Tuesday, June 07, 2016

The Day I Accomplished Nothing, and Everything At The Same Time (How's that for cryptic?)

Well, I accomplished nothing today.  That's not exactly true.  I did NOT accomplish what I set out to do today.  It's been hotter than all get out here, so I had planned to work in the classroom, then get my butt moving & hit Costco, walk the dog, (Millie; working to resocialize her,) to the dog park, & make dinner, all before it got too hot.  NONE of THAT, happened.  Ok, working in class happened.  It's the last week of school.  The other parent who works on Monday's w/me figured the teacher didn't need us, so he didn't show.  I still wanted to bring the teacher her Monday Sbux, so I went in, you know, just in case.  Holy Crap! Did she had LOTS for us to do?!  Instead of getting out in an hour, it took 3! It was 11:30 before I left.  Walking off campus, I checked FaceBook.  THAT was where my day went sideways.
  As with anyone, who doesn't live under a rock, I've been following the clusterf*ck that the Brock Turner, rape trial and sentencing has become.  I will henceforth be referring to him him as "The Rapist."  Calling him by name is giving him notoriety that he does NOT deserve.  For the same reasons, I'm not linking to any of the negative things about this case; his dad's letter, his friend's letter, etc.. you can find them very easily online on your own.  Once he's out of jail, I will then refer to  him as "Brock the sexual predator," because that's what he is & why he's on the sexual predator list for the rest of his life.  After reading that,  I think you're pretty much up to speed on my feelings about this whole thing.  Ok, so like most people, I had read the victim's letter this weekend.  It was devastating.  Seriously devastating.

 Let me say right now, that, how articulate this girl is; she is exactly what the movement against rape culture & victim blaming needed right now.  I wish there was a way she could stay private, while being able to capitalize on those writing skills, because she is AMAZING.  And she deserves ALL. THE. THINGS. But also, if there was a way to undo all this, so you didn't need to write that letter honey?  I'd do that for you too.  No one, should EVER have to go through the hell that you've lived through.  No one should have to be a victim in being a victim, but that is precisely what our society does & it's VERY, VERY WRONG. You should know this: I believe, that because of you;  Because you stood up time & time again.  Because you took the time to really, really put together how it all FELT from YOUR perspective.  (The only one that should matter in this case.)  Because of all of THAT, my daughters' have a much better chance of NOT having to go through something like this.  And I'm forever indebted to you for your courage.  So Thank You for that.  Your efforts were not in vain.  (Yes, I know my grammar & such, is all over the place, but I'm trying to get this out w/out getting too riled up so I can get SOME sleep tonight.  I have deadlines right now for all sorts of things & THIS is all that's been happening.  It's consumed me today.  So forgive me, my syntax & know it has to do w/how passionately I feel about all of this.  This was so important it beat out finishing teacher, father's day & b-day gifts.  I'm behind on all of those bc of soccer already, so yeah...)
Like I said, we were in the middle of soccer tournament hell, (in which Little's team took 1st in her division, so "yeah!"   But seriously,  I couldn't really allow myself to get mired in the debacle at the time.  I was fried & exhausted from managing kids in 100+ degree heat all day.  We fell into bed both nights & up early for more! go team. bah.  But today, ugh.  Today, I read the dad's letter, and my head about exploded.  OH. MY. GOD.  I've read about people like this, but I thought they were smart enough to keep these kinds of thoughts to themselves.  I ALMOST feel sorry for the rapist after reading that letter.  How much of a chance did he stand, when the whole time he's growing up being told how "preshus & speshul he is?  How none of ANYTHING is HIS fault. Not EVER!"  He's special after all. He's smart.  He's an Olympic hopeful! He's living the dream, so of course, let's all gather round & make sure he gets his dream, regardless of the cost to others.  I'm sure you've heard the "20 minutes of action line."  Or my husband's personal favorite, "he won't eat his favorites of mom's vittles; like steak. Hasn't he suffered enough already?" ChristonaCracker!  Normally, I'd go pull the actual quotes from the article, but I can't go read it again right now.  I'll get my panties all in a bunch & then I really WON'T sleep tonight.  We know how good I am at that, as it is.  So, trust me, my paraphrase isn't far off.   After reading that, via a link from Mir's FB page, I commented,"I hope someone goes all "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"on him; Get him drunk & tattoo "rapist" on his forehead.  Then he'll know what being violated feels like."  Several people liked my comment quite a bit.  (I probably shouldn't be proud of that, but I am. I'm so clever when I'm pissed.  Hey, I can finally own up to something if I ever get around to going to confession. Yeah Me!) Around this time the letter from the rapist's friend, who is a girl, was linked to, as well.  This was the ever popular:

