A Conversation

"Do you believe her?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Then explain this to me: why did she take down her entire Twitter account after people discovered what she'd written?"

"Because of all the hate she was getting."

"It wasn't all hate. She was getting a lot of love, too."

"So? She had a right to take down the account."

Mother nodded, turning her attention to the chicken she'd been prepping for dinner. "I suppose that's true. Everyone has the right to do whatever they want to do. My question is this: if she's claiming to be honest and forthcoming, why hide who she is? Why hide everything about herself? Why delete the account? Why not stand up to the haters? Didn't she know she would get some hate when she put the story out there?"

"Why are you arguing this? She said he did it. He must have done it."

"I'm arguing because it seems like people jump to conclusions without evidence. Is that really the way it should be?" Mother pulled the drumstick free of the joint before glancing at her child. "Our justice system in this country is pretty messed up, but at least a person is considered not guilty until proven otherwise. But that's not the way it is in the media these days. That's not the way it is on social media. Now all a person has to do is make an accusation and it's over. A person's career is ruined because of something someone says he did. But there's no proof. Is that the way it should be? Is that fair?"

"You're always telling me that there's nothing fair in this life."

"True. Life isn't always fair." Mother picked up a knife and used the tip to slit the breast in two before sliding the blade all the way against the bone in an attempt to split it as well. "It's not fair that you lost your job because of a pandemic. It's not fair that your father has cancer. It's not fair that we have a stack of bills we can't pay because I'm the only one bringing in a paycheck. Those are all things that are out of our control."

"Yeah. So?"

"So, don't you think it's within our control to wait before jumping to conclusions? Don't you think it's our responsibility to educate ourselves, to learn as much about a situation as we can before deciding who's guilty and who isn't? Do you really think one person's word against another is really a good reason to ruin a person's career?"

"Do you think it's fair that this person took another person's control away by refusing to respect boundaries?"

"What boundaries?"

The child scoffed. "Physical boundaries! She says that he wouldn't stop when she asked him to! That's rape."

"Of course it is."

"Do you believe her?"

"It doesn't matter if I believe her. What matters is if a cop believes her story, if he can find enough evidence to arrest him. What matters is if a jury of her peers believe her in a court of law. What matters is if there was really a crime here and not a person trying to hurt someone who hurt her."

The child shook their head, mumbling under their breath.

"What was that?"

"You must think that every woman who cries rape must be lying."

"No."

"Or that it's easy to prove rape in court. Like every woman who was ever raped managed to record it or something."

"I don't believe that, either."

"Do you realize how hard it is to prove rape? A lot of times it's the woman's word against the man's, nothing more."

"I know."

"The legal system has a habit of leaning toward the man, blaming the woman for the way she dressed, the way she flirted, the way she acted. For getting drunk at a party--though you don't see guys being criticized for doing the same thing!--like a woman who goes out for a good time is asking to be raped by some guy who thinks he can take whatever he wants any time he wants."

"It does." The mother stood back and studied the butchered chicken, deciding it was as good as she was going to get it. "The legal system has a bad habit of treating rape victims very badly. That's why women are often afraid to come forward after a sexual assault."

"Yeah, cuz people don't believe them!"

The child was triumphant, like they'd just proven their point. The mother glanced at the child, filled with both pride and disappointment.

"You know why else women don't come forward when they've been sexually assaulted? Because there have been so many women who have lied, using the brutality of sexual assault to get something they want--money, fame, attention--that people have become jaded to their words."

"Exactly."

Mother seasoned the chicken with salt and pepper, tossing in a little garlic powder for good measure before putting it all in the roasting pan.

"And then you have this habit among people of going too far one way or the other. First, people don't believe a woman who says she's been raped, or they blame her for her own actions. And that's wrong."

"It is!"

"But with awareness, people swing too far over to the other side. Now everyone believes every word a woman says when she claims sexual assault without looking at the facts. What a year or two ago might have been something people shook their heads at and dismissed is now gospel. I could probably post a story right this moment on Twitter claiming Clint Eastwood assaulted me when I was working at that hotel in New York--do you remember when I worked there?--and everyone would believe me even though he never even stayed in that hotel."

"No one cares about Clint Eastwood now."

"No? If someone accused him of rape, people would care."

Mother slid the chicken into the oven and turned to her child. There was a thoughtfulness on the child's face, igniting hope in the mother's belly.

"We need to take accusations of sexual assault seriously. But we also need to allow for the justice system to do it's job and figure out if the accusations are true or not."

"But the justice system is flawed."

"It is. Because it's run by humans who have biases and faults. But it's better than passing judgment on a person without the benefit of investigation. Without the opportunity for that person to defend themselves and for the victim to tell their story. Everyone should have a voice, not just one person or the other."

