If that what makes you sleep soundly at night, then fine? *shrug*
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Vice: Reporters and Activists Are Being Harassed for Saying Kobe Bryant Was Credibly Accused of Rape (Read Staff Posts)
- Thread starter Syriel
- Start date
Explain to me how you can simultaneously understand, after all the information presented (over months, as the statement says), how somehow could have felt like they were raped and also claim that said rape did not occur.
I'll wait
I love how we are now arguing if the woman feeling like she was raped means she was raped.
I am not going to try anymore
I am not going to try anymore
I don't think most of us give a shit if something us "un-American". Prosecutors are corrupt fucks too.
I sleep just fine, you know how? By not making shit up about other people
Gee, I wonder why someone being accused of rape would feel like they didnt rape someone 🤔 he admitted he didnt have consent but felt he had,which means his feelings are worth exactly nothing.
You guys are making up a straw man here.
People are not en masse demanding people not mourn, nor are people saying he deserved to die.
People are asking people not to valorize and lionize a guy who did some real fucking harm to not just one woman who came forward but to the many women likely scared off from reporting their rapists.
This is what people don't really understand. When powerful, rich men play bloody in order to silence victims and then get away with it, it increases the reticence of women already scared to report things.
Not to downplay his primary victim, but the way things played out caused an amount of harm that cannot be measured.
If you're getting that from his statement quoted above, I disagree.
Ok, well people can make mistakes and be flawed and become better people afterwards.
We don't need to send deaththreats to people who want to talk about this. Kobe ain't Jesus.
How can you acknowledge that you understand how a woman claimed she was raped and also deny raping her
The reporter getting canned made sense in the timing of the story being broken. Not because of the message. Some might see it as heroic, but I think there was a better way to do it than "going rogue" and getting fired. Activists need to use the attention his death is getting in order to bring more attention to the importance of sexual assault. Regardless of the timing, neither of those groups should be threatened and harassed by crazy "fans" under the excuse of mourning.
Nobody deserves death threats for speaking their mind. Don't know who is saying they deserve harassment though. I definitely am still mourning and only wanting to remember the positives, personally.
Sad thing is you can't separate Kobe's heroic legacy from his huge mistake. He could have worked another 40 years and never erased that moment. As much as fans would love to forget about the rape case, it shouldn't be forgotten.
Nobody deserves death threats for speaking their mind. Don't know who is saying they deserve harassment though. I definitely am still mourning and only wanting to remember the positives, personally.
Sad thing is you can't separate Kobe's heroic legacy from his huge mistake. He could have worked another 40 years and never erased that moment. As much as fans would love to forget about the rape case, it shouldn't be forgotten.
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Whatever reasoning that gets presented should be a real doozy.
I wonder if guys like Weinstein were able to operate longer than they would have otherwise because this case had such a chilling effect on people considering outing famous men for their behavior.
I don't know why you're replying to me with this, I've never said it's OK to send death threats to people. That's ridiculous.
OP
OP
That is disingenuous. Many people in this thread have said he is both a hero to many AND a rapist. The two are not mutually exclusive.
That recognition is important for sexual assault victims, otherwise they become invisible. Some have spoken up in this thread.
It should be kind of obvious that no one calling him a rapist thinks he deserved to die as he dead, especially not the passengers.
But when there's been nothing but an almost godlike endless stream of praise and idolisation of the man, stuff like this is gonna come to attention.
Now things have changed. The amount of downplaying of rape here is sickening. The attempts to turn it into whataboutism or even a black Vs white thing are blatantly transparent for what they actually are. And especially the constant claim that the man redeemed himself for his mistake despite doing mostly nothing for victims of rape or his own victims is convincing no one.
He didn't deserve to die that way, or die at all, but neither should anyone be forced to shut up about what he did. Cus it's not some minor crime of passion or a mistake.
But when there's been nothing but an almost godlike endless stream of praise and idolisation of the man, stuff like this is gonna come to attention.
Now things have changed. The amount of downplaying of rape here is sickening. The attempts to turn it into whataboutism or even a black Vs white thing are blatantly transparent for what they actually are. And especially the constant claim that the man redeemed himself for his mistake despite doing mostly nothing for victims of rape or his own victims is convincing no one.
