Matt Walsh, Police Brutality, and Victim Blaming<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Victim blaming is not a victimless crime. Why? Because when we look for ways to blame the victim rather than address the underlying systemic problems, we only guarantee that there will be more victims.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/11\/matt-walsh-police-brutality-and-victim-blaming.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matt Walsh, Police Brutality, and Victim Blaming\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Victim blaming is not a victimless crime. Why? 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{"id":27139,"date":"2015-11-02T08:07:54","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T12:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=27139"},"modified":"2015-11-02T08:07:54","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T12:07:54","slug":"matt-walsh-police-brutality-and-victim-blaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/11\/matt-walsh-police-brutality-and-victim-blaming.html","title":{"rendered":"Matt Walsh, Police Brutality, and Victim Blaming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

We often talk about victim blaming as it relates to rape, but victim blaming plays a similar function when it comes to police brutality as well. In both cases, we as a society look for something the victim must have done wrong, some way that they surely must have brought what happened on themselves. In the case of rape, we as a society ask whether they drank too much or send the wrong message through their clothing or behavior? In the case of police brutality, we as a society ask whether they talked back to a cop or failed to follow orders.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen this again in the conservative response to a South Carolina police officer flipping\u00a0a teenager and\u00a0her desk to the ground and then throwing her across her high school classroom. If You Don\u2019t Want Your Kids to Be \u2018Assaulted\u2019 by the Cops, Teach Them to Respect Authority<\/a>, Matt Walsh titled his post on the subject. Do you see what I mean about parallels between this\u00a0and slut shaming? \u201cIf You Don\u2019t Want Your Kids to Be \u201cRaped\u201d on a College Campus, Teach Them Not to Drink So Much.\u201d While not an actual headline, many an article stating just this has been written in recent years.<\/p>\n

Of course, the problem is that we should be able to drink \u201ctoo much\u201d and flirt without getting raped, and that we should be able to talk back to a cop or\u00a0refuse to follow that violate our rights without getting shot or arrested on trumped up charges. And, in the case of the South Carolina teen,\u00a0we should be able\u00a0to make stupid age-appropriate mistakes in school without being thrown from our desks by a \u00a0police officer in front of our entire classrooms. The punishment does not meet the crime\u2014and the crime is not always actually a crime.<\/p>\n

Why, then, are we as a society so invested in victim blaming? For one thing, if we can find a way to pin the blame on the victim, we can assure ourselves that this won\u2019t happen to us, too. We don\u2019t want to see rape or police brutality as something that is capricious, something we can\u2019t protect ourselves from, because that is scary. Instead, we want to know that if we follow a scripted set of rules, we\u2019ll be safe.<\/p>\n

Of course,\u00a0it doesn\u2019t work like that. There is no script that would have saved seven-year-old\u00a0 Aiyana Jones<\/a>\u00a0from being shot by cops in her own home in the middle of the night. There are no rules\u00a0 Alecia Phonesavanh<\/a>\u00a0could have followed to save her toddler from being critically injured by a flash grenade during a nighttime police made in search of two ounces of pot. There is no script that would have saved Tamir Rice<\/a> from being shot by police.<\/p>\n

Then again, perhaps individuals like Matt Walsh would argue that there is<\/em> a script for these cases. Aiyana Jones should have avoided living in an apartment below a murder suspect, perhaps. Alecia Phonesavanh could have avoided having a nephew suspected of drug dealing, I suppose. And Tamir Rice? What,\u00a0he\u00a0should have known better than to carry a toy gun while black?<\/p>\n

While the three cases outlined above are fairly open and shut, others may not be\u2014and that is okay. There is no such thing as a perfect victim, and just because an individual is not wholly innocent does not mean he (or she) deserves what they got. Freddie Grey had a criminal record, ran from police, and was found to have an illegal weapon before being arrested and transported so violently that he later died. Eric Garner was illegally selling loose cigarettes before the violent arrest that resulted in his death. Neither of these men were perfect victims, but did their actions really merit death sentences?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another reason we as a society look for ways to blame the victim. We don\u2019t want to believe we live in a country where rape\u2014or police brutality\u2014are as prevalent as they are. We look for something\u2014anything\u2014the victim must have done wrong in our sheer disbelief that such things could happen, and so often.<\/p>\n

But let me ask you something. Do we want to live in a society where\u00a0running out of the way when a squad car almost hits you<\/a>\u00a0is grounds for violent arrest? Do we want to live in a society where asking questions during a traffic stop<\/a> is grounds for a death sentence? Doesn\u2019t that seem just a little bit\u2014or more than a little bit\u2014fascist? I would rather teach my children to advocate for justice and protect\u00a0the weak and less fortunate than teach them to respect authority.<\/p>\n

It should be remembered\u00a0victim blaming is not a victimless crime. When we look for ways to blame the victim rather than address the underlying systemic problems, we only guarantee that there will be more victims<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"