- Newspaper stories so glowing that politicians would kill
to receive similar publicity. Attention on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
Scholarships to several colleges. A made-for-TV movie already being openly
discussed.
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- A generation ago, such accolades likely would be rewards
for a young man with an impeccable record of achievement. Perhaps an Eagle
Scout. Certainly a young man with an unblemished record in his community.
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- In today's world, where bad is good and up is down, this
sort of attention and hero status is lavished on one Marcus Dixon of Rome,
Ga. And just what is this young man's claim to fame? What accounts for
his hero status among many in America, including demigoddess Winfrey? The
one fact that has propelled this 18-year-old, 6-foot-6 football player
to national stardom is that he had sex with a 15-year-old girl -- that,
and the fact he was convicted of statutory rape for his pleasure romp.
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- Granted, some of the massive attention lavished on the
strapping young Dixon was because his initial conviction netted him a mandatory
and lengthy prison sentence under Georgia law for child molestation. Then,
his conviction on the more serious charge was overturned by the state Supreme
Court.
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- This resulted in his release back to his family in Rome,
just in time to sort through the flood of offers coming his way. His legal
guardians, in interviews, cannot say enough about this wonderful young
Adonis, never apparently breathing a word of reproach for his being singularly
unable to control his obviously excessive libido (the encounter with the
15-year-old apparently was not the first, or even the second, reported
incident of what used to be called "inappropriate" sexual behavior).
-
- Cutting through all the chaff regarding the propriety
of the more serious charge -- on which I take no position, not being sufficiently
familiar with the facts of the case -- what does it say about our society
that hero status now is bestowed on an 18-year-old for nothing more than
having sex with a 15-year-old? It tells us, perhaps, the same thing as
when an admitted liar and plagiarist, Jayson Blair, recently received a
"high six-figure" advance for writing a book detailing his deception
while working as a writer for the once-highly esteemed New York Times.
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- It tells us that we as a society no longer have bedrock
values. No longer do we appear willing to prioritize our values so that
base behavior is deemed unacceptable, and qualities that once gave rise
to exceptional, even heroic, achievement are held up for emulation and
praise. Not only is the dull now sufficient for scholastic advancement
and excelling in athletics the basis for immunity from accountability,
but sex with minors is heralded as an appropriate basis on which to place
the athlete on a pedestal.
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- It is ironic that the public deification of Dixon took
place the same week that Americans (and the rest of the world) were treated
to photos of American MPs in Iraq engaging in disgraceful and unlawful
treatment of prisoners under their care. The images -- now burned into
America's collective, if short, memory -- were of male and female MPs forcing
prisoners to engage in explicit and lewd sexual behavior. The American
service personnel, male and female, obviously had a grand old time doing
this. Many, from the president on down, expressed shock and surprise at
the behavior the photos revealed.
-
- I ask, why? Why does this surprise them? What in this
behavior is surprising, other than perhaps that the MPs were so immensely
stupid that they took digital photographs of their depravity? Aside from
that obvious conclusion, however, the simple fact is that these MPs come
from the same cultural milieu in which Dixon felt free to engage his every
sexual whim with whomever he chose, the same cultural milieu that causes
thousands of his fellow Americans to proclaim him a hero for his actions.
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- It's sad, but I find none of this particularly surprising.
Terribly upsetting, but not surprising. And I won't be surprised, either,
if the same book, movie and TV types who sought Blair and Dixon, find their
way to the disgraced MPs.
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- http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/flipside.html
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