He didn't deserve to die that way, or die at all, but neither should anyone be forced to shut up about what he did. Cus it's not some minor crime of passion or a mistake.
Yes, he admitted to rape. I was just referring to his statement.
We should call it what it is, there were no quotes from the statement itself in your post I quoted, which is why I brought it up
You're overthinking this, we're on the same page. He admitted to rape. Again, I was just referring to this "Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did."
This is literally a thread where people are trying to downplay the admitted rape. Don't try to downplay it by turning it into "a non-consensual encounter". It's much more straight-forward and correct to say he admitted to rape, and the only real reason to obsfucate it like that is to make it seem more complicated than it really is.
That's really not a workable standard in reality. In a courtroom the presumption of innocence and requiring the prosecution to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt are essential. They're essential because of what is at stake in a trial and what a criminal defendant is up against: there's a real possibility that a defendant will be deprived of their freedom and put in prison by a massive state run apparatus (the police and prosecution).
But outside of the courtroom, in reality, people make judgments about bad acts by others without the benefit of a criminal conviction at trial all the time. Of course they do, because actual convictions as a percentage of bad acts are proportionally very rare. Even moreso if you agree that plea bargains are sometimes taken by factually innocent people who are looking to avoid the downside of a conviction on serious charges (so in other words, you can't even guarantee someone was factually guilty when they take a plea bargain).
If you have the choice between two day care centers for your young child, and a friend of yours tells you that the staff of day care A abused their kid, are you going to tell me that the accusation by your friend is really going to make absolutely zero difference in your choice between day care A or B? That you would just completely ignore it unless and until someone from day care A is charged, tried, and convicted for that abuse? Of course not and all other things being equal you would choose day care B instead of A. Because people make judgments about others all the time without the "certainty" of a criminal conviction.
And in general that should be fine. Because the consequences of you as an individual choosing to go with day care B instead of A are not nearly of the same significance as a juror deciding to find someone guilty. It's the difference between someone losing out on some day care tuition versus someone being put in prison. Even if you aggregate that and say if everyone believes your friend and no one goes to day care A any more and they go out of business, that's still not the same level of consequence as being put behind bars.
And you don't even have to believe your friend necessarily! Maybe you have reason to think they are wrong and you are going to go with day care A anyway. That's fine, but to say that making a judgment about someone is improper without a criminal conviction is just foolish really.
I'm just saying, calling it a non consensual encounter outside of quotes feels like sugar coating the actual act, even if that wasn't your intent.
He did though. I don't read "nonconsensual sex" and think well atleast he didn't rape her.
I did agree that it's rape, several times on this page. What's your point again?
Alright understood, apologies.
"Non consensual sex" is sugar coating the actual act of rape. That's my point, which I stated above.
Didn't you just say that you didn't feel Kobe admitted to rape, when he himself said "I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter"?
User Banned (1 Month): Ignoring mod post. Splitting hair definition to downplay sexual assault.
It's not sugar coating anything. It's the literal definition.
My point is exactly the same as Surfinn. When you wrote that, you could have just written that he admitted to rape. Instead, you chose to phrase it as "a non-consensual encounter". Why, exactly, was that phrase selected? Maybe you're not even consciously trying to downplay it, but that language most definitely downplays and/or suggests that the situation is complicated in a way that "he admitted to rape" does not.
I'm talking about the term nonconsensual sex. Not in context of his statement.
You think using "non consensual sex" is not sugar coating the word rape? Lol OK, this is a load of shit.
I have zero problems with the rape being brought up and it being a topic we're talking about now or any other time...
I mean last night and reading through this topic I really feel horrible and like an asshole for paying tribute to Kobe and being as upset as I was.
I don't know, always been a Lakers fan and I loved Kobe's game...the rape will always be there though and I'll never try to bury or dismiss it.
I just feel like a real dumbass.
Fuck off to those who made death threats towards that reporter, they should be arrested and charged.
