In the past few days, social media has been filled to the brim with posts about Jacob Anderson and/or Cyntoia Brown. In order to understand the blatant gender and race preferences that were acted upon in these trials, you must first understand the situations that both of these people were in.
Cyntoia Brown is a 30-year-old black woman who is a victim of sex trafficking. She was raped by many men, who paid her pimp, to sleep with her. Not only that, but she was under age - 16. Her pimp beat, raped, and abused her and forced her into prostitution without her consent. When Brown was forced by her pimp to meet up with Johnny Allen, she shot him in the head and tried to escape.
Jacob Anderson is a 23-year-old white boy who raped a fellow student at Baylor University in 2016. He was the Phi Delta Theta fraternity president and raped a 19-year-old sophomore girl at his own party.
Stay with me now - we have a 16-year-old serial rape, prostitution, and abuse victim, and a rapist.
One got 51 years in prison without parole and the other got a plea deal of a $400 fine and mandatory counseling.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Naturally, the rapist got sentenced to prison and the rape victim who acted in self-defense had to get counseling.
Wrong.
In America, our judicial system likes to be completely backward and disgusting.
Because Cyntoia Brown is a black woman, she will serve life in prison for the murder of one of many of her rapists. Because Jacob Anderson is a white boy, he will give the government his daddy's money and barely show up to counseling once a month.
One black woman will spend the rest of her life in prison because the court couldn't find "enough evidence" that she was a victim of rape or sex trafficking. One will get to do whatever he wants for the rest of his life without even having to register as a sex offender.
If you don't see the extreme, horrifying differences in these situations you are part of the problem. It is impossible to compare them excluding race and gender. Because if you did, the results would be the exact opposite. A black man rapes a woman at a party - prison time. A white woman kills a rapist - plea deal. Our judicial system has never been unbiased or impartial. Your sex and color decide your fate.
This isn't the only instance. Take Brock Turner. He was a white collegiate athlete who raped another student. He got 6 months in prison and got out 3 months early. Take Lawrence McKinney. He was a black man convicted of rape and burglary charges and sentenced to 115 years in prison. It turned out that he was innocent and had been wrongfully imprisoned for 31 years. Corrections gave him $75 to start his life over.
There are many cases in recent American history where women and minorities have seen the absolute worst of our judicial system. Every time, it favors the white man. It's time for our country to change. It's time for us to hold judges and other officials accountable for their racist and sexist actions until they change. Until a woman can fearlessly accuse a rapist, a minority of any gender can claim self-defense, and a white man found guilty of a crime can actually suffer for it, nothing will change.
Click here to help grant Cyntoia Brown clemency. Click here to help UT Dallas get rapist Jacob Anderson off their campus.