Hostility surrounded the Steubenville trial last week.
A CNN reporter made comments that sympathized with the two 16-year-old boys convicted of rape.
Poppy Harlow from CNN stated that watching the trial was, “incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart."
The correspondence continued with alcohol blaming and sympathizing without a mention of the victim and her family.
You know, I didn’t believe in what CNN was saying until they mentioned the alcohol.
Alcohol is just so manipulative, right? Dozens of men and women just go around sexually assaulting people because they’re drunk. Personally, that’s why I never drink; for fear that I might get out of hand and exploit someone then brag about it to my friends.
God, that’s just the worst. No one wants “those” friends. We all have those people in our group. The ones who you go out with and you think they can handle their alcohol.
You begin the night with a few shots, grab a drink at the bar, you and your gals or guys are feeling pretty good.
Then “that” friend (and trust me, we all have at least one of these) just gets out of hand. Before you know it, they’re running to the bathroom sexually assaulting people, embarrassing you and your group.
Once you finally get them out of the gross bar bathroom (you held their hair while they ruined their own lives and the lives of others) and onto the street, they continue their embarrassing acts. You try to give them water, to make sure they are OK for the ride back home on the bus.
CNN, I don’t care where you incorrectly placed the focus of your reporting, some may agree or disagree with whether the boys should receive sympathy. But your empathy and the alcohol blaming was just another scaffold to uphold rape culture as a “norm.”
So, thank you for being completely out of touch with all things feminism. But, even more shockingly, thanks for giving a bad name to alcohol.