I mean last night and reading through this topic I really feel horrible and like an asshole for paying tribute to Kobe and being as upset as I was.
I don't know, always been a Lakers fan and I loved Kobe's game...the rape will always be there though and I'll never try to bury or dismiss it.
I just feel like a real dumbass.
Fuck off to those who made death threats towards that reporter, they should be arrested and charged.
Would you be okay with all rapists having the same consequences as Kobe?
Go ask rape survivors if they feel the same way. This is pure ignorance
I don't think anybody in this thread is taking the stance that it's morally wrong to be upset at his death, especially because of the nature of the death and those who also died in the chopper. But there's definitely a conversation to be had about the constant worship he is getting and how it relates to rape culture and how victims will see their rapists be praised and how damaging that is.
Celebrating his death is wrong, I think. A frank discussion of his legacy isn't. Again, I grew up with Kobe's career, so it definitely hits home, but it's also important to talk about the bad with the good.
You can call torture "inflicting pain in such a deliberate way to gather information or fulfill some objective" or you can just call it torture. Words have meaning and rape is rape. What Kobe did is rape.
I absolutely agree...
I was just giving my mindset from going from being in shock and sadness to thinking Jesus Christ a NBA player who I liked but did something heinous died and now I feel bad for being upset...I don't know quite how to explain it.
I think I'm just disappointed with myself for instantly making this all about Kobe's death and how sad it was without thinking about his victim until now.
No. It depends. Would I have been upset if Kobe went to trial, was convicted, and went to jail for some time? No.
I've been leaving this mostly alone, since now is a time of grief and I don't want to intentionally screw up anyone's mourning. People mean a lot to others for a lot of reasons and while I may not care for the man, I've said most of what I have to say in the past when it was a lot more relevant. Nine people dying is a tragedy and while I may not have had a lot of respect for one of them, it isn't like I wished death on him. I don't wish that on anyone who isn't actively causing terrible harm to others, and even those who are I'd prefer to just stop causing that harm. Even his death is sad, but death doesn't make saints of any of us and when it's time to tell someone's story, we should tell the true story.
While I wouldn't choose this moment to bring this up, I also won't tell those who choose to do so that they're wrong for doing so. I can empathize with his friends and family and fans who are mourning someone they loved, either up close or from afar. I can also empathize with those who find seeing an admitted rapist lionized nauseating.
I believe in second chances, and that people can learn and grow after mistakes, even after truly heinous ones. I don't support the death penalty for exactly that reason. I believe most any human life can have worth. There are some things that don't wash off though. There are some acts so despicable that they don't go away no matter how much good you later do. It doesn't mean your entire life is judged by only those things. It means that thing will always be part of your story though. If you kill someone and you get out and spend the next fifty years working with at risk kids to turn their lives around, that's awesome. When you die, we should talk about all the good work you did. We're going to talk about the murder too though. What you did was bad enough that you can't remove it from your narrative. It's going to be a part of your story and it should be. I'd consider rape one of those things. After that, all you can do is hope to do enough good that it's only part of the story instead of the whole thing.
In addition, I'll just say that in order to truly move toward growth, paying for what you did really should be the first step. I don't consider his statement admitting to it to truly be that because he issued that in large part to avoid going to jail, and he still spent a large portion of it trying to defend his actions. I also can't say cutting a check later on in the civil suit is really paying for it, not when you're that kind of rich. Really owning his mistakes would have been the first step and he never did that. I can understand why he didn't. Doing so could have made him a pariah and considering how easily the public had forgiven him it was a lot easier to just move on. That's kind of the point though.
While I wouldn't choose this moment to bring this up, I also won't tell those who choose to do so that they're wrong for doing so. I can empathize with his friends and family and fans who are mourning someone they loved, either up close or from afar. I can also empathize with those who find seeing an admitted rapist lionized nauseating.
