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"  While the highly publicized Steubenville trial ended with high school jocks Trent Mays and Ma&amp;#039;lik Richmond being convicted of the rape of a blacked-out 16-year-old girl, rape deniers (both the outright and the more subtle, insidious kind) have been coming out of the woodwork to defend the boys. And darn if they don&amp;#039;t come from the most unlikely places. First CNN, now the NAACP. No wonder sexual assault is an epidemic in America. Steubenville&amp;#039;s former NAACP president Royal Mayo spoke to the International Business Times about his doubts regarding the fairness of the verdict and whether the &amp;quot;alleged victim&amp;quot; (his words) had, in fact, simply had drunk but consentual sex. Why? &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re alleging she got raped; she&amp;#039;s acknowledging that she wanted to leave with Trent. Her friends say she pushed them away as she went and got into the car, twice telling them, &amp;#039;I know what I&amp;#039;m doing; I&amp;#039;m going with Trent.&amp;#039; How could I have forgotten! She got in a car. And we all know any woman who gets into any car, ever, is basically just asking for sexual assault. I mean, that&amp;#039;s just science. What else? &amp;quot;She said her mother brought her to the party, at 3 o&amp;#039;clock, with a bottle of vodka. Where did you get it, young lady? You brought it from home? Where&amp;#039;d you get it? You came to the party with your mother.&amp;quot; Yeah, &amp;quot;young lady,&amp;quot; how dare you bring alcohol to a party like literally any human being would do without being aware that procuring a bottle of vodka is a green light for rape? Once again, it&amp;#039;s a shining testament to the power of human denial that it&amp;#039;s somehow always the victim&amp;#039;s fault for quote-unquote &amp;quot;putting herself in the situaton,&amp;quot; whatever that may be. If a man handcuffed a woman in a basement and raped her for a month, we&amp;#039;d somehow find a way to blame her for not trying harder to get out of the cuffs. Hey! Here&amp;#039;s a thing. It&amp;#039;s impossible to &amp;quot;put yourself in a situation&amp;quot; to get raped, because that is literally contradicting the very definition of rape. Chew on that. Mayo adds: &amp;quot;Back in August, when the rumors first started going around, I talked to Ma&amp;#039;lik, and he said, &amp;#039;No, Mr. Mayo, we didn&amp;#039;t do anything to that girl. I don&amp;#039;t know what these rumors are; I don&amp;#039;t understand it.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; [...] &amp;quot;You hear local people saying, &amp;#039;We got this out of the way, let us just heal, let the community start to heal.&amp;#039; It&amp;#039;s like these two were sacrificed, the poor black kid and the white kid who is from the next county, in the next town over, who were sacrificed over all the other dirt and corruption that would be uncovered if you come into Steubenville.&amp;quot; However, the NAACP itself, which is sane, hardly gets behind Mayo&amp;#039;s comments. They released the following statement, via HuffPo: The NAACP abhors the remarks attributed to Royal Mayo regarding the rape victim in the Steubenville. The remarks are Mayo&amp;#039;s own, and do not reflect the position of the NAACP and its membership. Rape is a despicable crime of violence. The NAACP understands that comments that blame victims for the actions of their attackers contribute to and perpetuate a culture of acquiescence to rape. The NAACP advocates strongly for a society where victims of rape and sexual assault can come forward and seek legal redress without further retribution from the community, media or society at large. Follow Anna on Twitter: @annabreslaw Photo via Corbis/Associated Press "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a12239/steubenville-naacp-rape-denier/>