In light of the controversy around the Stanford rape case, it’s amusing to observe Americans wonder why there are many in our country who don’t have an ounce of respect for the justice system.
So I ask them, why should I respect and serve a bunch of clowns masquerading as defenders of the law?
Breaches of justice cycle through our equally pathetic corporate media and ceased long ago to appear random. We’re so failed by the structures above us that many are tempted to take the law into their own hands, knowing anecdotally that the “justice system” is a farce.
After all, when Judge Aaron Persky (with emphasis on his absurd title) decides he’ll go easy on a rapist so as not to ruin his life, what recourse do we have? How should we channel our rage? Where was the consideration for the victim violently and publicly robbed of her dignity?
Lawyers and judges love the image of Lady Justice, with her blindfold, balance and sword. The joke’s on us for buying into such a silly joke: She’s not blindfolded, she’s looking out for the interests of those who devised her image, and the side of the scale that tips lower does so permanently and intentionally.
Oppression is systematic, and the indignity it imposes is hardly accidental.
The same society that tells a pretty white boy he can take possession of a drunk girl’s body is the same society in which a judge decides that such an act of rape is relatively innocuous, the same society in which the convicted rapist’s father says “20 minutes of action” shouldn’t ruin his life.
It takes but a matter of seconds to discharge a weapon and destroy a life.
Again, rape is much more than 20 minutes of vicious cruelty and dispossession and much more than just that physical act. It’s the culmination of a lifetime (really generations) of entitlement to everyone and everything in your path and the institutional reminder that some lives and bodies are disposable.
We saw with the media and justice system’s treatment of the alleged, then convicted rapist that he could never be found guilty of a crime in the truest sense of the word. This is to say they had to decide how guilty she was of a crime committed against her, and how powerless he could be made to look in his own criminality. So they made sure we saw a handsome boy with a promising future, one the judge too wanted to protect and for which he only gave him six months.
Through the whole ordeal we’ve heard the voices of the judge, the rapist and his father, all shill and wholly pathetic. Corporate media, the propaganda arm of the State, thought we should hear their voices, be saturated in these narratives, which lets their privilege and cruelty continue unchecked, parading as normal moral action.
Granted, one triumph of social media and the internet is that we do have access to the voices of the powerless, the erstwhile silent, and in this case the victim’s statement in court was stirring and courageous and it should be voices like hers that shape our narratives and raise our consciousness.
To focus on her sentiments and give her the last word: “I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you can’t be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you. Thank you.”
Jordan MacKenzie is a second-year UF linguistics master’s student. His column appears on Thursdays.
