Time is subjective, wounds are not
Why 20 minutes are too long to deny
Time is subjective. It seems terribly obvious when you think about it: my definition of ´waking up early´ in a saturday is 12:00pm, my best friend’s is 8:00am. It’s painfully obvious, almost insulting when you say it aloud because really, who doesn’t know that? Shouldn’t we skip to the next part? Why waste time explaining it?
Apparently, it may not be clear enough because Mr. Turner doesn’t get it.
Sure, 20 minutes can be very short: its merely a fifth of twelve on an analog clock, around five of your favorite songs and not even enough to complete a sleep cycle. But it can feel like a lifetime for some people: for those who are struggling, who are hurting, who are being wounded and those who were. A patient clinging to life in his deathbed, a mother losing her child in a surgery, an unconscious teenager being stripped of her dignity, pride, confidence, normality, privacy and safety behind a dumpster by a man.
Note the verb tenses, they are very important: present continuous and past. Both configurations are intimately related, sometimes bidirectional, usually not, but present always becomes past. And when that happens, you can be relieved: congratulations, it means that you can continue with your life, you can smile again after scratching off the death tissue and you can cover the scar with makeup or a gauze. Moreover, you can even show your scar with pride, as it if was a trophy: you’re the hero that survived and won the battle. You still have a lifetime of opportunities, a chance to return to your daily habits and your normality is safe.
But when past becomes present continuous, then it is scary. Then you’re not safe. You’ll be haunted by a never-ending present progressive that will attack you for days, months, years…and you’ll distress yourself over wanting to close the wound, only to find that there will be always a new stimulus, a new piece of the endless reminiscences that are everywhere, one filled with a melancholic knife that will dig so deeply that you’ll have to start the healing process all over again. And again. Like a wretched tape in replay.
While you’re at it, you’ll re-think and take yourself back to those particular 20 minutes that you know that are already gone, but you will inevitably be hurt again, as if it happened just yesterday. You’ll formulate a hundred thousand scenarios that could have happened if you had done something different, because really, what went wrong? What you could have done better, What you should have not done, What was so different about that day that made it so devastatingly contrasting to the rest of 364 in a year?
I am usually the first that speaks for the rights of criminals have as human beings; I am against death penalty, I support the right for fair trials for everybody and proper conditions in prisons. Innocent until proven guilty defines my ideology over this kind of issues. Therefore, when I read Brock Turner’s father letter for the first time, I kind of empathized: What kind of father would want to see his child in prison after he had protected and sheltered him all his life?
Even more, I understood all the rant about basketball, swimming and pretzels and whatsoever. But no matter how much I put myself in his parents’s shoes, could I understand how could he, why did he, wrote off his son’s horrendous rape as a ‘20 minutes action’… as if it was something that had happened already and they were ready to turn the page to look at the next stage of a glamorous, bright future.
Mr. Turner has all the right to speak out in defense of his son. It’s even understandable. Yes, teenagers make mistakes. Yes, Brock ruined his reputation irreparably and of course, I am sure the whole event took a great toll in his health and will continue to do so while he faces social stigma in the near and far future. Perhaps, it is also conceivable that he will damage his mental and physical well being even more in jail. However, that doesn’t allow him to erase the whole event and mark it as just 20 minutes of his life that is already in the process of being forgotten, as a scar that has healed. One only gets that right after repenting, apologizing properly and being forgiven. Which has not happened. Which I hope, has just yet to happen and it will someday.
When I read he’s preparing to create campaigns against drinking and whatsoever… I was just furious, aghast and saddened. What is he about? It’s like when winners rewrite History to their advantage: he was trying to manipulate people and make his story seem heroic, like he learned a lesson and was prepared to spread it to the world. Oh, I am sure he did learn his lesson about alcohol, but what about sexually assaulting his victim? He just missed the whole point. First step to solve a problem: identify it. He couldn’t do that and is already planning for the next stage, like he has converted and has something to teach. Like the whole world is made up of fools.
What can one learn from a person that has failed to recognize his most serious mistake, even when the whole world is slaping it in his face? He has shown no remorse. He’s covering the scar already while the victim’s wound is still bleeding, aching, burning. And that ridiculous 6 month sentence is only speeding up the process.
He didn’t realize and repent in a whole year, how can you expect him to in 6 months?! It’s just insulting. It sends all the wrong messages that justice is supposed to eliminate and prevent, and it makes Law seem as a joke. It makes rape seem like something viable, it screams something among the lines of:
Hey, you heard that? You only get 6 months of jail (possibly less because of probation) if you rape someone, what do you think? Do you think it’s worth it? Afterwards you can get out, pretend you are deeply sorry and assure everybody that you have changed for the better. It can be a worthwhile experience.
No. No, rape is not worthwhile. It shouldn’t even be looked as something that could be attempted without serious, proper, scary and dreadful consequences. It shouldn’t be considered just ‘an action’ when it clearly involves someone being damaged for a lifetime, irreparably and helplessly condemned to a wound that will always be hurting.
It should not be considered just as ‘something that happened’ nor ‘not the best decision while drunk’ when it will inevitably stick a big, fluorescent yellow label in red letters saying ‘rape victim’ on someone’s soul. For the aggressor, it may be just a moment, mere 20 minutes, but for the victim it is a highlight, a lifetime sentence which they didn’t ask for, an extended scene, forever in present progressive that will never become past. A wound that will never become a scar completely and will forever be vulnerable to more pain and anguish.
Twenty minutes is long. Even one second is enough to ruin someone’s life, how can Brock Turner pretend 20 minutes was short? Why does the time even matter? As I said before, he completely missed the point.
Nobody is judging the severity of his crime with a chronometer. Instead, we are looking at the victim’s wounds and society’s ruptures. His case did not only hurt his direct victim, but also all people involved in similar situations. It punched the hearts and guts of millions of individuals whom believed in justice and rights. It made people like me, who stand and defend all human rights, prisoner’s and criminals included, fools; it completely stabbed us from the back, blinded us with tears and swallowed us in guilt. It made the world a ton scarier and unsafe. It laughed and ridiculed all of us who believe in second chances and change of hearts.
All in just twenty minutes.