I believe in second chances, and that people can learn and grow after mistakes, even after truly heinous ones. I don't support the death penalty for exactly that reason. I believe most any human life can have worth. There are some things that don't wash off though. There are some acts so despicable that they don't go away no matter how much good you later do. It doesn't mean your entire life is judged by only those things. It means that thing will always be part of your story though. If you kill someone and you get out and spend the next fifty years working with at risk kids to turn their lives around, that's awesome. When you die, we should talk about all the good work you did. We're going to talk about the murder too though. What you did was bad enough that you can't remove it from your narrative. It's going to be a part of your story and it should be. I'd consider rape one of those things. After that, all you can do is hope to do enough good that it's only part of the story instead of the whole thing.
In addition, I'll just say that in order to truly move toward growth, paying for what you did really should be the first step. I don't consider his statement admitting to it to truly be that because he issued that in large part to avoid going to jail, and he still spent a large portion of it trying to defend his actions. I also can't say cutting a check later on in the civil suit is really paying for it, not when you're that kind of rich. Really owning his mistakes would have been the first step and he never did that. I can understand why he didn't. Doing so could have made him a pariah and considering how easily the public had forgiven him it was a lot easier to just move on. That's kind of the point though.
I appreciate it.
I get where you might take that phrasing from, especially looking at the actual statement. But key to it is that the statement is written like that entirely for the purpose of minimizing and obsfucating. That statement didn't come as a genuine expression of Kobe's heart out of nowhere, that statement was negotiated as part of the settlement. Having that statement in mind when deciding to phrase it as such even when you're not denying the fundamental reality of the situation when presented is the sort of minimizing effect that was intended, and it's important to recognize when this sort of rhetorical minimalization is being used.
In a thread about how people are being harassed for talking about negative things Kobe did it's absolutely disgusting to see how many people have been trying to shut down the discussion or basically trying to justify the rape as not a big deal because he was "never convicted in a court of law."
Most rape victims will never see the person who hurt them convicted in a court of law because the burden of proof is nearly impossible to reach. There often isn't any definitive evidence that someone was raped by someone else. It's often a case of one person says this and the other says that and because of this as long as the person who raped someone continues to claim they are innocent they usually get to walk away.
The victims often feel ashamed of what happened to them, and even if they come forward a lot of times they aren't believed. And in a lot of cases they are put through a series of questions trying to show it was their fault for not saying no loud enough.
Even if you do come forward right away and subject yourself to a rape kit test, they often don't get processed
If Rainn's information is accurate
www.rainn.org
995 of every 1000 sexual assault cases that happen will have the perp walk free. of those 1000 cases only 230 of them will actually be reported and of those 230 only 46 of them will ever lead to arrest, and then because of the high burden of proof only 5 will actually be convicted.
Only accepting that someone is capable of rape if they are convicted in a court of law, a place where it's been proven time and time again that the rich and powerful can bend to their whims most of the time, is basically like saying you don't believe the victims, and that they must be lying.
You really can't believe someone when they say they were raped and also say that the person they accused can't be guilty because they didn't get convicted in a court of law. You're lying about one of those things, and this thread is really making it obvious that a lot of people here don't believe victims and it's disgusting.
I'm begging anyone that is saying that "he was never convicted in a court of law." To please think about what you are actually saying, and look into rape cases to get a better understanding of how fundamentally disgusting that statement is. I'm not saying to blindly trust the victims, but to understand that they almost never have anything to gain from speaking up (and typically pay a high price for speaking out), so at least listen to them and don't brush them away because they couldn't get a conviction in a court of law with something that is almost impossible to get such a thing on. Typically they are assumed to be liars, often shunned, and in cases with celebrities often sent death threats or worse. That if they are in a situation where someone with power over them raped them that their life can be torn apart all while that person in power faces no consequences for their actions if they speak out. It's one of the reasons the #metoo movement happened in the first place. People in power abusing their position.
Most rape victims will never see the person who hurt them convicted in a court of law because the burden of proof is nearly impossible to reach. There often isn't any definitive evidence that someone was raped by someone else. It's often a case of one person says this and the other says that and because of this as long as the person who raped someone continues to claim they are innocent they usually get to walk away.
The victims often feel ashamed of what happened to them, and even if they come forward a lot of times they aren't believed. And in a lot of cases they are put through a series of questions trying to show it was their fault for not saying no loud enough.
