Is Maryville the Next Steubenville?

Taken from the title of this Jez article:

<a class="postlink" href="http://jezebel.com/is-maryville-missouri-the-next-steubenville-1445028162" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://jezebel.com/is-maryville-missour ... 1445028162</a>

Quote:

Focus: Dicuss

 

Yes, it will play out in the same way.

Except at the end when the rapists are added to the sex offender's registry fewer people will wax on about ruined lives.

And the next five times it will happen the same way until the time where the names are added to the registry and everyone says "Good."

 

Why would you taint a legitimate story by linking to Jezebel's coverage of it?

 

Now Anonymous is getting involved. Is internet vigilantism to find justice better or worse? We'll see.

*Well someone listened to their message because the Missouri Lieutenant Governor announced yesterday he is calling for an grand jury.

 

This is going to be tangential to the heart of the story, but-

I blame football. Or to be more precise, the high school institution of football, as glorified by Friday Night Lights.

This story could have been cut and pasted from any number of similar stories over the past 30 years, and these situations are the product of the way high school football players are put on a pedestal, coddled, protected, and practically deified. It is like this in schools throughout the country, but is taken to the extreme in rrual aeras like the midwest and Texas, where high school football is a community focal pooint, a source of entertainment, and a source of inordinate pride for adults with little to be proud about, or to look forward to, other than that game every weekend.

These kids think they can do whatever they want because they have had it ingrained in their minds that because they play football, they are more imprtant than anyone else in the community.

 

I think it goes deeper than the football, this is a small town the rapists family was in politics. Having grown up in a smallish town, the "politicians" in that town felt that they were above the law. I am sure that attitude filters down to their entitled offspring.

 

Not only is Anonymous now getting involved, the Sheriff said, "They are truly a bunch of cowards, hiding behind--even their name, 'Anonymous.' What do you do with people like that?" he said. "They all need to get jobs and quit living with their parents."

Sure, go ahead Sheriff, poke the bear with a stick. Methinks he doesn't have a clue what kind of a shitstorm that will be brought upon him for that statement.

Source

 

If you take away football, the same sort of people would just coalesce around something else. Kids are shitty, and they're hardly ever held accountable for anything anymore. Anti-social behaviour is encouraged and nobody faces any consequences (unless they're mean to a gay kid).

 

Exactly. It's about their precious, precious football. It's pathetic enough that an entire town rests its entire well-being on how well a bunch of asshole teenager can run around on grass, but this is beyond pathetic.

I mean, who does this slut think she is, accusing an athlete-something far above a normal human- of a crime? Sure, her life is ruined and she'll live in fear until she dies but.... He might score touchdowns if he isn't punished!

 

They might. But that fact is that high school football players experience institutionalized entitlement that you don't see in groups of kids hanging out at the Quicky Mart, at chess club, at a party on the "back 40" of someone's dad's farm, or even other high school sports.

 

It has more to do with them being highly visible in the community. We didn't have football where I went to school, but we had the same sort of problems with popular kids. They just happened to be the kids of faculty/cops/councilmen/business owners, homecoming queens, and farmers.

As for anonymous, the guy has a point. 4chan, reddit, and the like are dens of misogyny and hate. They only care about cases like this because the typical basement-dwelling neckbeard is convinced that the jocks are the reason their lives suck and hate them with the fire of a thousand suns.

 

Has anyone ever documented successes by Anonymous? I'd be curious to know if their threats actually hold water.

 

I agree with everything you said 100%. What I worry about, though, is that these cases (Maryville, Steubenville) DO, at first glance, seem to have started out as cover-up, good 'ol boy club types of cases, and only when these anonymous people start acting up do people seem motivated to take another look. If proof of an attempted cover up is proven in this case, then I'll bet we see a LOT more of these anonymous style threats, because they'll practically be proven right, if not lawful. If it didn't work, people wouldn't do it. Or at least make the threat of doing it.

 

The Steubenville case was exposed by a blogger who grew up in the area. Anonymous didn't do much in that case except make the DA's job harder.

 

This makes me so incredibly angry.
First, she is a child. "Asking for it" should never enter into the mindset.
Second, being female does not automatically mean one is asking for it. Nor does being a female and wearing a short skirt, heels, or a pushup bra. NONE of that means anyone is asking for anything.

Saying a rape victim 'asked for it' is a good way to get a jaw jacked, if I had my way.

 

You're right, that strawman is a real dick. I bet he's a cisgender racist, too.

 

I don't give a shit about cisgender or any of that mess.


I do, however, care about the idea that because a female is dressed a certain way, or wearing certain shoes, or making dirty jokes she is an acceptable target for unwanted sexual contact.

 

He's referring to the fact that you're getting worked up over a fictional conversation referenced in a post.