In Brock Turner's home town, we're raising kids who are never told 'no' - The Washingto... - 0 views
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because I live in the community that spawned Brock Turner, I have known on some level for many months that my version would never be reality.
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Oakwood, Ohio, is about as idyllic a Midwestern community as one could imagine. The streets are tree-lined, the houses charming. The kids walk to school and go home for lunch. The schools are nationally recognized. In fact, the nickname for Oakwood is “The Dome,” so sheltered are its residents from violence, poverty and inconvenient truths. I have lived here for over 20 years.
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Communities like this one have a dark side, though: the conflation of achievement with being “a good kid;” the pressure to succeed; the parents who shrug when the party in their basement gets out of control (or worse yet, when they host it) because “kids are gonna drink;” the tacit understanding that rules don’t necessarily apply. The cops won’t come. The axe won’t fall.
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For the most part, I have loved raising my kids here. But I have struggled, too. My closest friends and I have a long-standing joke about needing to remember to “lower the bar” around here — about not falling prey to the pressures to conform and compete, not buying the line that the schools or the kids here are special. Most of us understand our privilege and good fortune. Many do not.
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There is an Oakwood in every city; there’s a Brock Turner in every Oakwood: the “nice,” clean-cut, “happy-go-lucky,” hyper-achieving kid who’s never been told “no.” There’s nothing he can’t have, do, or be, because he is special
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it’s not hard to draw a straight line from this little ‘burb (or a hundred like it) to that dumpster at Stanford. What does being told “no” mean to that kid? If the world is his for the taking, isn’t an unconscious woman’s body? When he gets caught, why wouldn’t his first impulse be to run, make excuses — blame the Fireball, or the girl or the campus drinking culture? That is entitlement. That is unchecked privilege.
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I find that I’m hiding from social media and avoiding conversations on this subject, lest I have to listen to someone defend him. I don’t want to hear anyone start in about the nice family or the good kid. My kids went to high school with him. I ran the community center swim team he was on
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No, I don’t “know” Brock Turner like his friends or neighbors do. But I do know what he did, and so do we all, based on the unanimous verdict of a jury and two eyewitnesses.
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We now also know exactly what his victim suffered, and we know that he doesn’t own any of it. Neither do his apologists.
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I’ve wondered if all of this was the attorney’s doing — that Turner and his family were manipulated into denial because their lawyer told them there was no other alternative. But his father’s letter and his own lame “apology” make it seem clear that they truly believe that bad timing and alcohol — not Turner himself — were to blame.