Brock Turner, I don't like you very much. However—out of the kindness of my all-loving heart—I would like to welcome you back to the world after serving only three months in jail. I'm just nice like that.
Given the brevity of your sentence, you haven't missed much, and I don't want to waste my time getting you caught up.
You see, dear Brock. I'm scared of you. You sexually assaulted a young woman just like myself and only gave her three months to grieve and to attempt to live in peace.
I know its not entirely your fault for how things panned out. You can thank the institutional racism of our justice system from which you benefited greatly, saving you from the punishment you deserved. However, you still assaulted her. You took advantage of her. You did the crime and did not do the time. No amount of dues you may try to pay will never begin to repay for what you did.
Brock, I am a young, twenty-year-old, college-attending woman, and I live with the looming fear of being sexually assaulted by people like you, my friends, acquaintances, strangers, whoever. I live with this fear everyday. It has become my most-used, invisible accessory.
So please sympathize for me. Please understand why I firmly hold my keys in between my fingers whenever walking home alone late at night. Please realize the countless and humiliating lectures I have had to sit through ever since I knew what rape was, these lectures treating me like a potential crime scene instead of a human being and teaching me how not to be raped. Please show some sympathy for the women and girls just like me wanting to live a normal life but having that taken away because someone else thought they weren't deserving or that they weren't their own person.
I'm sorry, Brock, to put all the blame on you, but you're the only face I know and recognize. You are an offender who got off easy. You made it big on all the major news channels. You're popular, Brock! I think it's only right that you deserve a bit more of negative publicity.
You, Brock, were supposed to be our nation's best - All-American, Ivy League. But then you assaulted her. I'm sorry your reputation has been ruined, but you're the only one to blame.
Brock, I have one final wish: please use your popularity, your face, and your guilt to fix this. Try to fix an incredibly fearful and dangerous rape culture plaguing college campuses nationwide. Please help.
Sincerely,
A Possible Victim
