Following up on yesterday's post on Kia Vaughn's lawsuit against Don Imus, I received this wonderful email from our friend Thinker who has found a perfect and profound quote from Richard Rohr:
"The psychological age has found a surprising and rather ingenious method of gaining power: Playing the victim... Given the language of romantic expressionism, no one can criticize you without appearing to be crass and politically incorrect. It's the ultimate and impregnable position. Every talk show is about people who are "outraged" and "offended" by some other group who want their particular totem protected and enthroned...."To hurt, to suffer, to deserve sympathy is to have achieved moral
victory. Once you can prove that you are indeed a victim, no more
can be demanded of you than the perpetual right to tell your story.
The rest of us must feel the appropriate guilt and off propitiatory
incense."We all know that there are real victims, and the role of the prophet
is to proclaim their story publicly. But sophisticated,
psychological society has used the profound Christian archetype of
the Lamb to gain negative power for people who are often merely
bitter with their own vendetta. The victimhood of Jesus is a matter
of accepting, forgiving, and non-self-serving. The Lamb of God takes
away the sin the the world; the victim lambs insist that the rest of
the world has sinned against them. The first redeems. The second
deadens and paralyzes."
Brilliant.
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Don't we get into a snit when a woman stands up for herself! Yes there is greater suffering in the world. There always is. If that was the measure, no one in this country would have a right for redress for anything. There is always someone worse off.
Back in the "olden days", Mr Imus might have had to pay for his transgresions with the removal of a bodily part. Now that we are more civilized, we go to court for monetary redress. That is the only sanctioned redress.
So what if someone else has done as bad or worse than Mr Imus? Does that give him a pass?
PTB:
See my comment above you. She's only a "victim" if people who hate this accomplished young woman for bizarre, nonexistent reasons (like, oh, say, Imus) make her one.
BTW, remember that Imus is soon going back to work and will continue to PROFIT from the horrible thing he did. I'm not saying Vaughn should "get hers" as a result, but I would love a look at this controversy from a legal point of view of defamation, as opposed to a self-interested media one. (Remember, half of the prominent journalists in America were I-Man boot-lickers before this erupted -- despite the fact he'd said so many other hateful things before.)
I don't think she's playing a victim. She's not suing for psychological or emotional damages, but for slander and defamation, which Imus obviously did. I don't know if she can prove that she's suffered any financial damages to be recouped, but if his slander caused her any, she would be remiss not to seek such damages. Also, in the US legal system, if you don't defend your reputation vigorously, you can lose the right to defend it in the future as well from similar attacks.
Please don't infer anything into her suit beyond simply defending her reputation. That is unless you're suggesting that women in this country should not have the right to take action if they've wrongfully been publicly accused of prostitution.
David and fellow posters:
According to the Newark Star-Ledger today, Vaughn's lawyer said any and all funds derived in a judgment will go to ... A SCHOLARSHIP FUND AT RUTGERS.
Jumping the gun just a bit with the excoriation here? :-(
No one is denying her victim status. Rohr is just pointing out (in a book written long before the incident happend) that we enjoy our victim status. It gives us a moral one upmanship when there is non. And we abandon the real victims - the millions dying of starvation and preventable disease, the murders by the hopeless that we call suicide bombers. The women in Iraq and anyplace there is war - losing their children to either death or rage. or disease or starvation I'd be feeling like a victim with that set of circumstances. I hope she gets her money - I hope it goes to the real suffereing in the world. Imus has actually addressed that real suffering in the past. Disgusting as I find him, he does care for the poor and dispossessed on a regular basis. We spent 3 months on every major station on the trainwreck that was Anna Nichole. We didn't hear much about war, about Bush taking away our rights. We watched reality TV where a real woman died of real drugs and left a real child to be fought over by people who didn't care for her. Now we're seening poor little Brittany Spears start to slide down the pit of celebrity and there seems only one possible outcome - it'll be Anna Nichole all over again.
Imus did us all a favor - he took regular white guy locker room jive and said it out loud. And now, Hip Hop artists are debating - in a substantive fashion - the use of some words that take the dignity from their brothers and sisters. And young women - at Spellman - are refusing to have artists who use such language. their way of making a point - stop dancing and stand when words that are destrutive are sung. I think this thing is turning out just fine. But, we don't see too many picutres of dying children in Iraq. of suffering parents, of bloody limbs blown all over the street. We like our reality shows mild and just a tad borderline personalityl
This is completely off topic - but I have gotten hooked on a really really stupid TV show called Bridezilla. Please Lord, just as soon as that terrible woman Steph gets hitched - take the show away from my innocent eyes forever. I only watch Book TV and Jim Lehrer news , the Daily Show and the Colbert report and this horrible show came into my life and I feel like a victim even watching it. BAAAD. However, rather funny. Sorry, it's late and now I'm just running on at the keyboard.
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