The Richmond rape continues to spark debate and comment, even as the legal process, and the girl's recovery continue. Reading around the web, looking for perspectives, I found some worth sharing--comments and discussion welcomed.

Daisy Hernandez, Wiretap blog: Richmond Gang Rape Raises Race Issues
"It's hard to figure out what's most disturbing about this video -- Kami stumbling through tears and anger to make her points but ending on an enigmatic reference to Asian students or that a white student immediately jumps to the idea of checking the IDs of Latino men as the only way to feel safe or that CNN made no reference in its written report to Kami's insistence that school security policies vary according to the skin color of students."

Dr. Marvin X: "Violence against woman and men will not end until we deconstruct the mythology of the patriarchal or male dominated culture globally—rape is happening worldwide—it is an epidemic in South Africa. Even before the Richmond incident, a brother told me how the young women are raped in hotel rooms downtown Oakland. He pointed out to me the girls walking pass my outdoor classroom at 14th and Broadway—he said all of them have been given drugs in drinks and then raped."

Kevin Weston, NAM, When Things Fall Apart
"Like Derrion Albert’s murder caught on tape Chicago – elements of our young people are so desensitized that senseless violence can happen in front of their faces and they’ll watch it like a video game – actively participate in the violence and simultaneously document it."

Rachael Simmons, Huffington Post, Reminder: A 15 Year Old Girl Was Brutally Gang Raped While Over Twenty Teenagers Watched
"There is a growing media narrative about Richmond, and the high school where the attack occurred, as poor and notoriously violent. Is this because we want to believe that rape doesn't happen to wealthy girls? Did it take so long for the media to report this assault because the survivor is from a working class community and comes from a school where perhaps we simply expect kids to "act like that?"

BBanasik: "Please don't blame the victim. If she had attended the dance completely naked, and drank two bottles of vodka, that still would not justify the brutalization commited against this poor girl. What happened to her was criminal, bottomline. "

Crystalee Crain, Ella Baker Blog, Violence Prevention and Anti-Sexism
"What work are we doing to stop men from harming their sisters, cousins, nieces and mothers?
Yesterday at a violence prevention conference, hosted by the California Wellness Foundation, Too Short (a.k.a. Todd Shaw) spoke on a panel regarding police and community relations. It was impressive to have a celebrity on the panel, especially one from East Oakland, talking about violence prevention and the need for better relations between the community and the cops.  But no one on the panel or in the other three that I attended discussed the violence experienced by young women because of sexism."

Terence Heath, The Bilrerico Project, How do you just watch a rape?
"The twenty-odd people who stood there and watched a 2+ hour gang-rape are not merely bystanders, they are spectators to a culture of cruelty that threatens to overcome our better selves. ...At some point we have to realize that doing nothing is a choice."

SF Gate , Richmond Gang Rape Seen as Nearly Inevitable
Local Richmond resident, Chuckie Pelayo, so-called  leader of a pack that hangs out at the corner of Hayes Street and Emeric Avenue, one block from the rape scene.  "If we'd gone over there earlier, before it was over, those mother- would have been shot. For real,"We've all been to prison, and we know the code of how you're supposed to behave. These younger guys, they don't know the code. Some of us know a few guys who were there, and we're out looking for them, They better hope the cops find them first, because when we find them the same thing that happened to that girl is gonna happen to them."

Susan says: While there may be no end to the anthropology of violence, we have to watch out for turning those involved in this rape into the other. The truths here are for all of us, even as responsibility for the crimes committed belongs to those involved--including those who stood by and did nothing, both night of and as that courtyard was called out as a problem but never secured.

Update: I debated for some hours before I decided to use this graphic and upsetting still of a scene from The Accused. I wonder what people feel about this choice? I recognize for some, this is too upsetting an image to want to look at--for others, it's a visual display of the problems we've been discussing with this recent incident. Where do you stand on the photo? And/or on these writers' comments? OL is about discussion, please share your views.