Mitch Albom's Rape Opinion

            On a normal morning drive, I enjoy listening to the funny commentary of Mojo in the Morning. I didn’t think that a serious story of rape would ever make it on to the more comical radio show. However, this was just the case. I first heard of the story of Mitch Albom’s personal opinion on the settlement of Jameis Winston’s rape victim on my morning drive. After catching pieces of the story, I decided to investigate it further. I found an article on Fox 2 News, that not only told the original story, but also had an update.

http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/83867519-story#

            According to the story, Mitch Albom was casting his opinion on ESPN’s Sports Reporters, when the topic of Jameis Winston came up. The Jameis Winston rape case had concluded with his victim agreeing to take a $950,000 settlement. Mitch Albom spoke to this stating, “I'd feel a lot happier about this, if the woman took that money and gave it to charity and said, 'That's not what this was about.'  I am always suspect when people end up saying, 'Well, I'm going to take it'" (Fox 2 News). This comment caused tons of backlash on Albom, thinking that he was calling the victim a liar. People were very upset the Albom would even think to tell the victim what to do with her money. Albom replied to the backlash by trying to explain himself. His opinion had not been meant to belittle the victim, but to try to get to the point that this case should not be focused upon money, but that of the sexual assault that occurred. He had hoped that stating this would make people realize that if the money was not a part of the equation, the real tragedy of the sexual assault could be talked about more.

            In my opinion, when I saw the video of Mitch Albom’s original comment, I did not take it in a bad light. I understood that Albom’s comment didn’t want the focus of rape to be turned onto the focus of money. However, I know my opinion was not widely shared, but you can form your own, by watching the original video here.

            I think this story brings an interesting spin to our class discussion. We have talked about many topics regarding perpetrators and victims, but we haven’t really touched on the idea that a rape case can be settled through an amount of money. I understand the justice system wanting to give the victim something to try to make up for everything she has experienced, but I’m not sure money is always the right solution. There is truly no real justice for someone who has experienced rape, and the ways they try to find peace with what happened to them varies quite a bit. I think that until we can find a way to decrease the number of rape cases that happen, we should turn our attention to prevention, and not necessarily to how each victim chooses to settle and move on.