War

I read this blog post today. It's a response to the subject of my last post, that infamous article "Club Etiquette" (someone should upload it to give context). After reading it, I felt... well, challenged. Not because it's hard-hitting, cutting journalism (which it isn't) but because it put me at a loss for words.
Speechless. A thing that happens rarely, if ever.
But then I found a picture that somewhat embodies my feelings.

My reaction

Though I hate starting with cliched defenses, I'm obviously not a rape denialist (Chrome's spell-checker tells me that's not a word), or apologist, or whatever crap someone might want to call me. Rape is wrong. We don't need a blog to tell us that. Great, now that that is out the way, I'm gonna try to untangle the bag of snakes that is my internal turmoil right now.

First of all, I've read the article. It's bad, like I pointed out in my last post. Hence, I took none of it seriously (something everyone might want to think about doing). I certainly didn't think that the article "silences rape survivors". However, the author of the blog post (Michelle Solomon, editor of Activate's rival paper, The Oppidan Press - but we'll get to that little niggle in a sec) did just that. Suddenly, a trivial fluff-piece had become a Rorschach test in which demons, monsters, and above all rape lived.

"Unfairly taken advantage of", in one swift and inexplicable move of synonymy and denotation, became "rape". One comment stated that "being taken advantage of IS rape", which is, well, silly. The guy who sold me that ornamental guitar in Mozambique took advantage of my ignorance and touristy ways, and got more money that it was worth, but he certainly didn't rape me. And also (from personal experience, Dear Reader) 'taking someone home' does not mean having sex with them. Hell, even sleeping with them doesn't mean having sex with them. This in itself is the major problem with this blog post: it assumes that what is described in the article is rape, clear and undeniably simple. However, now that we're in the realm of connotation and denotation (thank you, 2nd-year Journalism), I'd hardly say that you'd rape "the person of your dreams". Maybe I'm just being romantic or conservative here, but a better verb would be "ask out", "kiss" or "marry", not "drag her drunk ass home sans consent". Also, the original article's author is female, so I don't think that denying rape or suggesting that it is okay are high on her list. If we say that Activate's article (sorry, that should be "rape apologia") is one that trivialises rape and provides a platform for rape denialism (still not a word), then we should use the same logic and say that this response post is demeaning to Rhodes University students, and assumes that we just walk around with rape on our minds. In short, the article's molehill is made into a mountain. Yes, rape is a problem, but we mustn't make every problem some underhand, obscure justification/denial of rape.

Also, Solomon is the Editor for Oppidan Press. As far as I've been able to gather from my sources, no opportunity was afforded to the Editor of Activate to even apologise or print a retraction, a decision that disgusts me. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call mudslinging. I'm not saying that journalists shouldn't criticise each other just because they work for rival factions, but what I am saying is that you should try to get an explanation first. Last year I had a huge showdown with Activate about a column that spoke disparagingly of red-haired people in a column (something about them not having souls), and what did I do? Did I jump onto my computer, smash the keyboard in self-righteous fury and berate them at length on a public forum? No. I emailed the writer and the Editor. And hey-presto! Lo and behold! The issue got dealt with! This sort of rash, hot-headed journalism is the kind that gets you into trouble before you even know it.

Finally, the posted is headed, footed and sided  by credentials saying that the article is "written on behalf of the Rhodes University’s Gender Action Project (GAP) and Slutwalk Grahamstown".  Well, Solomon is chair of the former and co-organiser of the latter. In my opinion, that's hiding opinion behind a formal organisation. It would be like me saying that this blog post is written on behalf of the Rowing club, Guitar Society and the Matthew de Klerk Foundation. If, by her reasoning, Activate is to be held accountable and seen as complicit in Loxton's alleged denialism, then maybe GAP and Slutwalk should be held accountable for Solomon's brash reaction?

I want to just speak to you as frankly as I can. Let us drop, for a second, the overly-verbose academic register, the caution and backtracking of political correctness, the uptight professional journalistic agency and the other influences on the way we speak, write, act and reason, and just be real; sometimes, these things can get in the way of simple, clear-cut, reason. To cut this long story short, the reaction to this article has been uncalled for and unfounded. I think it's dangerous when we let our emotions, indignation and defenses of our various causes get too far. In the past, I have written articles in screaming blue fury in reaction to things that I thought were insanely offensive and wrong. Sure, some of it might have been good writing, but it didn't remove the fact that I had lost the objectivity and impartiality that I had been taught as a journalist to always maintain. I remember a journalism lecture when a guy came in and gave a (fake) press release from the Media Monitoring agency basically trolling us to hell and back. Most of us just stormed out in anger; many argued with him. In the end, none of the information that we had been assigned to get had been gotten. The lesson at the end was one that has resounded with me ever since: keep composure. Our emotions cloud or judgement and mar our thought-processes, and we get so tangled and infuriated at details that we forget to see the bigger picture.

This whole ordeal has been a debacle. Michelle Solomon committed a grave error, albeit one that gave her +1000 page views in a few hours. Why must we read so deeply into things, and take them so overwhelmingly to extremes? And if defending Simone Loxton and Activate and saying that this is a case of "Controversy where there is none", puts me at odds with Solomon's blog post, then, well, so be it (though that might make me a denialist as well).

I'll leave the last word to Mister Freud.

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"