18 September 2005 - 7:42am
Can I voice my doubts without getting flamed?
I have some questions and I'd really like to hear intelligent responses explaining and refuting and otherwise guiding me thru my doubts rather than a heated flame session that leaves nothing of me but a burning cigarette and a scorch mark on my seat. I have cats to feed.
I have NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER learning from what people say, so please tell me.
I keep thinking about the rapes/throat slitting that was reported from the superdome/convention center and I'm just having some doubts. From everything I saw and read, there wasn't a unpopulated space anywhere in those buildings, they were filled to 10 times the capacity. Someone said that they couldn't go to the bathroom without men because they might be raped and have their throat slit. But I just can't see a time during all this where the bathrooms wouldn't be packed with people. Even the stairwells were filled with people and I don't believe anyone could get harmed in that way while surrounded by so many.
I'm thinking it was more of a panic based rumor that spread through the large groups of already traumatized people who lost everything and had no access to fresh water and food. Stealing I understand, robbery too. And I do believe that some men were killed by the police. I just can't really follow this other story.
(If I must say so, I don't walk around doubting the existence of rape or claims outright, just in this case.)
And I sure hope I don't get kicked off this site for asking.
Any thoughts? Links? Remember, if you tell me off, I won't learn. You will only have succeeded in telling me off, which isn't discourse.
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Comments
Chaos around the Superdome reminded of something read in Experimental Psychology, Fourth Edition, Barry H. Kantowitz, West, p. 451. Studies by John Calhoun at the NIMH found disturbing behavior in rats in crowded conditions. "Female rats were unable to build proper nests and often dropped infant rats. These infant rats died where they were dropped and were often eaten by adult rats." "Probers were also homosexual and hyperactive. Thus, the independent variable (high density) caused strange maternal and sexual behaviors (dependent variables) to evolve." There is another good reference which I will look for today.
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, 1954, is an allegorical novel about boys stranded on an island. "..., the boys revert to savagery complete with primitive rites with ritual murder." From Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia, Third Edition, Harper & Row, 1987, p. 581.
While some of the rape and/or murder stories may have circulated due to panic, and were probably exaggerated in the telling (think Telephone), I have a hard time dismissing the possibility in its entirety.
I don't have the book with me (The Psychology of Good and Evil, by someone w/ the last name Staub, I think), so I can't name or describe the case precisely, but...
A while ago (like over 10 years I think) in NYC, there was this rape case, where this 20-something girl was raped and murdered in a courtyard that something like 80 windows looked out on. People stood there, people watched, people did nothing. Nobody even called the police for a long time. It's fucked up as all hell, and even though we spent about 2 weeks on it in one of my classes a couple years ago, nobody could make any sense out of why people would stand by and do nothing. There are tons of theories, but I have a hard time accepting any of them, because it makes the human race seem pretty irredeemable.
So, just because there were most likely people around every time someone was raped doesn't at all mean that anybody would've stepped in to stop it. Also refer back to the Lord of the Flies scenario. Crazy, crazy things happen in fucked up situations like this. Including rape, even murder, with onlookers.
that story took place in the 60's....I don't know how to start to look it up, but I will. Her name was something ridiculously white american (like mary sue) and just made the rest of America sick to its stomach. It probably wouldn't have reached our sociology classes if it had been say, Maria Consuela or some such similar name from a disenfranchised group.
Still, those people chose to close their windows and stay inside (still outrageously horrible!!!), while I'm wondering about one guy committing rape in front of a bunch of people. If there were more than one, or they had guns, I could understand.
I would be very much relieved if all these stories were part of the Telephone exaggeration that Ferdette mentions. And I do understand that sort of hysteria arising in a group of frightened people. It's a hysteria of words.
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I saw an interview with someone there, one of the few authorities, who happened to be the head of the sexual crimes division of NOPD. He said no rapes were reported, in the Superdome at least.
Makes sense. Everyone was searched and weapons removed before they were allowed in.
I hate to discount stories of rape, but in this case I still haven't seen confirmed reports it happened.
The crime ferdette refers to was committed against Kitty Genovese.
Here's the CourTV link on it:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/kitty_g...
You are referring to this event: "Probably the best-known example of failure to help occurred on March 13, 1964, at 3:20 A.M. Catherine (Kitty) Genovese was returning from her job as a manager of a bar. As she walked across the street from her car to the apartment house where she lived, a man with a knife came up to her. She ran; he chased, caught, and stabbed her. Genovese screamed for help, and lights came on in the windows of many apartments that overlooked the street. The attacker retreated temporarily but then came back to his bleeding victim." Social Psychology, Sixth Edition, Baron & Byrne, Allyn and Bacon, 1991, p. 352.
I don't doubt that some things occurred, but I also think that the level of violence has been exaggerated out of all reason--better to beat up the African American community with. Also, people who aren't actually in a desperate situation tend to love hearing gory details about those who are.
And this is a nitpick, but as a Spanish person it drives me nuts because it happens so often: the name is not "ConsuelA" but "ConsuelO".
"not ConsuelA" but "ConsuelO"."
oH! right, for a surname. Ok, understood. thanks.
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