TEACH WOMEN NOT TO LIE ABOUT RAPE: Believe All Women?

You may have read about the case of Alice Sebold and Anthony Broadwater. Sebold is now a pretty well-known novelist; Broadwater spent 16 years in prison after being convicted of raping Sebold when she was 18 years old. Sebold wrote a memoir titled Lucky about her rape and the prosecution of Broadwater, which started her on her way to literary success. But Broadwater has now been exonerated and his conviction overturned. As a result, Sebold has publicly apologized to Broadwater. . . .

This “apology” strikes me as a classic of our moment in history. Sebold blames “the American legal system,” and jumps on the BLM train: “he became another young black man brutalized by our flawed legal system.” And the passive voice here is exquisite: “I will forever be sorry for what was done to him.”

Done to him by whom? It was Sebold who identified Broadwater, Sebold who drove his prosecution, Sebold who testified under oath, in court, that he raped her. Our “flawed legal system” consists of the police officers, prosecutor, and ultimately the jury that believed Sebold’s testimony–testimony that turned out to be false.

And she profited directly from that injustice.