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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsShe was twelve and I'll never forget her.
She was twelve - mentally challenged from an impoverished family with parents who were mediocre caregivers at best. She lived in a rundown trailer surrounded by hard dirt and rocks. You've seen her home before - in movies, described in books, on the news. The kind of place looked down on - where the dregs of society gathered - the eyesore, the blight on the otherwise perfect place to live.
You've probably seen her or someone like her - playing outside, in the dirt, on a sunny day - while traveling along the highway to a better destination.
She was twelve and she lived in the kind of place that at night becomes a who's who of the best of the best. In the dark - you're not only protected by the absence of light, you're also granted the sweet relief of denial. If no one (that matters) sees you, then it didn't happen. You were never there. You don't even see the little girl playing on the floor, up way past her bedtime.
What mattered was where you went next. To the people who did matter. The people who would whoop your coming and the bounty you brought them. The high school weekend party - where the best of the best gathered, away from parents, away from judgment, and away from the unknown names and faces of classmates who didn't matter anyway. Well, unless you need someone to pick-on come Monday. The desire to feel better about yourself after a weekend of denial can be strong - and the pimply-faced dweeb in first period is handy.
She was twelve and mentally challenged. A neglected child from not simply the other side of the tracks - that's where the black kids lived - but a child from the wrong side of life, period.
This medium-sized southern town was a lesson in social stratification. If you were ready to learn. Textbook case. Lines so tightly drawn you could almost see them. You could definitely feel them.
The black community was literally across the train tracks, where the pollutants of racism and industry kept a check on the lives of those who resided beyond the depot - lives that were too often shortened and diminished by both.
A place for everything and everyone - and everyone in their place. That was the town I lived in for far too long.
Across the tracks and through the main thoroughfare one would find themselves traveling the vista and strata of low to upper middle class to the stratosphere of impossibility. With every block passed there was a delineation of modest homes to stately old mansions of old money to the grandiose lake houses of new. All expressing a quantifiable proof of income - of worth.
She was twelve and mentally challenged and she ran away. One day she simply left out, walking up the trash strewn dirt drive to the highway, alone and heading nowhere. Anywhere. Out. Away.
One Monday sitting in a throw-away class for Seniors designed for nothing more than raising that all important grade point average - a group of boys were discussing their weekend.
Together they stood, in a circle of testosterone, happily, almost joyously, telling their tales of conquest. Loudly they replayed, without a care in the world, how they each had a turn.
She was twelve, mentally challenged, and a run-away. She was picked up by a group of boys in a white van. They promised to take her home.
I sat there in shock. Not believing what I was hearing. I already knew what I was going to do.
A popular athlete walks into class and takes a seat. The rapists turn to him and want to know if he "got a piece?".
The young African-American man gave them a look of scorn and said, "Y'all can get away with shit like that. We'd get lynched".
The rapists wondered if that was a "No".
They said he'd have a second chance since the girl was being held in a van at a strip mall parking lot.
No one "across the tracks" was dumb enough or depraved enough to join in on the gang rape - it came out later. Though a few best of the best parents desperately tried to make it seem as if there just had to be some involvement by black students. Because a black man raping a white girl would dwarf the involvement of their precious white boy. Because that's how racism works and everyone knew it.
The teacher entered the room, everyone took their seats, and when she got to my name during roll call, I asked to be excused.
She was twelve, mentally challenged, and being driven all over town for boys to take a turn.
She was twelve, a victim of gang rape, and currently being held hostage in a locked van.
I went to a teacher I trusted. She was relatively new and I mistakenly thought she had not been infected by the blindness that permeated the school.
A school where students were placed in college prep courses dependent on their parent's income more so than ability. A school where being black got you automatically placed in lower level classes unless you somehow showed exceptional promise. Emphasis on exception. An exception determined by the begrudging allowances of racism.
They did the same with poor whites. If they didn't know your parents then they weren't part of their social circle, so who are you? Never discount the brutality of classism for diminishing opportunity.