Even if you do come forward right away and subject yourself to a rape kit test, they often don't get processed
If Rainn's information is accurate
The Criminal Justice System: Statistics | RAINN
The majority of perpetrators of sexual assault will not go to prison.
Only accepting that someone is capable of rape if they are convicted in a court of law, a place where it's been proven time and time again that the rich and powerful can bend to their whims most of the time, is basically like saying you don't believe the victims, and that they must be lying.
You really can't believe someone when they say they were raped and also say that the person they accused can't be guilty because they didn't get convicted in a court of law. You're lying about one of those things, and this thread is really making it obvious that a lot of people here don't believe victims and it's disgusting.
I'm begging anyone that is saying that "he was never convicted in a court of law." To please think about what you are actually saying, and look into rape cases to get a better understanding of how fundamentally disgusting that statement is. I'm not saying to blindly trust the victims, but to understand that they almost never have anything to gain from speaking up (and typically pay a high price for speaking out), so at least listen to them and don't brush them away because they couldn't get a conviction in a court of law with something that is almost impossible to get such a thing on. Typically they are assumed to be liars, often shunned, and in cases with celebrities often sent death threats or worse. That if they are in a situation where someone with power over them raped them that their life can be torn apart all while that person in power faces no consequences for their actions if they speak out. It's one of the reasons the #metoo movement happened in the first place. People in power abusing their position.
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Nightly News was so far up Kobe's ass this evening. They spent 15 minutes on him and about 2 minutes on the 75th anniversary of the liberation at Auschwitz. What the actual hell?
Why? What about if it was some random joe instead but the exact same thing happened?
I have such a disturbing—yet fiercely felt—mindset when it comes to humans committing evil acts. In the perfect utopia that exists inside of my head, anyone who commits murder or sexual assault would be terminated immediately. A one strike and you're out policy.
My view of justice is very intense, which in some ways I'm grateful for. That view has made me feel ever-more compassion and empathy toward victims throughout the years. Likewise, though, my views on perpetrators of those two specific crimes has continued to harden as I become older and more existentially enraged at all the evil and suffering in the world.
Of course, all of my thinking on this topic fall squarely in the abstract and theoretical. When the rubber meets the road and there are real-life examples, it's often hard to make my rigid, black and white view fit. It's a really difficult mental space to be in, because being consumed by anger (and sometimes even hatred) over people who commit these acts can just eat away at me. I don't even have much of a personal connection to rape or murder—thank god—but I still can't logically justify changing my belief that the world would be a much better place if every sexual abuser and murderer suddenly died this very instant.
So a case like this is really hard to wrap my head around. (And while it shouldn't even have to be said, but I'm in no way factoring in the 8 other people who lost their life. Their deaths are the height of tragedy.)
As it relates to Kobe, though, I have such conflicted feelings. If you asked me in the abstract "Given the power, would you choose for every rapist to die in a sudden fiery explosion?", my response would be an unflinching "hell yes!" But if you were to ask me specifically "Given the power, would you choose for Kobe Bryant to die in a sudden fiery explosion?", my response would be an unflinching "hell no."
It has nothing to do with him being famous or a talented athlete. I'm not a basketball guy, so technical prowess at the sport means very little to me. Rather, his death has caused an unbelievable amount of suffering for many people. Not to mention the tangible difference he made in promoting women's equality in the realm of sports—that cause will take an undeniable hit because of his absence. And, of course, he seemed like a genuinely wonderful father. Those are pretty powerful counterpoints to my idea that the world would be better off if every rapist/murderer was dead.
But even with all of that, it feels like some sort of betrayal of my values to think someone should be let off the hook just because they were well-liked/advanced a good cause. Like I'm favoring the perpetrator over the victims. But I also sure as hell know that desiring death for others is a dirty, ugly thing—no matter how many people they've hurt. It just makes me a worse person... someone who can't live out the higher ideals of loving kindness for all beings because of this archaic form of justice my mind clings to. I don't know if it's my psychology creating an internal fiction to help me cope with the atrocities of the world ("At least in my mind they get what's coming to them!"), but it's something I've struggled with for a long time and I can't seem to make any progress on. Events like this just remind me of how much work I have left to do on myself. (Though, I can't figure out an acceptable alternative. Even if a rapist goes to jail for 30 years, for example, that punishment pales in comparison to the trauma of the victim... which brings my thinking back to square one about the waste of flesh sexual abusers are.)
