In the news all over the place this last week or so was this.

And the media was not guilty alone in the re-victimization of this horrible crime.

Frankly I am tired of the sympathy for Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond. Sorry, but I was not moved by their tears, their apologies after they were found guilty and the proclamation made by Richmond that “my life is over, no one is going to want me now.” These young men…good students, talented football players, young people with so much promise…not unlike their friends Michael Nodianos, Mark Cole II, Evan Westlake, Cody Saltsman, Anthony Craig and every other person (student, parent, teacher, coach, minister) who was witness to and complicit in the rape of a 16 year old girl are wholly and completely responsible for the criminal and immoral actions they did. Period.

We teach our daughters to be mindful of how they dress, how they talk. We teach our girls the difference between
a man who flatters her and one who compliments her,
one who spends money on her and one who invests in her,
one who views her as property and one who views her properly,
a man who lusts after her and a man who loves her,
a man who believes that he is a gift to women and the man who believes she is a gift to him.
We warn our girls to never leave their drink unattended, to never go anywhere alone with a stranger and on and on and on it goes…We instruct and admonish all these things and more when talking to our daughters but it still does not protect them or any other girl or woman from violent sexual crimes against women. But after raising four daughters of mine to be mindful of all of these things and then some I find myself coming to a place where I believe that we should not be teaching our daughters how not to get raped…because NOTHING our daughters do is ever something that makes them deserving of such a horrific thing.

Never!

Never!!

Ever!!!

We need to be teaching our sons these things. We need to instruct our boys that regardless of where a girl comes from or how she might be dressed or what she might be saying or doing she is still a human being just like he is…a human being deserving to be treated just as our son would want to be treated…or might expect his sister or his mother or his grandmother to be treated. We need to make sure that our sons understand that yes they can control their own physical urges. We need to constantly remind our sons that when a girl says no it means no…when a girl is silent it means no…when a girl is under the influence of alcohol or drugs it means no…when a girl is asleep or unconscious it absolutely, positively means no. We need to insure that our sons understand that no girl is ever asking for it because of the way she might be dressed or how she looks when she walks past them or when she is under the influence of any substance that might impair their ability to reason, talk, walk and to definitely say NO!

We need to make sure that our sons and our daughters understand that when they witness such vile acts happening to another human being we should not pull out our smart phones and capture the event on Instagram or for YouTube or Twitter or Facebook or SnapChat or any other social media platform. We need to teach our children that when they pull out their phones they should be calling the police to report a serious crime.We need to teach our children that the victim of the crime is always the victim even when those who committed the crime against the victim are really nice kids with promising futures in sports or academia or are pillars of the community. Our children must come to understand that when they witness someone carrying around an unconscious naked human being it is wrong. We need to make sure our children realize that if they witness someone forcing body parts or any objects into the mouth or vagina or anus of an unconscious person that someone is raping them. We need to instruct our children that the only thing to do, the thing that they MUST do if they witness such heinous acts is to call the police.

Period.