That same teacher would later be part of the harassment against me in retaliation for speaking up.
She was twelve and alone and afraid. She was bleeding from the multiple rapes as well as the kitchen utensils that were used to penetrate her.
I called the police. Told them everything I heard, who said it, and all the other names that came up during the recitation of "boys being boys".
They found the girl.
The next day the local paper had the story. The lede was how a white trash little girl, who was mentally retarded and neglected by her drug dealing parents, had run away only to be raped by some boys.
No, they didn't actually call her white trash but they may as well have done so. They did call her mentally retarded and neglected by parents with past drug charges, and who lived in a rundown trailer on a dirt road.
About the boys?
Well, they were "good boys" from "good families" and everyone was shocked.
Boys and men from middle school to high school to recent high school graduates.
All. Taking. A. Turn.
At school a few days the same teacher I thought I could trust wanted to get our "feelings" on the subject. She looked away from me when I caught her eye.
My fellow classmates said:
"She asked for it."
"They shouldn't have to have their lives ruined because of this."
"They are good boys from good families."
"Her parents should have been watching her."
"She's retarded. She won't remember anyway."
"She's not from a good family."
"They are just kids."
"They did nothing wrong".
"She didn't say No."
"She didn't try to get away."
Just some of the horrible things the best of the best had to say about the kidnapping and gang rape of a little girl.
I spoke up.
I said - " I don't care if she had a welcome mat between her legs - she was raped - and I hope the first boy had a raging case of herpes and that every boy after was infected."
I bore the genuinely shocked and dirty looks with relish.
I wasn't wishing harm on the little girl. I was angry over what happened to her and wanted the boys and men involved to pay. Because I knew the "good families" in town were against her and that meant justice was against her too.
But that's not what angered my classmates. It was the harm I was wishing on the rapists that bothered them.
The school and town played the whole thing down and went about in the same comforting denial as always - but still always attacking the victim.
I won't bore you with the abuse and harassment I took the rest of the school year because it was worth it. The real threat of a lawsuit helped to curtail a good deal of it. Even the principal was involved in the harassment and the quickest to realize how a lawsuit would open it all up again.
Of the three dozen or so boys and men who raped the little girl, only 4 went to trial.
None got jail time.
One was allowed to join the military as punishment.
The little girl and her family were forced to move away.
If you've read this far, thank you. I hope you'll indulge me a few seconds more.
High school was decades ago for me but I will never forget my senior year and not for the fond memories that stay with a lot of people.
Even after all those years have gone by - today, in the here and now - society has changed some but not enough.
Women and girls are attacked for reporting sexual assault. Even when they don't report it but the whole town knows or the whole school knows, they are harassed and abused. They are attacked without mercy. Vicious assaults against them as a person. They are made to be seen (and feel) as less than the dirt they played in on sunny days.
It has to stop. Please.
malaise
(269,278 posts)Get thee to the greatest page for everyone to read.
Entitled young men have gotten away with rape for far too long. ENOUGH!
Thank you for speaking up.
Ilsa
(61,712 posts)I'm trying to process the level of abuse heaped on this girl, her family, you, and anyone seeking justice while making excuses and enabling a repeat of this dastardly behavior. I wonder how many of them are mayors, politicians, etc, now.
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)bigtree
(86,016 posts)I sincerely hope that the girl got medical and psychological treatment and that she could go on to live her life in peace, not in pieces.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Its heartbreaking. Horrible. What disgust you must feel!
pazzyanne
(6,560 posts)sdfernando
(4,948 posts)Thank you for everything you did to help that young girl.
AllyCat
(16,260 posts)If no one believes us.
Haggis for Breakfast
(6,831 posts)Even if your voice shakes.
mnhtnbb
(31,415 posts)Makes me think of To Kill a Mockingbird. Little southern towns are full of bigotry and racism and sexism.
I believed Anita Hill. I believe Dr. Ford.
