A North Carolina man has said to Brock Turner and his misguided father exactly what the rest of the world would like to say.
As previously detailed, the 20-year old former Stanford University student was found guilty in March on three felony counts of sexual assault.
A jury determined that Turner did, indeed, digitally rape an unnamed woman in January of 2015, inserting his fingers and other objects in her vagina while she lay unconscious.
But while Turner faced up to 14 years in state prison for his crimes, he received only six months behind country bars because Judge Aaron Persky expressed concern that a longer sentence would have “a severe impact” on him.
Really. A judge said this about a rapist.
After the victim read a moving statement in court (click PLAY below to hear it), this case went viral, stirring debate over the Internet about country’s rape culture and the privileges afforded to upper class white people.
It didn’t help that Turner’s father wrote a letter in which he argued that his son spending a single day in jail would be a "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action."
This is the letter in full:
Dan Turner’s letter drew the attention of pastor John Pavlovitz, who wrote a blog post on Monday, June 6, titled “To Brock Turner’s Father, From Another Father.”
“I need you to understand something, and I say this as a father who dearly loves my son as much as you must love yours,” Pavlovitz writes.
“Brock is not the victim here. His victim is the victim. She is the wounded one. He is the damager.”
This seems like an obvious statement.
Yet its meaning has somehow eluded the Turner family.
"This young woman will be dealing with this for far longer than the embarrassingly short six months your son is being penalized," the pastor continued.
"She will endure the unthinkable trauma of this ’20 minutes of action’ for the duration of her lifetime, and the fact that you seem unaware of this fact is exactly why we have a problem."
Clearly on a logical roll, Pavlovitz added:
"There is no scenario where your son should be the sympathetic figure here. He is the assailant. He is the rapist. I can’t imagine as a father how gut wrenching such a reality is for you, but it is still true…
"The idea that your son has never violated another woman next to a dumpster before isn’t credit to his character. We don’t get kudos for only raping one person in our lifetime."
In conclusion, Pavlovitz wrote:
You love your son and you should. But love him enough to teach him to own the terrible decisions he’s made, to pay the debt to society as he prescribed, and then to find a redemptive path to walk, doing the great work in the world that you say he will.
For now though, as one father to another: Help us teach our children to do better – by letting them see us do better.