Mark Radcliffe wants you to get some perspective and spew some of your venom toward the accused serial rapist in our midst.
Today the internet is ablaze with our latest outrage obsession, American Dentist Walter Palmer, who it appears is responsible for the bloodthirsty sporthunting murder of one of the world’s most beloved lions-in-the-wild, Cecil the Lion. After posting a photo of his “trophy kill,” the internet sleuthed him out, taking him to task for his heartless and unnecessary murder of this treasured creature.
And to be clear, yes, what he did was a moral atrocity.
Needless, merciless, heartless, this slaying is just one more example of a vanity-driven male taking advantage of an innocent victim.
With reports coming out that Walter Palmer is a long-standing sport hunter, we can rest assured that he’s not worthy of the apparent privilege he’s enjoyed in this life as a wealthy, respected dentist. (Although he’s hired a PR company to spin the story to make him seem innocent.)
Luckily, after more than 100 million tweets about him, 2000-plus complaints about his business, and countless threats to end his life, his career and public reputation is probably over.
While an abuse of power and privilege such as this is definitely worthy of our attention and concern, is this the best example of such to focus our collective outrage? Meanwhile, with each week that goes by, another incident of police brutality surfaces, revealing an epidemic of an abuse of power and privilege from our trusted enforcers of the law, usually perpetrated against people of color, most egregiously against African Americans and Native Americans.
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In another big media story this week, New York Magazine‘s The Cut finally published the names & faces of 35 of Bill Cosby’s rape accusers in a story by Noreen Malone, portraits by Amanda Demme. For the first time, we’re seeing the real human faces of all Cosby’s alleged victims as one force of solidarity, standing together to face their abusive, heartless aggressor. And there are many more behind them who for now are choosing to stay out of the spotlight.
But while we finally have in plain sight what seems to be irrefutable evidence of Cosby’s gross misconduct, did the internet react with similar outrage and vengeance?
It sure didn’t seem so.
My Facebook wall was much more overcome with vitriol over Walter Palmer’s killing of one animal than it was a few days earlier over the image of Cosby’s 35-plus victims. At one point today, 18 posts in a row from my friends were about Walter Palmer.
The same was never true, not once in the last multiple months, about Cosby’s alleged rape crimes.
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Do we as a society care more about the heartless destruction of one animal than we do about the perhaps 40-50 women whose lives were affected and possibly destroyed by a cold, ruthless man who abused his position as America’s favorite comedian to take advantage of women for his “sport”?
If you want to truly get upset about a monster in our midst, look no further than Bill Cosby. Because he is living proof that the most charming man in the entire world can still be a rapist.
Now, perhaps it’s because the awful truth about Cosby has taken months to unveil its ugly head, whereas Walter Palmer’s crime canvassed the earth in just a number of hours, but still: our “boredom” with Cosby’s story as a rapist should not go without our collective outrage simply because it’s not a “hot” news item.
Yes, Walter Palmer needlessly ended the life of a beautiful creature.
But Bill Cosby may have committed his own much larger massacre:
The systematic drugging and raping of countless women, all of whom had less power than him, leaving them to try to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and try to move on.
It took the internet decades to finally get the news of what horror Cosby perpetrated.
It only took the internet hours to find out the crimes of Walter Palmer.
The world wouldn’t listen to these women’s stories for decades.
But we all came to the rescue of a dead lion we’ve never met within minutes.
What does that say about us?
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If we truly care about lessening the suffering of innocent, loving creatures in the world, we should do more to speak up against manipulative alleged rapists like Bill Cosby than sporthunting assholes like Walter Palmer.
Yes, we should all care about needless suffering to a member of the animal kingdom.
But we should at least care equally about the women in our lives–mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, and lovers–who could be victims of some above-the-law manipulator like Cosby.
Everyone of us has women in our lives who have suffered sexual harassment, abuse and even rape, often without our ever being aware. All because the world doesn’t seem to welcome the news that openly.
We can change that.
Starting with what we choose to be vocal about when registering our personal protest.
The more we call out the biggest monsters in our midst, the more we can protect the innocent.
We should be careful not to associate levels of outrage with levels of importance. The levels of outrage are born from very narrow sources: television news, social media, blogs etc These sources are not representative of the level of importance most would attach to various events. Also, comparing pain and sufferings is a fool’s game. Lastly, this very opinion piece has holes the size of Swiss cheese running through it. I don’t at all buy that the Lion story has received more outrage. Barring some strange new twist, the Lion story will be dead before the next news cycle. We’re… Read more »
I’d rather a few hundred million cat calls than one rape.
