Us as well as Them

There’s a great letter in today’s Oregonian, which I’m republishing here in its entirety before it gets lost in the paid archives.

“My reaction to Dani Countryman’s death is very personal. There were also two young men. And when they sexually assaulted me at 13, they also pinned me to the floor.

But there is a very important difference: Dani is dead; I am alive. This simple truth is pushing me to use the voice that I still have to share what I know about the epidemic of sexual violence in our communities.

Regarding Steve Duin’s Aug. 9 column, “Smoking their cigs, scratching their tattoos,” what I know is that sexual violence is not something that’s restricted to ant-infested carpets. It happens on hardwood floors and manicured lawns and in the backs of freshly waxed four-door cars.

No matter where you try to place the blame — on a struggling 15-year-old, a sister, a neighbor, even “countless young women who cart their infant daughters into those slums” — the sad truth is that boys and men are doing most of the assaulting, the raping and in Dani’s case, the killing. Boys and men from all walks of life, living in poverty and in wealth.

What we are teaching, endorsing and promoting about sex and violence — it crosses class lines. And so our solutions must also.”

Most of the other letters I’ve seen commenting on this tragedy have implied that getting rid of illegal immigrants would reduce our country’s sexual assault and murder rate to zero. In fact, Dani Countryman’s death is unusual, because most victims of sexual assault know their assailant. Most attackers are not immigrants, legal or otherwise.

The problem is Us, as well as and maybe more than Them.