Not sure I should consider you lucky or unlucky that you apparently do not lead a life where you listen to the very real concerns of women and how ubiquitous sexual harassment and sexual assault are in their lives.
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You didn’t read what I read, which was NYT Sports section 1/27/20. It described this matter and reminded us it was settled out of court, with Bryant maintaining he thought it was consensual but apologizing in the aftermath for realizing it was not.
Any consideration of Bryant’s legacy mandates a discussion of the felony sexual assault charge he faced in 2003. He was accused of raping a 19-year-old woman who worked at a Colorado hotel as a front-desk clerk. The prosecutors dropped the case when the woman said she was unwilling to testify; Bryant publicly apologized to her after they settled a civil case out of court.
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I’m not a fan of any sport. I have only the vaguest idea who Kobe Bryant was because it’s impossible not to have read anything about him in the last 20 years.
I admit I cringed when I saw the DB article (don’t tweet and didn’t see Ms. Somnez’s tweet) thinking about the family. But at no time have I thought the story or her tweet should have been suppressed. Certainly, I wouldn’t expect a journalist to lose their job over posting something that is CLEARLY the truth.
She should be reinstated immediately. Good for her and good for her colleagues who have stood up for her.
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OK. But isn’t everyone supposed to know how their actions will affect their family, whether before or after they died? It’d be more considerate of journalists to take into account his family’s feelings when talking about his past, but it’s not unforgivable when they don’t.
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Off all the hateful commentators, you alone are looking at it the right way. Bryant was a remarkable athlete for reasons we either know about or can learn about. Let him rest in peace instead of rushing to the side of a reporter for dredging up shit that’s 16 years old and best left alone.
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Counterpoint: your approach centers the comfort of the abuser instead of the comfort of the abused.
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Incorrect. He recognized her that she did not view the incident as consensual but maintained that he disagreed with her. In other words, as in the vast majority of civil settlements, each side maintained their position, neither side admitted wrongdoing and the parties agreed to disagree. Folks may may want to actually read the statement before commenting on it. It reads in pertinent part:
“Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.”
It was clearly part of a civil settlement leaving both sides the option of maintaining their views.
If the accuser felt she was wronged and Weinstein-Cosbyed, she had the option to come forward with her story when he was alive. She did not, nor did anyone else. Now the guy is dead, everyone knows all the evidence. Funny how easy it is for people to pile on the dead when they are not around to defend themselves.
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It’s called a few million dollars in settlements and an NDA preventing her from ever speaking out.
It’s a curse of our system that the wealthy can literally buy their freedom from crimes, simply by offering up sums of money that victims would never see in their lifetime.
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The prosecutors dropped the case when the woman said she was unwilling to testify; Bryant publicly apologized to her after they settled a civil case out of court.
What part of this don’t you understand. It happened 16 long years ago, and impartiality is best at this point in time
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No, it’s literally not. You’re defining someone by one incident. It’s what we do and what we’re trained to do in this country. Everyone is nothing but the one worst thing they ever did. What was yours?
And you’re pretty much just using deflection here. I was never talking about whether Kobe Bryant did nothing wrong or whether he fairly deserves criticism for his failures or whether the entire incident he was accused of and its aftermath was repugnant and wrong, just whether it’s appropriate to throw that turd right when a tragedy occurs just because you’re hellbent on making sure a person stained by it in death as well as life.
Kobe Bryant’s sudden horrible death with his daughter in a helicopter crash wasn’t the “perfect opportunity to advance the discussion on sexual assault.” You want to have that discussion? There’s a myriad better ways and opportunities to do it that neither the Daily Beast author nor the WaPo lady are taking…but those might not be as controversial and attention grabbing and wouldn’t elicit a predictable response that green-lighted them and you getting your backs up. Well, sometimes that strategy actually damages the discussion. And yeah, I get it…that response, the backlash, only kicks the high dudgeon and righteous indignation and virtue signaling that motivated the turd flinging in the first place into higher and higher gear, which is why generating that response was part of the goal. It’s an asinine cycle that people think is great strategy, but it’s not.
But yeah, let’s all high-five. Fuck you, family of the dead person, we’ve got an agenda and it includes the self-gratification we feel by making sure you know you loved a pariah. How dare you mourn that person or try to find solace in their good points.
I will wait a respectful time after he’s buried to say anything negative. But I’ll be figuring out how to piss on his grave in the mean time. If the family has any sense at all, they will bury him in an undisclosed location or install sufficient plumbing facilities to handle the demand.
I don’t know what point you’re making — what I get from what you quoted is that he got to admit he raped her but as long as he apologized and paid her, it’s all good. That’s the system we perpetuate by not shining a light on how broken this system is. And this conversation we are having is part of the process of fixing it.
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Go back and read the facts of the claims. Both sides get to present evidence, as you well know. Kobe and his lawyers were well prepared to defend the claims and the alleged victim, more than anyone else, knew it. Kobe settled because the price was less than the cost of the mongo diamond ring he had to buy his wife to apologize. The alleged victim settled because, with all she knew, she got more than she felt she was certain to get at trial. That’s civil litigation.
Indeed.
Victimhood has become a cause for some people. I think it’s become like a default setting and they won’t let “it” go. Notice that it’s never clear exactly what would be justice for them.
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It happened a long time ago, also called the Kavanaugh defense.
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I’m not. You’re the one taking an extremist position, that nothing ill can be said of the dead, until a random time you’ve determined is appropriate.
I’m merely stating that things aren’t off-limits for discussion and mentioning.
I suppose when Roman Polanski dies, since he’s also a celebrity, we have to focus only on his professional work, not his decades in exile avoiding child rape charges.
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I think it was abundantly clear here: Bryant must be smeared and buried with permanent stigma and his family taught a lesson not to love and live with such people.
I didn’t say what you’re claiming I said, not did I imply or infer it. It’s 16 years old and long forgotten except for a journos trying to make her bones from it. And if you think a discussion of people in cyberspace on a blog site is part of the process of fixing something, I’ve got a bridge I can sell you. It’s like new, carries people from San Francisco to Marin County, and it’s orange.
I don’t actually need to say anything further but just quote this bit. You’re telling on yourself. Good day.
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Several of the Cosby victims had settlement agreements, too. If Kobe’s alleged victim felt she had the facts on her side to get more, she and her lawyers would toss that settlement agreement in a second. The fact is that here, the victim and her attorneys know all the facts so they know the probability that she would win at trial. The $2.5 or so million allegedly paid to the victim is the value of her win discounted by her probability of success. Given Kobe’s wealth, the heinous nature of the allegations, and the availability of punitive damages, a verdict in favor of the accuser would likely have been enormous. In the circumstances, $2.5 million is peanuts. That should give folks an idea of how how the parties on both sides viewed the their probability of success.
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