“Supporting a human is WAY scarier because we want to believe that bad things DON’T happen to good people, so we refuse to give these human beings the benefit of the doubt that they didn’t deserve to die or didn’t deserve to be raped. But we are willing to give it to a lion.” Bad things do happen to good people everyday, and we do give people the benefit of the doubt; but rather than the false dichotomy of giving the benefit of the doubt to a lion over a person here, I think this particular thing is more about not giving… Read more »
You know, here’s the thing. People are really comfortable with outrage over the death of an animal because they KNOW the animal is innocent. Cecil is a lion, we know what lions do, and we don’t blame them for it. But when it comes to humans, no matter what we know about any human’s goodness, their deaths always bring out our prejudices. Sandra Bland – why aren’t MORE people mad about her death? Why aren’t more people mad about the rapes committed by Cosby (allegedly committed – I hate saying allegedly but I don’t want to be sued)? Because people… Read more »
500+ males were killed in one attack by Boko Haram, with infant boys killed in front of their mothers….yet there was relative silence across the world. Yet a lion gets killed, or a celebrity allegedly drugs n rapes a bunch of women and the world loses it’s shit. There are atrocities committed every day that barely get a mention, I think the more common some get that it becomes more a background noise. People have probably come to expect some celebrities to be accused of rape, massacres and gendercides happen quite often sadly…the stories that get attention tend to be… Read more »
I agree with Allan, and I think the OP’s perspective speaks to a zero-sum type of philosophy which demands & expects not just appropriate moral outrage, but also that such outrage be forcibly attenuated, calibrated, and proportioned to its own expectations of a precise hierarchy: It’s as if by being outraged (or more visibly, more demonstrably outraged) by the death of this animal somehow takes away something from those other more ‘important’ outrages, or diminishes the gravity of those other issues that lend themselves to the ready juxtaposition of race, class and/or gender. It doesn’t. If the death of a… Read more »
I love it when someone tries to make me feel bad for being outraged about the torture and death of an animal. Those of us who have expressed our anger are entitled and we really don’t need anyone to help us put it in perspective. It sounds like this author has a bit of the same horrific narcissism which makes up most of the character of men who participate in the destruction of helpless animals in a canned trophy hunt. Somehow he comes off disingenuine. The people who care about animals who are tortured also care about women who are… Read more »
Totally agree with you, Betty. Why should I only be concerned about one injustice, or care more about one than another?
And, Mark Radcliffe – please don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. That’s more than condescending.
At its heart, this is a piece advocating for more attention to women’s rights and the epidemic of rape. Accusing me of “horrific narcissism” seems a bit unfair. And yes, there has been outrage against Cosby. But it sure doesn’t seem as loud as the outcry against Walter Palmer. You are of course entitled to speak your mind on whatever cause you think is just, and no one’s trying to make you feel “bad” for this. I just think people feel “safer” speaking up about the killing of a lion because while it is an atrocity, it’s also a bit… Read more »
Betty, I want to be clear that we don’t tolerate name-calling in the comments of our articles. I’m leaving your comment in place (as an editor of the magazine) because Mark answered thoughtfully and his commentary in response to you adds to his article and this discussion.
Please, keep the comments civil and no name-calling. Thanks.
Oh Please. These women are alive. The crimes against them were committed decades ago. Cecil the lion is dead. Not the same thing. That is probably your way of taking the attention away from this man and putting it elsewhere.
Nicely said.
Turns out I can be angry at both, because I’m a very talented multi-tasker! I don’t think this is an either/or situation.
Mark writes that we should be angry about both. Not sure if your comment added anything new to what he said….
I find there is a strange phenomenon in our detached, wealthy western society whereby harm to animals sparks more outrage than harm to fellow human beings. The killing of a lion in no way measures against the violence of rape or murder of people.
@ Chad
I think it does add something to it. There are many stories that spark outrage and many others that should, but never do. We’re still talking about Cosby months later. What does that say about us? Contrast that with the public outcry over rape victims having to pay child support, but of course their rapists being able to live on the public dime.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/02/statutory-rape-victim-child-support/14953965/
Did I say outrage. I meant comparable silence. So we’ve had many articles on this site about Cosby. Can you point to the article demanding justice for these boys?
Or the article demanding justice for the boys killed by Boko Haram that have only been mentioned as a footnote in talking about what they have done to girls and women.