And you are right. It has to stop.
raccoon
(31,131 posts)whathehell
(29,103 posts)It's world phenomenon.
backtoblue
(11,348 posts)All I can say is thank you.... Speechless and horrified.
csziggy
(34,139 posts)Both for the girl and for you. Thank you, Solly Mack.
tulipsandroses
(5,131 posts)It has to stop - A lot has changed - But not enough
There is so much work that needs to be done
blueinredohio
(6,797 posts)And sadly it still happens every day. That's why I say we have to get rid of those old white men out of government.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)lillypaddle
(9,581 posts)A sad, but I suppose common tale. Wonder what she is doing now-a-days. Whatever it is, I'm sure she remembers, all too vividly, too. I hope she has peace in her life. Thanks for sharing.
cally
(21,601 posts)I don't know what to write except your courage, morals, and and kindness stand out. Thank you for helping a little girl who probably would have been killed and I hope all the rapists caught a non treatable std.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)After everything, being held for 3 days and repeatedly raped. That they would kill her. They could have easily taken her lifeless body a few miles away and it would have been years before anyone found it.
salin
(48,955 posts)Before there was Steubanville, there were too numerous to count Steubanvilles. And sadly the cycles continue.
Thanks for standing up back then, and still standing righteously today.
It really does need to stop.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)Different victims, different rapists but the story remains the same.
salin
(48,955 posts)from incident in 2006. Echos of the tale you told. Tragic.
And replaying across the country (and world).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/opinions/arlington-texas/?utm_term=.6be6f953ff5a
In this the schoolmates of the victim created a taunting vicious an acronym FAITH that is violent, and was chalked all over the school.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)Thanks.
salin
(48,955 posts)I don't post that frequently anymore - but it is always nice to cross pass with you when I do post.
peace.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)Especially the part about the mother who attacked the victim and worded her statements to protect herself and the guilty.
Take care and come around more often.
flotsam
(3,268 posts)You have just joined my must read list.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)And I'm fond of sarcasm in as few as words as possible.
But thank you.
voteearlyvoteoften
(1,716 posts)But most of all Thank You for helping the child xo
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)She deserves better but it's what I can do.
ZZenith
(4,136 posts)And thanks to everyone whos ever stood up to such injustice. Society must stop coddling the monsters amongst us.
sheshe2
(84,057 posts)Yes it made me cry.
I hope she found some peace. Sweet baby girl.
Hekate
(91,005 posts)...in their place via fear. Fear and shame, no matter how deeply suppressed.
You spoke out.
Oh, Solly.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)And it showed how untouchable they thought they were - and they were, in the end.
demmiblue
(36,914 posts)Thank you for sharing, Solly.
(One of the first things that sprang to mind was Steubenville)
geardaddy
(24,931 posts)betsuni
(25,788 posts)MLAA
(17,369 posts)brer cat
(24,646 posts)joshcryer
(62,287 posts)MontanaMama
(23,366 posts)Ive got nothing. Nothing but tears and rage. Thank you Solly. This has to stop.
JohnnyLib2
(11,212 posts)I have a sickening feeling that stories like this child's have been around, sometimes in newspapers, all of my 7 decades.
raccoon
(31,131 posts)alwaysinasnit
(5,082 posts)Frustratedlady
(16,254 posts)Her name was Lori and she was also slow. I saw her being led into a wooded ravine by a group of boys ranging from 8-12...one, being her brother. I think much of their excitement was curiosity of the human body, but I couldn't take a chance of how far they would go.
I ran to the timber and finally found them. Being an adult shook them up a bit, but having to explain to their parents what they had just done was painful for each. I doubt they ever tried such a trick again. As it turned out, it was a cheap lesson for both the boys and Lori.
I've often wondered what happened to little Lori. She didn't have a happy home, either, and was willing to do most anything for love.
lpbk2713
(42,774 posts)A lot of people wouldn't. I'm glad there are people like you.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)regnaD kciN
(26,045 posts)That poor girl.
