If laws were applied equally to all rapists, there would be no reason for me to write this. Sadly, they are not.
White men in America often face little or no consequences for raping women and children. Time after time, white male judges, arbitrators and lawyers are more concerned about the rapists’ lives than they are about the lives of the women and children who’ve been sexually assaulted – who are scarred for life.
Last month, a white man who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl got no jail time. The 25-year-old rapist, Shane Piche, will be registered as a Level 1 sex offender, meaning he’s considered to be at minimal risk of committing the crime again. A Level 1 offender means he will not be included in online sex offender databases.
“...Judge James P. McClusky said the lesser level [level 1] was more appropriate since there was only one victim...”
Piche’s defense attorney Eric Swartz said, “He’ll be a felon for the rest of his life. He’s on the sex offender registry for a long time, maybe not the rest of his life because of the level. But this isn’t something that didn’t cause him pain and this isn’t something that didn’t have consequences."
The white men protecting Piche made sure to note there was “only one victim,” and that the rapist did experience some pain. What about the 14-year-old girl he raped? What about her pain? None of the white men involved with the case expressed any concern for her.
Former Rev. Joseph DeShan raped a 14-year-old girl and got her pregnant — all while he was a white Catholic priest. He got to keep his middle-school job. “DeShan, who had left the priesthood years prior, was suspended for three weeks but eventually returned to the classroom.”
White Iowa teen, Kraigen Grooms, pleaded guilty to raping a 1-year-old girl. The rape was recorded on video. Grooms received no jail time.
In 2018, a wealthy white California businessman, Robert H. Richards IV, one of the heirs to the du Pont fortune, pleaded no contest to raping a 5-year-old girl and was sentenced to just 90 days of house arrest. He didn’t have to register as a sex offender.
White Texas man and former Baylor fraternity president Jacob Walter Anderson was charged with “sexually assaulting a 19-year-old fellow Baylor student outside a 2016 fraternity party. The woman told police she was given punch and became disoriented. She said Anderson led her behind a tent and raped her while choking her.” He pleaded no contest. The judge sentenced him to probation, counseling and a $400 fine. He didn’t have to register as a sex offender.
A quick internet search was all that was needed to find these horrific examples of white male privilege. All of the articles focused on the white male rapists – what happened to them, how theirlives would be affected and how the white men who decided their fates never showed concerned for the women and children who were raped.
Articles about rape usually center around the rapists, not the survivors. We hear about the men who have committed the crime of rape, but the women and children whose pain will last for a lifetime are too often ignored. If the victims and survivors are mentioned, it’s only a fraction of the story, and it almost never focuses on how the rape affects their lives.
In 2014, Time reported: “In 2009 a Delaware judge sentenced a wealthy [white] heir to probation after he admitted he had raped his 3-year old daughter, saying the rich white man would ‘not do well’ in prison.”
When these egregious stories are posted on social media, the instant reaction is rage and anger. People are horrified and they comment accordingly, but eventually, the rage transfers over to another sensationalistic news event and the story is forgotten – until the next time we hear about a white man who raped a woman and escaped punishment. The short-lived rage comes back until it once again fades.
Rinse, repeat.
I did an internet search for black men who were charged with rape and received no jail time. The only stories that came up were about white men who got away with the crimes. I did find one story in which a group of teens raped two teen girls and got off with just probation. One of the rapists was a black teen; the rest were white.
Why does this happen? Why are white men getting away with rape?
The answer is predictable: patriarchy and lack of diversity. The deciders are white males and while it’s #NotAllWhiteMen, these judges value the lives of white male rapists more than they value the women and children who have been sexually assaulted.
From the Center for American Progress (emphasis mine):
“State courts handle more than 95 percent of America’s court cases, and they continue to be run primarily by white male judges. A recent report on racial and gender diversity from the American Constitution Society found that white men comprise 58 percent of state court judges, even though they make up less than one-third of the population. Less than one-third of state judges are women, and only 20 percent are people of color. Meanwhile, Latinos constitute 17 percent of the U.S. population, African Americans 12 percent, and Asians and other people of color 8 percent. Women of color comprise nearly one-fifth of the overall population but only 8 percent of state judges."
Another part of the problem is how members of the Republican party talk about rape.
Here are some actual quotes by Republicans all verified by Snopes:
Tomorrow, next week or next month, we’ll hear of another white man who faces no prison time for raping a woman or a child. We’ll all be outraged and disgusted but we’ll also quickly forget about it. The 24-hour news cycle is exhausting and stressful. It’s easy to forget what you were outraged about yesterday.
Voting for people of color and women is the way we’ll hold white rapists accountable for their devastating crimes. Diversity in government and in the judiciary is how we stop allowing white men to get away with rape.
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