So,
after raking through news reports out of the UK, let me recap my understanding
of this Rotherham thing: 1400 children sexually abused, for 16 years, THREE
FREAKING PREVIOUS official reports submitted to authorities about gangs of “Asian”
(UK-speak for persons from South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) men handing
girls as young as 11 around like party favors, and 1) No one did anything about
it, and 2) No news outlet reported on it?
Oh—and
now that it's been made public, five
alleged perps are in custody, the Rotherham Council leader has "resigned
effective immediately" and the chief policing officer offered "an
unreserved apology" to the victims? But he’s not resigning. Apparently he’s
not in fear for his life or property, either, which I don’t quite get.
I
don't say this nearly often enough, but might there be a neutron bomb available
to take out all the so-called human life forms in that area?
I mean—I hope to God that civil and police authorities
are not trying to tell us that five men—the only ones in custody—are solely responsible
for this? For 1400 girls being systematically raped and terrorized for the last 16
years? That there aren’t scores more of the bastards who should be charged with multiple
felonies ranging from statutory rape and GBH to perverting the course of
justice? Because I have not taken enough stupid pills to swallow that kind of
crap without choking.
And here’s something I find extremely interesting about
news coverage of this story: I had to read several reports before I discovered that all the suspects are South Asian. Seriously: it was the written
equivalent of someone lowering his voice to a whisper to add, “And they’re of,
uh, you know, Pakistani heritage. But
you didn’t hear that from me.”
Evidently the same PC fear of identifying a spade as, in
fact, an implement for shoveling muck, which caused child protective services,
police and civic officials at all levels to flap their hands and hope that the
elves would come in during the night and make it all go away, is shaping the
news coverage. Would there be such hesitation if the names on the booking sheet were Sobieski or Mendoza or even Patel instead of Hussain and Razaq? Really?
(And while I’m on this—why the hell did no news outlet report on any of the earlier official reports about
this? Are they telling us that no one called the Rotherham Advertiser, or sent an anonymous note to the Telegraph or even tweeted
something with the hashtag #childabuse; that there was no reporter on the
Yorkshire police beat who followed up on the victim complaints that were
actually filed; and there wasn’t one single newspaper, blogger or late-night public-access talk-radio host anywhere who was
interested in breaking the story of alleged child abuse on an industrial
scale? If so, this is systemic failure of media at all levels.)
I do understand the complication of the state-supported
BBC’s reportage being weighted against believing the victims. The Beeb has its
own problems with condoning and covering up high-profile long-term sex offenders,
so they’re rather in a glass house on this story. Ergo the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain attitude.
But how’s this for summing up their complete lack of journalistic integrity: on Wednesday, John Humphrys, one of their premier “presenters”, interviewed one of the victims, who described being repeatedly gang raped at age 12, and then being told by police that there was nothing they could do to help her.
But how’s this for summing up their complete lack of journalistic integrity: on Wednesday, John Humphrys, one of their premier “presenters”, interviewed one of the victims, who described being repeatedly gang raped at age 12, and then being told by police that there was nothing they could do to help her.
Humphrys asked, “Why didn’t you just stay indoors?”
Evidently
Humphrys doesn’t fear for his life or property either.
Oh--and apparently
one of the earlier reports of the abuse was thrust under a stack of order forms for office
supplies, because those in charge "hoped it would go away as a
one-off". Because, yeah, we can all live with a “one-off” instance of
child rape, just a single, oh, week or month of only maybe ten or 20 little
girls being abused by just a few adult males. Or, even just one—we’ll give you
one rape of…well, anyone, really…for free; no harm, no foul. Because we all have little
slips, and one hardly counts as a real crime.
Yeah,
that'll wash straight off our consciences as banner-bearers for civilization.
So far (early days, I know) it doesn’t look like anyone
in authority, either locally or nationally, is in any particular hurry to drill
down into who was doing what in Rotherham ever since 1997, much less who was
turning massive numbers of blind eyes when it was their job to protect these
children on every level. They are starting to make me think of the tweedy version of Colonel Klink; all you hear is, "I knew nothing."
In the US, there would at least be squadrons of lawyers
circling the town, briefcases flapping, ready to file lawsuits on behalf of the victims
against the perpetrators, their extended families, their employers, their
community groups, their mosques, the police, child services, the council and Her Majesty’s
government (and probably others I’m missing).
In the UK, meanwhile, I guess they’re staying indoors and
pouring tea.
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