Control
On October 24th, a teenage girl was gang raped and beaten on the campus of Richmond High School (an town on the east side of the San Francisco Bay). According to published reports, the attack took place over the course of two and a half hours and bystanders did nothing to stop it or help the girl. There’s a great deal of anger, outrage and discussion of “what the heck is wrong with people” going on in Northern California right now.
Many are blaming video games, depressed economics, lack of parent participation at the dance and the school itself for this event. Most people are asking how this could happen, and I think I have an answer to that question. It started with a bad decision…
Let me say, that under no circumstances is what happened to this girl acceptable. NOT ACCEPTABLE!
But it was preventable…
According to reports, the girl left the dance and was walking to meet her father for a ride home when a classmate invited her to join a group drinking in the courtyard. The victim had consumed a large amount of alcohol by the time the assault began, police said.
One bad decision (not being where she was supposed to be), compounded by another (consuming alcohol), multiplied by the number of drinks consumed, led this girl to lose control of her circumstances. And with that loss of control came the opportunity for someone to harm her, and they did.
This loss of control happens in high schools and colleges all over our country. It happens to girls and to boys and although the physical crime of rape is less likely to happen to a boy, the consumption of alcohol has on countless occasions made boys do things they never would have considered sober.
I taught high school for two years right after college… a time when it was fresh in my mind what could happen to girls when they drank too much and passed out in a fraternity house after party hopping. It was a lesson I tried to share with the girls in my classes… It’s a lesson I was reminded of again and again over the last two weeks. It’s a lesson I will be reminding my high school aged niece of again when I see her at Thanksgiving.
My thoughts are with the victim, her family and her friends… My hope is that we will all learn something and in turn teach something valuable to the youngsters in our lives as a result.