The Cavalier Daily
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WILLIAMS: Free from blame

Victims of crimes cannot be blamed for their victimization

A corrupt argument has circulated since the disappearance of our young student, Hannah Graham. The argument is that Graham might have averted the sad fate that we now presume, if only she’d behaved differently. Those who make this argument have their own characteristically narrow notion of how a young person should behave. If a student should take one step — even briefly or unintentionally — beyond that notion of appropriate behavior, then they must accept responsibility for what befalls them.

The corrupt argument has been heard many times before, and it is the source of a crippling guilt that lingers in the minds of many victims, long after a time of abuse. Many victims believe they are to blame for what was kept and nurtured in the minds of their abusers. According to this logic, even a young child, who might very naturally explore and experiment and trust, is responsible for how others look upon them. (Isn’t it quite enough a task simply to manage what transiently inhabits our own minds? Imagine being responsible for what is in the mind of someone else.)

Some might demand that students stay in their rooms at night; that they refrain from substances; that they wear more “appropriate” attire; that they keep to their circle of friends; that their skirts are longer or their heels are shorter; etc. Yet we see, time and time again, that predators always find ways to abuse, and typically develop well-established strategies for isolating victims. These impostors among us find places where their behaviors blend in and are tolerated — where others won’t suspect ill intent. And if one place isn’t successful for a predator, then they seek another and another. A predator’s whole life may be configured around a strategy of finding a vulnerable person. These are the lessons we have learned from too many violent offenders.

Much has been said of the role of certain substances in this most recent strategy. I will admit pondering “what if,” just as soon as I heard the news about Ms. Graham, and then about the two other students who were sexually assaulted that same weekend. However, we must realize that the response to these substances is highly individual and unpredictable, as many a young person will discover. Moreover, there are horrid additives specifically designed to incapacitate and impair a victim’s judgment, or even render them entirely unconscious to abuse. Methods to help young women detect those substances are only just now becoming available.

Indeed, a very powerful and foul substance was used in this most recent example of abuse. That substance was a well-socialized enablement: it allowed a particular predator (who may or may not prove ultimately responsible for the crime of Ms. Graham’s disappearance) to practice, yes truly practice, his method. We now know that this predator socialized among a group of individuals who conferred on him a reliable social status even as he reportedly coerced multiple women. His strategy relied on an environment where he could indulge that illness, again and again, for years, without repercussion.

Let us consider, for a painful moment, an abuser beside a playground, waiting for a child to follow their natural curiosity or simply step across some fictional boundary of acceptable behavior. Would we blame the child for being a child on a playground? Isn’t it time that we stand for the abolition of guilt for all the children and women and other victims of abuse, from the guilt which tempts them to think that they could have somehow controlled what impulses lurked in the mind of their abuser?

There will be an appropriate time to consider what action we might take, as individuals and as a broader community, to prevent such events from recurring. We likely will need to take action, if we are to protect our young people, while also encouraging them to find their way into adulthood. But first we must search for young Hannah Graham. We must try to find her, not only around our city and our countryside, but also in our minds, where we too have endangered ourselves from time to time. There will be an appropriate time to consider whether a predator acted alone or if he was enabled or even encouraged by those around him. But for now, we must remember that Ms. Graham was, is, and will forever be innocent.

Keith Williams is a visiting professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University.

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