"Where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn’t always because people are rapist"
(Someone on another FB post did the copy/paste thing, so I didn't have to go find it.  Thanks for that!) 

Um, no honey.  If you rape someone, you ARE the very definition of a rapist. They don't wear a uniform so we can avoid them.  And part of the reason they get away with it is exactly because of the types of things you're saying.  It's called victim blaming. (This is the part of the subject that will get me good & wound up.)   THEN, someone linked to a FB page FOR the rapist.  (And my head pretty much exploded.  Note all of this happened in less than probably 15 minutes.)  This was the continuance of  a "It can't possibly get any worse, yet here's another" type of thread.  This page was called; (Ugh, I hate to use his name again,) "Brock Turner for 2016 Olympics."  It was so vial, so blatantly awful, that other people seriously thought it was some sick joke.  I don't know who hosted it.  It implied it was family, but I'd like to think they're a little smarter than to do something so brazenly awful.  I was so upset by it, I reported it to FaceBook for hate speech.  Then I went back to the thread on Mir's post & encouraged others to do the same.  One person indicated that she'd reported it for "inappropriate content" the other day, & they pulled down some of the photos.  (Incredibly inappropriate memes that implied that the victim was The Rapist, not the person who was raped.)  THAT, my friends, emboldened me.  They obviously didn't disagree with us.  (I wish I'd taken a screen shot in the middle of this, but I didn't think it would happen as fast as it did in the end.)  I posted this to my FB page.  I linked to his FB page & told my friends & followers we could do something about it.  You see, we live in Santa Clara County.  We can make sure this judge isn't allow to re-victimize anyone again by having him disbarred.  He's up for election tomorrow (well actually today, but it's late, so it's still MY tomorrow).  Usually, we're so frustrated because we feel helpless to do anything.  But this time, I believe we can, so I was on it.  The other thing we can do?  We can get this & any other similar FB pages we find, pulled down.  Luckily, I took screen shots of my posts.  (Below.)  I didn't get the comments included by friends & friends of friends.  Once FB did pull his page, (read the photos to see,) then they pull the comments section of my post.  Eventually, they pulled the whole post.  Luckily, I got a text from a friend asking me what was up, because she couldn't see my comments anymore, but his page was down.  I got on my phone, (was in the middle of "mom's taxi" duties) & checked.  I had just gotten home, so I pulled my laptop to see what was up.  My laptop couldn't bring up anything related to my posts.  FB had deleted them all!  I have to say that annoys the crap out of me.  There was good discussion happening on that post.  Several links to various petitions.  Discussion about bad decisions we all made in college & how lucky we were, that those drunk guys, were still "stand-up guys" when drunk.  But, I did manage to get photos of the start of it & an update.  I'm actually really proud to have been part of this.  I know I made a difference.  If I hadn't, they wouldn't have pulled my stuff down.  We were bugging the crap out of them w/out EVEN TRYING YET! (And to my friends who work at FB, my apologies for being a PITA.  But I know you must've agreed, you just needed to figure out how to do it legally.) I know, it's a drop in a bucket, but enough drops & our bucket will fill up. Maybe, just maybe, I need to get back to writing again.  Turns out, people might just be interested in what I have to say.  Who knew?  I guess you did. ;-)

So w/out further ado, I present,

How To Get A FaceBook Page Taken Down For Hate Speech (In 5 Parts):