Finally, I'm not at all trying to make this topic about my psychological quirks and shortcomings. The discomfort and disappointment I feel toward myself over the death wishes I have for those I've judged as irredeemably evil absolutely pales in comparison to what a lot of posters in this thread have gone through. I just wonder how much some people here can relate. There's no shortage of Era members who are also willing to write off an entire human being's worth or existence because of a single bad thing they've done (though I've tried to set my bar a little higher than tweets that have aged poorly or whatever else the kids are cancelling people for these days).
If anyone has had similar views in the past and has then overcome them, I'd love to hear about it.
My view of justice is very intense, which in some ways I'm grateful for. That view has made me feel ever-more compassion and empathy toward victims throughout the years. Likewise, though, my views on perpetrators of those two specific crimes has continued to harden as I become older and more existentially enraged at all the evil and suffering in the world.
Of course, all of my thinking on this topic fall squarely in the abstract and theoretical. When the rubber meets the road and there are real-life examples, it's often hard to make my rigid, black and white view fit. It's a really difficult mental space to be in, because being consumed by anger (and sometimes even hatred) over people who commit these acts can just eat away at me. I don't even have much of a personal connection to rape or murder—thank god—but I still can't logically justify changing my belief that the world would be a much better place if every sexual abuser and murderer suddenly died this very instant.
So a case like this is really hard to wrap my head around. (And while it shouldn't even have to be said, but I'm in no way factoring in the 8 other people who lost their life. Their deaths are the height of tragedy.)
As it relates to Kobe, though, I have such conflicted feelings. If you asked me in the abstract "Given the power, would you choose for every rapist to die in a sudden fiery explosion?", my response would be an unflinching "hell yes!" But if you were to ask me specifically "Given the power, would you choose for Kobe Bryant to die in a sudden fiery explosion?", my response would be an unflinching "hell no."
It has nothing to do with him being famous or a talented athlete. I'm not a basketball guy, so technical prowess at the sport means very little to me. Rather, his death has caused an unbelievable amount of suffering for many people. Not to mention the tangible difference he made in promoting women's equality in the realm of sports—that cause will take an undeniable hit because of his absence. And, of course, he seemed like a genuinely wonderful father. Those are pretty powerful counterpoints to my idea that the world would be better off if every rapist/murderer was dead.
But even with all of that, it feels like some sort of betrayal of my values to think someone should be let off the hook just because they were well-liked/advanced a good cause. Like I'm favoring the perpetrator over the victims. But I also sure as hell know that desiring death for others is a dirty, ugly thing—no matter how many people they've hurt. It just makes me a worse person... someone who can't live out the higher ideals of loving kindness for all beings because of this archaic form of justice my mind clings to. I don't know if it's my psychology creating an internal fiction to help me cope with the atrocities of the world ("At least in my mind they get what's coming to them!"), but it's something I've struggled with for a long time and I can't seem to make any progress on. Events like this just remind me of how much work I have left to do on myself. (Though, I can't figure out an acceptable alternative. Even if a rapist goes to jail for 30 years, for example, that punishment pales in comparison to the trauma of the victim... which brings my thinking back to square one about the waste of flesh sexual abusers are.)
Finally, I'm not at all trying to make this topic about my psychological quirks and shortcomings. The discomfort and disappointment I feel toward myself over the death wishes I have for those I've judged as irredeemably evil absolutely pales in comparison to what a lot of posters in this thread have gone through. I just wonder how much some people here can relate. There's no shortage of Era members who are also willing to write off an entire human being's worth or existence because of a single bad thing they've done (though I've tried to set my bar a little higher than tweets that have aged poorly or whatever else the kids are cancelling people for these days).
If anyone has had similar views in the past and has then overcome them, I'd love to hear about it.