The child shook their head again. "Cops are corrupt. They make the evidence say what they want it to say. And lawyers twist everything to put their client in the best light. The justice system is a game of who has the most money to buy the best lawyer. It's ridiculous!"

"Sometimes. But it's better than passing judgment on someone before the evidence is in and ruining their lives before we know for certain they were guilty in the first place!"

"Is it?"

Mother raised her eyebrows. "You don't think so?"

The child shrugged their shoulders. "If he wasn't guilty this time, he probably will be next time. By condemning him now, maybe we're keeping him from victimizing another woman."

"Or maybe you're telling him he's nothing more than a rapist so he decides if he's going to be given the label, he might as well live up to it."

"We have to hold people to a standard."

Mother lowered her head. "We do. But who decides what standard and how we go about imposing it?"

"The people."

"You mean social media."

"Yeah."

"Because all voices are heard on social media, not just the loudest ones."

"Exactly."

Mother snorted. "Well, then, I guess it's okay for someone to make a snap judgment, to condemn someone based on a single accusation."

"There will be more."

"Will there? Who knows? No one waited long enough to see."

"She was underage, Mother."

"Okay. So tell me this one last thing, then I'll let it go. You tell me it's okay for society to shame a man who has been accused of sexual assault without giving him the benefit of investigation and conviction, right? He should lose his job, lose his reputation, right?"

"If he's a rapist, he deserves it."

"Okay. So, based on the accusations of one or two women, this man should be condemned to lose everything that matters to him. You fully believe that?"

"I do."

"Answer me this: what's the difference between destroying a man's career on no proof other than the word of a single woman, and a cop seeing what he believes to be a weapon and firing on a person he believes represents danger to him or his partner?"

The child was outraged. "Those are two very different things!"

"Are they? Aren't they both based on a snap judgment? Aren't they both based on biases, assumptions?"

"But taking away a man's job is different from taking a man's life!"

"Sure. But how else are they different?"

The child sputtered for a second. "They're hugely different! Cops killing black men is racism!"

"Sure. I understand that. But is it fair to judge a person without knowing everything? If the cop is wrong to fire on a black man based on the fact that he automatically believes the black person will fire his weapon because he is black and all black people are violent, isn't it wrong for you to condemn a man for sexual assault just because he is filled with testosterone and has a penis?"

"That's just stupid! That's not why I think he's guilty!"

"But isn't it? One woman accused him, no one else has come forward, and he says that it was simply a relationship that ended badly. He even takes responsibility for how it ended. Yet, the world is ready to convict him without learning the full story just because...what? She's more believable than him? Because he was older, stronger, and has a penis?"

"Because she's..."

"What?"

"You're wrong."

Mother nodded. "Okay. Tell me how."

The child's face was red. The child opened his mouth once, then twice, but nothing came out. Finally, the child shook his head.

"You're stupid! You know it's not the same thing! Racism is racism. And women are too often ignored and should feel safe telling their stories! Men have oppressed them for so long, they deserve whatever they get!"

Mother rolled her shoulders. "I agree. But how is condemning everyone--guilty or not--going to help anyone in the long run? Won't we just end right back where we started one day when men start standing up for themselves again? When social opinion changes?"

"It won't change. Women have finally found their voice. They won't stop using it."

"And they shouldn't. But there was once a time when gay couples were shunned in public, when it was acceptable to condemn a man who had AIDS because, God forbid, he might give it to your innocent, straight child. But that thinking has changed with education. With knowledge. What makes you think this way of thinking won't change?"

"All that gay stuff changed because it wasn't right."

"By whose standard? Who decides what is right or wrong? Who says that a man not convicted in a court of law is a rapist? Who says a cop is racist because he fired his weapon in a moment of apparent danger? Who says that every accusation must be correct?"

"Now you've just lost it. I never thought you were racist or anti-women, but I guess you are!"

Mother lowered her head again, a deep sigh escaping her lips. "Well, I suppose not everyone is perfect."

The child grunted. "I'm ashamed to be related to you! I can't believe the things you're saying! If any of my friends could hear you right now...and they all thought you were so cool! Ridiculous! I can't even stand to look at you right now!"

The child stormed off, leaving the mother with her long list of unanswered questions. Did it really make her racist if she believed that not all cops who shot black suspects were guilty of racism? Did it make her anti-women to believe that not every man accused of rape was guilty? To take it a step further, did the fact that she still believed in a broken justice system make her stupid or naïve?

So many questions. Where was she supposed to find the answers?

Maybe someone on Facebook...