Twenty minutes. 1,200 seconds. It’s not a lot of time. Sometimes it can pass in an instant; sometimes it can stretch on for an eternity. It takes me about 20 minutes to walk from my residence to my work place. It takes me 20 minutes to finish some math homework. It takes me 20 minutes to get ready for class in the morning. Twenty minutes can seem like nothing, just a daily progression that I go through to make it to the next 20 minutes, to make it through the rest of my day. Twenty minutes did not mean that much to me. And then I read about the Stanford rape case.
Everyone I have talked to about it has a similar story. He was just in class scrolling through Facebook. She was just checking her feed before work. He was in the car on the way to a dinner. I was reading the news before going to bed. I saw a friend had shared a post about some letter from a victim. Her caption read, “the read is worth it.” I clicked on the link and delved in to the heart-wrenching, yet unoriginal story of a girl who went out for a little bit of fun and then became emotionally and physically scarred for the rest of her life.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen. I imagined this woman—after months of anguish and tribulation, after countless sleepless nights and hospital visits—and wondered where on earth she found the courage and the patience to stand up and say her opinion in a concise yet poignant manner. I’ve seen friends who have suffered similar fates who were afraid to leave their rooms on the off chance they might bump into their predator. This woman built up her nerve to fight an extremely difficult battle and stepped into that courtroom because she knew that the world and Brock Turner needed to know her side of the story.
This is America. We value bravery and honesty with the epitome of respect. That is why all over social media, thousands upon thousands of people are rallying behind this anonymous woman, urging the justice system to increase the punishment handed down to Brock Turner. People have exclaimed in disgust at the defense Brock Turner’s father gave for his son. People are threatening the judge that handed down the verdict, sending death threats to him and his family.
What is it about this case that has the country so enraged? Was it the leniency in the punishment of Brock Turner? Was it the fact that this is just another rape case amidst the thousands which plague this country annually? Reading and rereading the victim’s letter, one realizes that Brock Turner constantly throughout the case has been portrayed as a victim. His father argued that his son shouldn’t have to pay for the rest of his life for some action that only took twenty minutes. That he’s not eating or able to do the activities that bring him joy.
Twenty minutes, 1,200 seconds. That’s how much time it took for Brock Turner to ruin two lives. How many other people have had their life altered in 20 minutes? One goes from so hopeful about the future to having everything ripped away in an instant. Both Brock and the woman lost a lot that night. We can argue that Brock was an entitled brat, we can argue that there was alcohol—there are countless of things that we can say. But there comes a time when all the arguing has got to stop. Because it’s not helping the situation that a woman was raped. A woman was violated to the highest degree and was treated no better than the trash she was dumped near. And the most heartbreaking thing is that she is by no means the first or the last one. And the perpetrator was portrayed as a victim. And while we are all raging around with pitchforks for Brock Turner, we aren’t really trying to remedy the situation for the future. We need to teach that people should respect others, not because the consequences are harsh, but because it is the right thing to do. We need to change the arrogant mentality that many entitled people feel because it is displaying itself in situations like this with horrifying consequences. I’m not saying that Turner doesn’t deserve pitchforks. I’m just hoping that we can learn to remedy the situation from the root of the cause, because that is the right thing to do.
All it took was 20 minutes for two lives to drastically change forever. Isn’t that terrifying?
