It's finally starting to calm down a bit here on the internet. The vitriol, the hyperbole, the anger is finally starting to subside as folks move on with their busy lives, ready to amp things up again when the next crisis occurs. In the wake of any massive wave of anger, such as the latest one involving the Steubenville, Ohio rape case, the more level headed and thoughtful of us begin weighing in. However, after considering not only the facts of the case itself, but the varied reactions to the case do we begin the process of composing our thoughts to be added to the glut of opinions floating about within the digital sphere. Unfortunately, as with anything on the internet, even the most heinous of acts has a limited shelf life in this fifteen-second-attention-span world we live in and the best of thoughts on "what do we do to fix this?" are lost in the ether, only to be read by like-minded people who also waited for the huff and self-righteous indignation to die down enough to try and get a word in.
That being said, it is obvious to me that we are dealing with not an insignificant amount of dysfunction when talking about Steubenville. You have a dead steel town whose only source of pride is a good high school football program. Players on these teams are, for a short time, treated as near-royalty, only to be relegated to a future of dead-end jobs and little choice. In that brief window, young men are nearly bullet proof. They're placed upon the highest of pedestals and anyone attempting to bring them back to earth are treated with disdain and contempt by the entire community. Talking about rape is still, even in 2013, a social taboo in most of America. We are still a culture of "look at what she was wearing, of course she was asking for it". We don't teach young men that "no is no" in any and all circumstances. It's not taught in sex ed and there's no national conversation addressing it beyond the sphere of crime and punishment. The mainstream media, in all its dysfunctional glory, works only to exacerbate the problem further by glorifying the most atrocious of cases, dragging out the most lurid of details in the hope of drawing a larger viewership and selling more advertising dollars, rather than doing what the media is supposed to be doing: providing useful information.
There's plenty more that could be said here, but people smarter and more eloquent than I have already said it. We will learn nothing from this and it will happen again. There are those who have complained that the reporting and subsequent trial of this case has and/or will tear the town of Steubenville apart. I can only hope so. Places like Steubenville, Ohio need to die for good. They have no place in modern-day America. They are relics of a bygone era. They are our past, not our future.
That all for now. Tomorrow is another day.
-Jay
That being said, it is obvious to me that we are dealing with not an insignificant amount of dysfunction when talking about Steubenville. You have a dead steel town whose only source of pride is a good high school football program. Players on these teams are, for a short time, treated as near-royalty, only to be relegated to a future of dead-end jobs and little choice. In that brief window, young men are nearly bullet proof. They're placed upon the highest of pedestals and anyone attempting to bring them back to earth are treated with disdain and contempt by the entire community. Talking about rape is still, even in 2013, a social taboo in most of America. We are still a culture of "look at what she was wearing, of course she was asking for it". We don't teach young men that "no is no" in any and all circumstances. It's not taught in sex ed and there's no national conversation addressing it beyond the sphere of crime and punishment. The mainstream media, in all its dysfunctional glory, works only to exacerbate the problem further by glorifying the most atrocious of cases, dragging out the most lurid of details in the hope of drawing a larger viewership and selling more advertising dollars, rather than doing what the media is supposed to be doing: providing useful information.
There's plenty more that could be said here, but people smarter and more eloquent than I have already said it. We will learn nothing from this and it will happen again. There are those who have complained that the reporting and subsequent trial of this case has and/or will tear the town of Steubenville apart. I can only hope so. Places like Steubenville, Ohio need to die for good. They have no place in modern-day America. They are relics of a bygone era. They are our past, not our future.
That all for now. Tomorrow is another day.
-Jay
No comments:
Post a Comment