Sketches of Our Culture: Apathetic, Going on Pathetic – Student Writers’ Corner

On August 24, 2007, CBS News reported the rape and pillage of a 26-year-old woman without any intervention from the well-aware neighbors. The local prosecutors spoke of a security video which showed how “at least 10 witnesses ignored a woman’s cries for help for more than an hour as a man beat and sexually assaulted her.” The Police spokesman elaborated on it saying, “The surveillance video clearly showed men and women looking out their apartment doors or starting to walk down the hallway before retreating as the woman was assaulted for nearly 90 minutes… The video shows one person looking out of her door probably three times. It shows another person walking up, observing what’s going on, then turning and putting up the hood of his sweatshirt.”

Unfortunately, a couple more examples await our dissection. Within the last year, the controversy of “Dunbar Village” has garnered some wind, leaving us no option, but to deal with the horrendous happening in a public fashion. On July 14th, 2007, the Associated Press reported a disturbing incident in which a 35-year-old Haitian mother and her 10-year-old son, were subjected to the satanic antics of teenagers – who we’re most likely gang members. The report states how the mother and son, who lived in the thin-walled projects of West Pam Beach, were “huddled together, battered and beaten, in the bathroom – sobbing, wondering why no one came to help.” A graphic and heart breaking description of the episode was rendered: “For three hours, the two say, the 35-year-old Haitian immigrant was raped and sodomized by up to 10 masked teenagers as her 12-year-old son was beaten in another room. Then, mother and son were reunited to endure the unspeakable: At gunpoint, the woman was forced to perform oral sex on the boy… Afterward, they were doused with household cleansers, perhaps in a haphazard attempt to scrub the crime scene. The solutions burned the boy’s eyes. The thugs then fled with a couple hundred dollars’ worth of cash, jewelry and cell phones.” Deeply saddening, was the response of a certain resident, Paticiea Matlock, who was quick to point out the conventionality of the affair – in that area code. She said, “So a lady was raped; big deal, there’s too much other crime happening here…”