And dont anyone try to excuse it with boys will be boys. I was a high-school boy, too, in a peer group of high-school boys. And, while the behavior of guys in that group might not have been perfect, at least they understood that you dont force a girl into sex. Period. Ever.
Afromania
(2,771 posts)Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)greatauntoftriplets
(175,771 posts)You are a woman of great courage.
yardwork
(61,772 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Stuart G
(38,458 posts)Squinch
(51,083 posts)NatBurner
(2,640 posts)i'm speechless
blm
(113,131 posts).
IluvPitties
(3,181 posts)You did what you could.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)How can people be so evil? Reading that absolutely infuriated me - from those sick, entitled boys who treated her like her life and her body didn't matter to the callous adults who turned their backs on this little girl and you and stood up for the perpetrators. What the fuck is wrong with people like this? I just want to scream sometimes because I know that her story is not unique. This happens more often that people realize and justice is rarely found.
Thank you for your compassion and kindness. I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been for you.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)Thank you for the message, the reminder, and for standing against injustice.
calimary
(81,594 posts)I'm glad you shared this story, as painful and horrifying and disgraceful as it is.
What's far worse is that it's the kind of story STILL being told now (as I have the TV on in the background, hearing about what some old farts are already saying about Professor Ford).
Are we EVER gonna get beyond this?
redwitch
(14,954 posts)Reading this made me feel sick inside. Thank you for speaking up.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)Brogrizzly
(145 posts)Powerful post, it will be hard to not think of this girl, her experience will and should be the standard filter we use to discuss sexual assault. This has to stop. Agreed.
mia
(8,363 posts)The truth of it touched me to the core. Thank you.
gademocrat7
(10,682 posts)How horrible for that young girl. Thank you for standing up for her.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)I had to go have a good cry after the OP was written. For the little girl, for myself - also a rape survivor - all who have been sexually assaulted, for all women, and for all of us as people.
Then I looked in the Lounge for anything funny or adorable. I needed adorable.
I read the thread and your empathy and sympathy for the little girl poured out from your words. Your anger, too.
I usually answer all replies but you'll have to forgive me if I don't do so now. I'm spent.
I've talked about her before on DU but I never felt I did her justice and I got a little closer to something resembling justice today - more than I ever have before. A very small justice but one that matters to me. For the moment...
Truth be told, until my classmates and the others, now heading into their 60's and beyond, can finally own up to the pain they caused - for them to know that someone thinks they should be forced to look back and acknowledge what happened - to know that someone still demands they be held accountable - until then, I'll always feel the need to do more to help that long ago twelve year old girl.
Thank you, again. For your words. For your caring. For your anger.
Solly
dchill
(38,610 posts)leanforward
(1,077 posts)May they all rot in hell.
Why could not some one stand up?
I could not read all of you thread. It got to me.
sellitman
(11,610 posts)We need more.
Well written and heartbreaking.
dalton99a
(81,700 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)Similar scenario, and of course the boys were star athletes, so theyre the best of the best, as you say, Solly Mack.
I cant even articulate how angry it makes me...
Sick of how girls are treated in this world. So sick of it.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)And I feel that anger each and every time I read yet another report where only the names change - the story remains the same.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)When will Womens lives matter? Well we will have to fight for our own right to life.
Alwaysna
(574 posts)What action can be taken to quell this toxic masculinity? Education doesn't seem to work. All around growing males are attitudes about having superiority for having a penis and messages of inferiority for not having one. Somehow having one entitles some to behave and not be held accountable for the most horrendous & vile actions. And it happens worldwide. Why? What will change this? After each incidence whether here or India or elsewhere there is outrage and then nothing changes. What will it take for the males of the world to behave as men? What is the solution?
TwistOneUp
(1,020 posts)pansypoo53219
(21,009 posts)or #them too!
kimbutgar
(21,270 posts)Thank you for taking a stand and reporting this. You are a good person. What more can a person ask for themselves!
