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If you’re getting whiplash from the amount of spin being placed on the Covington Catholic boys, remember that this is how privilege (and in accordance, rape culture) works. It’s formulaic. I could have predicted the arc from the moment the story hit. It goes like this:
1) an incident occurs where a privileged male (or males) commits an offense against someone with less privilege. Often a crime, though in this case it was inactionable but abhorrent intimidation and abuse (another theme women are very familiar with)
2) bystanders are unlikely to intervene, though they may come forward later to report what they saw. No one personally associated with the offenders will. Other men who share their privilege may chime in after another less privileged person and/or the victim speaks up.
3) two themes emerge on behalf of the offenders - A) what they did was not wrong, and B) the victim is to blame, not the offender. Importantly, they will leverage any contributory act by the victim as deleterious of their bad acts despite that being logically and factually untrue
4) defenders of the offending party(ies) will focus little attention on A and most of their attention on B. They will zero in on any “bad facts,” insinuating that perfect, inoffensive, victimhood is the only type that exists. They will reframe offense as reactionary or deserved.
5) defenders of the victims will be drawn into this debate, losing focus on A and battling against B in order to avoid accusations of hypocrisy or tunnel vision. By the end, the victim will no longer look like one. Escaping without being labeled the ultimate offender is a gift.
6) so the offending parties and their defenders will graciously let the victim “off the hook.” They will take the high road. Thank their friends for their support and pledge to help others be better. The victim will be left behind, viewed as bitter or unstable if they continue.
7) and then next time this happens people on both sides will say, “remember the Covington Catholic boys?!” But it will all play out just the same. Just as it always has. Unless and until accountability ever happens. Ever.
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