How Football Culture Can Change Rape Culture

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/179347/how-football-culture-can-change-rape-culture?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%2020140417&newsletter=email_nation_tuesday

Today Rolandis Woodland lives in St. Louis and teaches kindergarten, according to Sports On Earth’s Gwen Knapp. It was Menu Courey’s parents who asked Woodland to speak with OTL. They aided OTL’s sixteen-month investigation by giving the team any relevant documents they had. This included Menu Courey’s journal in which she described the assault, a description of her conversation with an athletic department academic advisor in which she disclosed her assault and her increasingly distraught feelings.

Woodland told Knapp he made the decision to tell what he knew because, “It’s too late for Sasha. She can’t speak for herself. She needs people to speak for her. I had to do it. She believed in me and I believed in her.” He believes her still. Woodland knew, though, that speaking up against his former teammates could hurt people he cares deeply about and could bring him negative attention. “I was scared,” he told Knapp, “They’re my teammates, and I love those guys.… They’re like my brothers. But this event occurred, and Sasha needed my help.”

Perhaps his fear was related to the backlash people often receive when they speak out against football players from high-profile programs. This dynamic was illustrated at Missouri this past week. While searching for his girlfriend, star wide receiver Dorial Green-Beckham allegedly pushed his way into her friend's apartment and then shoved one of the women who lived there, causing her to fall down at least four stairs. The investigation ended, though, when the women refused to cooperate with police. “She was afraid of the media and community backlash since Green-Beckham is a football player for the University of Missouri and is possibly going to be in the NFL Draft soon,” a police officer working the case wrote of one of the women. The officer also wrote that she stated “she was afraid of being harassed and having her property damaged just because she was the victim” and that she “did not want to deal with the mental stress of the whole ordeal it was already making her physically sick to think about it.”

To their credit, the Missouri football staff cut Green-Beckham from the team because of the incident. But this fear is unfortunately not misplaced. Many cases of violence against women are referendums on victims and allies, not the perpetrators. When Rolandis Woodland spoke out, for example, Mizzou fans made charges that Woodland was just looking to gain attention. Even so, he told Knapp that none of his teammates had said anything negative to him about his choice.

[ismnotwasm]

1. If we could get them to speak up

That would really be something