Why the Steubenville rape case should be a wake-up call for young black men

By Mychal Denzel Smith, TheGrio

There was video evidence of the assault that took place in Steubenville, Ohio last August, yet observers of the case from near and far were still surprised yesterday when Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond were found guilty of rape by a judge in the rape a 16-year-old girl.

The two high school football players sobbed uncontrollably as Judge Thomas Lipps told them his verdicts, and while they’ll always have their defenders, a great many people were relieved that the courts ruled the way they did. Still, that there was ever any doubt speaks to the sad of state of affairs when it comes to handling rape in this society.

The details of the assault are disturbing to anyone with a half a conscience.

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It would seem a clear-cut case, as she was at no point in a position to consent to any activity, let alone sexual activity, and Mays and Richmond clearly violated her. Yet the defense attorneys still argued that because she made the decision to drink heavily and never “affirmatively” said no, she consented to sex. Also consider that high school football is king in the economically-depressed town of Steubenville and the players are generally treated as royalty. In a text message, Mays says head coach Reno Saccoccia was joking about the incident and that the coach “took care of it for us.”

What’s most disturbing about this whole case is just how ordinary it is. This wasn’t an aberration, the result of some particularly vile and demented boys deciding to rape a young girl.

Rape like this is far more common than we care to admit. This is what a culture of toxic masculinity, as Jaclyn Friedman described it in The American Prospect, produces. From an early age, we teach young boys that girls/women are prizes, trophies to be obtained as the result of some kind of heroism or achievement. They learn they’re owed the sexual attention of girls by virtue of their being born male.

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As punishment, Mays and Richmond will go away to a juvenile detention center for at least a year. When they’re released, they may have to register as sex offenders. The lives they previously envisioned for themselves no longer exist. In a perfect world, this would send a message to other boys that rape is unacceptable, that only yes means yes, and women’s bodies are their own.

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Because it’s easy to write this off as an isolated incident, the result of the actions of a few savage adolescents. But to do so is to deny that these boys are products of a culture that in myriad ways has told them this was not only acceptable but expected of them. While Mays and Richmond are locked away trying to learn their lesson, the rest of us would be prudent to do the same.

Read the Original Article Here

, unfortunately, Black women are all too often victims of sexual assault, including by law enforcement.

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