Police Chief David Brown (pictured right) was pressed on this, and here was how blogger Andrea Grimes of the Dallas Observer interpreted his remarks:
But Ms. Jasso read my mind, asking the Chief to explain the... increase.... is it that victims are reporting rapes more frequently, or that more rapes are happening? The answer, unfortunately: More rapes, says Chief Brown, specifically date rapes. And we all know what the solution to date rape is: getting women to stop drinking, because that is what causes date rape. Not dudes raping women, but women drinking.
Blogger Shelby Knox piled on:
Thank you law enforcement official charged with preventing or at least condemning crimes like, oh say, RAPE for suggesting that if I get raped it’s my fault.... Guess I should leave the short skirt at home too, right Chief?
Men of Dallas: Your Chief of Police doesn’t seem to think you possess enough self-control or self-respect to resist violating a woman who’s been drinking. Be offended by this and be part of the solution. You watch your friends and remind them that if a woman is too drunk to say ‘yes,’ she’s too drunk for sex.
Women of Dallas: Rape is rape is rape. If you were raped while drunk it doesn’t make it your fault or any less of a crime.
And Bethany Anderson at D magazine added:
So date rape solved? Don’t drink if you have two x chromosomes. Forget the fact that the drunk cannot consent to sex, and nonconsensual sex = rape. I’m sure glad we cleared that up.
But wait a minute. Would a high profile modern man be so stupid as to place the fault of rape on women? Scott Goldstein at the Dallas Morning News was the 1st to challenge the stereotypical and stereotypist feminist mob:
Some writers at a couple of local Dallas publications are accusing... Brown of essentially blaming rape victims in comments he made during a City Hall committee meeting yesterday....
No need for me to judge whether the folks at D magazine and the Dallas Observer are being unfairly provocative. You be the judge. Watch the video clip and tell us what you think.
Yes...
Liberal feminists are often caricatured as over reactive, and here was just another example of the Birkenstock fitting.
Fortunately, and surprisingly given this touchy subject, there was immediate blowback. Goldstein wrote in follow-up:
Brown... was unaware of the way some bloggers are portraying [his] comments.... I filled him in and asked him to respond.
"I absolutely did not state that the victims are to blame for sexual assault," Brown said. He said that he was explaining yesterday that a DPD analysis of the increase shows that many of the cases involve alcohol and date rape.
"I do want to continue to emphasize that women be aware of their surroundings and, when possible, travel in pairs or in a group to enhance security around sexual assault," Brown said.
Speaking specifically about the way some have characterized his comments, Brown said: "I just think it's irresponsible for bloggers to put inaccurate information in reports to excite or to create this uproar that is not consistent with my statement," Brown said. "They're being irresponsible. This is a very sensitive issue and we really do want to make victims aware of how to protect themselves from these predators."
Commenters proceeded to take Anderson to task...
- "I know it’s cool to suddenly be playing gender-centric neo-1970s games regarding what people actually say vs. how others claim they spoke… or even to interpret what they meant. But to me, hanging people out to dry, with an agitator’s agenda being the motivation to twist and shout, that’s every bit as shocking as the Chief’s ‘summarized’ comment in question here...."
- Guess i’ll be the contrarian here, i don’t see anything about drinking causing rape in his quote. What i see is a suggestion for friends to keep an eye on each other when they’re out partying, something guys do all the time. If you’re friend isn’t acting herself, maybe it’s because something was slipped in her drink, a friend would probably be able to notice something like that if they were keeping an eye on one another when out partying."
... to such an extent Anderson had to perform a mea culpa, "of sorts"...
After listening to the video of Chief Brown, and reviewing his statement about how his comments were taken, I’ve done some thinking.
Yes, you get more of an idea of what he was getting at, and it confirmed my gut reaction: He meant well....
If I had been at the meeting, or watching it, I admit, my response would’ve been more measured...
I do think that the resulting discussion was, by the whole, a good leaping off point for exactly the sort of thing Chief Brown said we needed – more preventive measures....
Really? What Brown was saying in the first place? I know it's verboten to say women, particularly young women in bars, ask for it when they get raped. But as we saw in this instance, it's to the point where liberal feminists aren't even allowing women to be educated on common sense preventative measures.
Why is there a 25% increase in rape this past year in Dallas? Is it that there are more perpetrators on the street or more naive victims?
I think it's a combination of both, the former thanks in large part to another verboten topic, increasing access to porn, and the latter because liberal feminists have created an environment that makes it nearly impossible to discuss preemptive measures women can take to stop it.
I look back to many instances when I did stupid things that opened the door to crime, such as picking up male hitchhikers.
As recently as last week I walked through a large, dark parking lot at O'Hare Airport alone to my car at 11:30p at night. I should have asked Security for a ride.
Liberal feminists don't like it, but the simple fact is the bar scene, particularly late at night, isn't necessarily safe. There aren't a lot of date rapes in church.
[Photo via CBS News]
