Blaming the Victim

[emmiedahl]

This letter is pretty outrageous and has been all over the British online news, but it reminded me of fundies' attitude toward rape. I think it is directly correlating in fact. I think most fundies would see this letter as abhorrent (which it is) and a sign that the young offender has no remorse, yet they would be quick to excuse a rapist who attacked a woman who was in the wrong place and looked too available.

Thoughts?

[Witsec7]

I'd like to see the FJ grammar and spelling police go at that letter with a vengeance it would give zcccrv yet another thread to hijack. :lol:

[debrand]

I suppose that the victim could write back, "You are not sorry that you robbed me and I am not sorry that the police put your dumb ass away. Considering that you were caught, you can't be too bright."

Okay, I wouldn't write that but it is hyprocritical for the robber to blame the victim when he was stupid enough to get caught. Actually, he is a further idiot because this letter might follow him for the rest of his life. At least if he wrote a contrite note, people would be willing to view him as a reformed felon. No one is going to ever trust this person again.

[Kitty]

This isn't a parody? WTF?! I honestly thought the curtains comment was supposed to spoof the criticism of what a rape victim was wearing at the time.

[emmiedahl]

afaik, it is a letter that a juvenile offender was required to write to his victim as part of his punishment. The rape analogy is most likely unintended, but I immediately thought of it. This letter has caused a decent amount of outcry, but a lot of the same people would never hesitate to judge a rape victim for similar circumstances.

[JesusFightClub]

Bizarrely, I kind of thought "Well, at least he was honest". Writing a syrupy "I'm soooo sorry" letter and then burgling a house as soon as you get out is worse IMO.

Also, no way in hell did that letter reach the victims like that. That was intercepted and leaked to a right wing rag by one of the network of informants that they have. Does anyone believe the authorities don't check the letters first? I wonder, if this is on the level, how much cash the informant made. And how much worse the victims felt...given the identifying info it's not going to be super tough to work out who they are.

[emmiedahl]

I saw it on a linguistics website, then I could not find the website today so I grabbed it off the Daily Mail, which I know is a rag. I just thought the outcry is funny considering that things like this are said about rape crimes all the time. It's even funnier that the outcry is right wing--thanks for the ironic chuckle.

[bananacat]

What kind of linguistics website do you go to? I'm sort of a linguistics buff. I'm not an expert in any formal sense, but the whole topic is so fascinating and I just can't read enough books about it. Yeah, I know it's off-topic, but this is FreeJinger.

[emmiedahl]

It was a blog, I was cruising the net looking for something else and came upon it.

I found the link! http://thesociallinguist.wordpress.com/

[annalena]

It's a horrible habit, always blaming other, never reflecting your own mistakes.

Not only with criminals, with regular people also. My parents are this way. I openened a new bank account recently and the guy told me I already had an account there. I said: "yes, I know I USED to have one, but that was shut down 10 years ago.. or so I was told."

No, it wasn't. My mother. "Oh hell no! THEY must have done something wrong!" Yeah, right. Haven't heard that one before :roll: