired to trick her.
That's before even touching the very real effects of ptsd such as paranoia, false memories, etc.
Theres plenty of blame to go around here. VERY little of it belongs to a raped child who was manipulated by the system. This thread is full of gross and attitudes like yours and those in this thread are why so many rape victims don't come forward..
Consider also that the police presumably told her the fiber evidence was legit. She may have had doubts that were quelled by that
Before reading OP, I considered myself a forgiving person but no I guess I am not.
Yup, clear unconscious (or possible conscious) racism of these judges. The white young man has a bright future ahead of them, but the black young man doesn't.
Noticed that.
I never understand why it's brought up without a huge disclaimer directly after.
It seems like some Liam Neeson shit. Also, it goes to show how law enforcement in general is evolved from lynch mobs. The line ups and the coercing of witness testimony.
Yep, unacceptable in my eyes. Easier to blame a woman than a justice system.
I'm not blaming her in that this was some conscious effort to convict an innocent black man. I am acknowledging the reality that the system and society she grew up in heavily contributed to the incarceration of an innocent black man. She's very much a victim in this bullshit beyond just her attack/trauma. She's also now just another cog in the wheel of systemic racism which used her assault/trauma to keep that shit moving along.
Staff post
Official Staff Communication
- The history of race and sexual assault in the United States has an unseparable, ugly history; namely, that there is an observable pattern of white women deliberately lying about Black men raping them, and Black men suffering whatever consequences were to be doled out with no recompense.
- Sebold is a victim of rape who, as far as we know, did not pick Broadwater out of malice, and in that regard, the experience of her assault must be treated with the same respect afforded to other victims.
- Broadwater, nonetheless, was a victim of her inability to identify the right perpetrator, a state of mind that can all be attributed to the trauma of her experience, the coaching by the legal system, and the documented inability for white people to accurately distinguish between individuals in another ethnic group.
- Sebold's own recount of one of the men in the line-up, namely this quote-- "the expression in his eyes told me that if we were alone, if there were no wall between us, he would call me by name and then kill me."-- is unabashedly, inexcusably racist.
- The legal system is also racist, and a conviction in this case was in part pursued as doggedly as it was- compared to white rapists wherein the system is significantly more lenient- because Broadwater is Black and Sebold is white, and ultimately Broadwater was wrongfully imprisoned.
- Sebold went on to directly profit from her book and movie deal detailing this experience, and it is by chance that the situation fell out as it did and we know the truth. Sebold was allowed access to resources, help, and emotional support for years. Broadwater was not.
- Black people should not be policed for how they feel about Sebold's actions. Again, Sebold's traumatic experience should not be downplayed or minimized.
- Anyone referring to Sebold with naked insults, as well as anyone accusing members who criticize Sebold of not be sympathetic or being the reason rape victims don't come forward will be moderated accordingly.
Broadwater never should have gone to prison, and in a more just world multiple police/prosecutors would probably be seeing jail time for what they did to him.
Regardless of everything else with this case, the lack of empathy many posters here have for the level of trauma a raped teenager went through is pretty staggering but sadly not at all surprising.
Regardless of everything else with this case, the lack of empathy many posters here have for the level of trauma a raped teenager went through is pretty staggering but sadly not at all surprising.
Good for him. I hope he gets that apology. If not, I hope he can move on regardless.
This honestly yet again says to me eye witness testimony alone should not be enough to convict anyone, it so faulty for various reasons and the bunk hair crap man what a raw deal that man got. Seems like all in all the prosecution, whoever defended them all failed to pursue justice and just looked to pursue a scapegoat for a crime.
That's what scares me when hearing about these things. Like I could legit just be walking around and next thing I know I could be arrested charged with rape for no other reason than being black and just being in the general area