I'm a student here and have heard all about the incident on campus Wednesday morning. Near Neely Avenue, two women reported a white male on a "bluish" bicycle slapped them on the behind as he rode past. This also happened to a faculty member and, at least once, was followed up with the assailant giving the woman the finger and shouting "I love you!" I'm doubting these were his first and only acts against women. Read the full story here.
Do I believe these incidents worthy of newstime on CNN? No. Do I believe UPD (University Police Department) overreacted? Only slightly. There's a reason for the emergency posts around campus. One of them is because assaults worse -- some far worse -- have occurred on the Ball State campus, at least two last semester alone. And that doesn't include those that went unreported.
Do students take incidents like this seriously? Of course not.
Was there outrage that people would do this? Hardly.
Was there a Facebook fan page for the perpetrator? Yep.
And t-shirts that are selling for $10 a pop. I could hardly believe it when I saw the page on Facebook. How do these people see another's violation as funny or appropriate in any way? In my Theater 100 class, on guy (note the gender) said he would have taken it as a compliment. Granted, a few girls said this, too, but I'm doubting this is how those women would feel, or how those who were the object of this man's "affections" felt, when it happened to them. And people wonder why assaults are so prevalent on college campuses. It isn't just alcohol overflowing, despite laws regarding age of students allowed to drink. To be honest, if you think your little boy or little girl doesn't have access to alcohol on campuses because he/she is under twenty-one, you are, with all due respect, an idiot. It isn't because of testosterone-filled college guys at parties who lose control. It's not because girls make poor choices. These are all factors, but I believe the ultimate reason is because things like some butt-slapper are taken so lightly. No one thinks twice until someone gets seriously hurt or worse. Not only is it taken lightly, but because of the Facebook page and the T-shirts, it's being encouraged.
To be honest, I'm ashamed to say I go -- I pay to go -- to this school right now.
Now, I don't usually agree with the decisions of Ball State president, Jo Ann Gora, but for once, we seem to be seeing eye-to-eye on something. In an e-mail sent to the student body on Friday morning, she said:
"I am disappointed by the reaction of a portion of the student body. The creation of a Facebook page mocking these incidents and inviting similar behavior for fun goes beyond poor judgment. Such mimicking and mocking has the effect of condoning strangers to violate personal space and touch others without warning. It is both insensitive and disrespectful to anyone who has ever been assaulted, including the victims and to the entire Ball State community. This attempt at humor misses the mark badly and is an embarrassment to the university."
As of this writing the fan page has nearly 8,000 fans.
By the end of today, estimates from www.now.org say 600 women will have been assaulted in America.
That's about 13 fans for every woman assaulted today.
Think about it. The one in five women who are victims of assault could be your friend. Your mother. Your sister. Your girlfriend, wife, or daughter. Will you be a fan of that, too?
I'm in no way saying that a slap to the rear is equivalent to rape. But this sort of thing is where rape starts -- a violence, anger, and utter disrespect for others.
What really saddens me is that women were joining this group as well. I've heard the stories that prove women can be, often, more vicious to each other than men, but encouraging behavior like this against other women by joining a group like this is sick.
So, in short, the incident was blown out of proportion with the emergency alert, but not as much as people seem to be saying (take a gander at the comments on the Daily News article). I don't think they needed to send out text messages to the student body, but they were right in letting the student body know about the incident. The person who created the page is more than a little sick and the people who joined are the same. Those who came forward and reported the incident set an example of courage for those who will come under assault in the future. As for the "Ball State Ass-Slapper," as he has been lovingly nicknames by his fans, I hope he is caught and punished according to his crime (and yes, to those who don't know, what he did was illegal).
No comments:
Post a Comment