Trueblue Texan
(2,451 posts)Thank you for taking the time to write this so honestly.
cate94
(2,816 posts)You are both courageous and kind.
MustLoveBeagles
(11,675 posts)Thank you for standing up for this girl when no one else would.
mahina
(17,751 posts)Demonaut
(8,937 posts)Silver Gaia
(4,552 posts)Thank you for what you did.
LuvNewcastle
(16,867 posts)I get a mental picture of 36 men and boys standing in line to fuck the retarded girl. That is some depraved shit. And they were bragging about it. Did their parents not teach these guys anything about how to treat other people? It's scary as hell, mainly because this kind of behavior is rather common.
panader0
(25,816 posts)Powerful writing.
kag
(4,079 posts)I grew up in such a town. I knew boys like the rapists you write about. Kids were either "in" or "out," either "cool" or knew their place and knew what happened to anyone who tried to step outside of their designated class.
I'm not sure I've ever read such a perfect description of the racism and segregation that happened there, much of it self-imposed--learned behavior from generations of families who knew their place in the social structure, and made damn sure their kids knew it too.
Anyway, thanks for this most poignant of stories. It goes a long way toward explaining why we can't let Kavanaugh off the hook; chalk it up to a youthful indiscretion, and show yet another generation of kids what happens when you mess with the social order.
The idea that we would let this person--that we already let this person--sit in judgement of people whom he sees as less than human, whom he clearly believes are undeserving of justice, justice which he and a small group of "chosen" ones are entitled to deliver is sickening.
It's about character, integrity, humility...and the lack of it.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)Because that was my town.
Big on a myth they embraced wholeheartedly while adhering to the rules they imposed that keeps people down.
Raster
(20,998 posts)lunamagica
(9,967 posts)niyad
(113,860 posts)suffragette
(12,232 posts)and being kind.
demigoddess
(6,645 posts)I am so ashamed of those teachers. They should have done better than that!!!
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)And their children did the same.
I ended up telling that one teacher exactly what I thought her.
spanone
(135,924 posts)K&R...
RazBerryBeret
(3,075 posts)that was hard to read so I cannot imagine living that, both you and the young girl.
Thank God you were there.
samplegirl
(11,522 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,791 posts)For your courage then, and now.
For doing what you could.
We must do the same: What we can!
bluecollar2
(3,622 posts)For posting this and for standing up for that young girl.
I hope that those who violated her, and those that condoned and supported this act of brutality all rot in hell...
VOX
(22,976 posts)I have no accessible words that dont involve a red-hot streak of rage-fueled invective aimed at this behavior.
Thank you, Solly Mack, for casting sunlight on this unbearable tragedy, and for speaking out back then. Its utterly heartbreaking, but resolve and courage can enter a broken heart, and make one stand strong against the worst that men can do.
Denzil_DC
(7,288 posts)You don't know whether they're true or not. Often you'll never have any way of knowing.
This is so powerfully written, I can't find it in me to disbelieve it.
Thank you for writing it. I hope it helps in your own healing.
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)horrific situation you became a hero of.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)It's beyond disgusting how common it is - so much so all the stories blend into each other.
The girls become a never-ending parade of faceless victims, one after the other, so many that after a while they begin to sound like Urban Legends - tales of horror taking place all over the country - same basic story with different names and different locations.
I sometimes think that instead of making people aware of the problem the telling of their stories seems only to serve to diminish the pain and suffering of the victims. To remove them from our own lives because all that bad has to be happening in some far-away awful place.
Not in my town, kind of thing, when it is so obviously happening everywhere - and yes - even in your town.
I hope that's not true but it feels true all too often.
That victims are relegated to the tales of horror parents tell their children as a warning to be careful - tales children all too often scoff at because they can't be true.
Victims of sexual assault are not cautionary tales. That sends the wrong message about sexual assault. It blames the victim when it is the guilty who should carry all the weight of shame and blame.
Yes, it's the victim's story - but it's only the victim's story because of the guilty. They are the true cautionary tale.