Oh fucking shit

[la_vie_noire]

This is Not an Analysis of Rape Culture. This is a Rant.

Trigger Warning for very graphic and disturbing descriptions of rape, as well as descriptions of death from alcohol poisoning.

This morning I read a story about how a man named Shareef Clemons confessed to raping a 15-year-old girl when he was 16. He raped her along with Juan Williams, who was 17 at the time of the crime that he has also confessed to.

Their victim is now dead. Kierra Johnson cannot see her rapists spend time in prison, because she is dead. She died shortly after Clemons and Williams finished raping her. They raped her as she was dying.

[...]

They raped her as she was dying, and they confessed to it. They plead guilty to rape, to rape, to raping her as she was dying, and the Philadelphia Daily News can’t even bring itself to use the fucking word. They raped her as she was dying, a medical examiner has testified to as much, the men have confessed to as much, the physical evidence proves as much, this girl’s poor mother finding her body dead and partially clothed tells us as much, and this newspaper finds itself unable — no, unwilling — to say “rape” when describing what they did. They have the gall, instead, to actually print these horrible words:

They put on condoms and took turns having sex with Johnson, who was vomiting and drifting in and out of consciousness.

They find themselves unwilling to give this girl even so much dignity in death as to use words that make sense. Because these words they printed on the page are absolute nonsense. You cannot have sex with someone who is vomiting and drifting in and out of consciousness. You can only rape someone in that state. And yet, here they are, using the word sex. Minimizing.

They can’t even treat this dead girl — a dead girl, who it is probably worth noting in this context, was of color — with enough respect as to not feel the need to slut-shame her with irrelevant details about her life[..]

They seemingly tell us this to let us know what a wild child she was, and that she was previously sexually active. In what context is a child’s prior sexual activity and disciplinary problems at school relevant to a report about her death, and the boys who raped her as she was dying? What possible purpose could it serve, if you are not just attempting to indicate that maybe she deserved it, if you are not merely intent on devaluing and shaming a girl of color in a way that girls of color are so regularly and specifically devalued, based on her sexuality?