"She's a lying, monstrous young lady. I just hate her guts…now I really do want to rape her and her mama.''
These words have caused a great deal of controversy for a man who is already mired in controversy, one “Iron” Mike Tyson, former Heavyweight Boxing Champ of the world. The words caused many to once again debate his guilt or innocence as vehemently as they did during the original rape trial.
I recently heard these words while watching a profile on Mike Tyson. I had heard the words before, but this time, they hit me with an impact I hadn’t felt before.
Currently in his late thirties, Mike Tyson was once the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and had set boxing on its ear. The young champion had the world in the palm of his hands and only the brightest future ahead of him. Now, after falling down to the bottom, serving three years of a six year prison sentence, Tyson struggles to be taken seriously, and struggles with an uncertain future and tarnished place in history.
I have been convinced of Mike Tyson’s innocence since the trial ended in 1991.
I remain convinced, and after the trial and his prison sentence, when new information emerged, I was ever more convinced. I also remain convinced that people should provide him with more latitude for the feelings that are difficult to understand unless one has been in his position. His detractors have not.
Tyson spewed unabashed anger at Desiree Washington as well as her mother, whom he feels played a major role in the plot to swindle him out of money and freedom. His acrimonious statements are not simply the ravings of a madman, but more, the unwitting catharsis of an angry man, who served jail time and watched his life disintegrate, as a result of a crime he may not have committed.
Now, the kicker for me is that while his innocence is debated, some people are saying that Mike Tyson should forget about it and move on with his life.
People always talk about moving on and getting over something, but that’s a mouthful and sometimes, hard to do unless there is a resolution. Is Tyson’s resolution that he is now a free man? Only he can say that, but I doubt it, since his life has been ruined by the experience. How can he move on, when the tag “rapist” and the label “ex-con” dog him wherever he goes? How can he move on when the media want little more from him than to ask about the rape and ask why he “just can’t admit it and apologize?”
Mike Tyson went into prison a man with much promise, one of the best in the fight game. Love him or hate him, people still rooted for him in the ring prior to the rape conviction. Take a look at him now—he has become one of the most despised men in the world and can’t get an even break because of his reputation.
How dare any of us ask him to get over it when we did not serve time and have our careers crushed to the ground? And how can anyone who knows what a kangaroo court he was subjected to, ask that question? During the original trial, the court and the public only had limited information. But there were others who knew more and were not allowed to tell their stories.
Washington’s ex-boyfriend had a story to tell. He wanted to tell the court how the young “virginal” Washington cried rape after they had sex to avoid her father’s wrath.
There were two witnesses who had stories to tell. The two witnesses who saw Washington kissing Tyson and aggressively pursuing him were excluded for no other reason than they were “submitted too late.”
Even one of Washington’s family members, Tonya Bustamante, had a story to tell, creating a website to tell that story. She asserts that Mike Tyson is innocent of raping her relative.
Then, there was a story Washington had, but was never asked to tell. For reasons we’ll never know, Washington closed herself in the bathroom and removed her sanitary napkin before returning to Tyson, as opposed to locking herself in and using the phone in the bathroom to call for help. This information was never introduced to the trial.
Of course, there is the 911 call she finally made after leaving his room. How can anyone who heard her calm voice on that 911 tape imagine that she was distraught? Washington alleges that Mike Tyson brutally raped her, yet, this supposed victim calmly waited until she got back to her hotel room to call the police.
Even if you believe that he brutally raped her because her vaginal area was bruised, where were the bruises on her arms, legs, or even face? If there were a struggle and a brutal rape, then the tiny woman would have been banged up by Tyson, a man who beats on grown men for a living.
Tyson was obviously convinced of his own innocence, ignoring a way out of additional time, instead refusing to admit to the crime. He could have been released a year earlier if he only admitted to the crime, but he refused. Does that sound like a guilty man?
I’m not writing this to place Mike Tyson on trial in the court of public opinion, because he’s already been convicted there. But guilty or innocent, no one should issue edicts that he “get over it and move on.” Tyson has had a life filled with controversy, beginning with reform school as a teen, the rise to the youngest heavyweight champion and ending with the rape trial and the subsequent descent into the enmity of millions.
As he himself admitted, there are crimes of which he is guilty, but the rape charge is the one that won’t go away. It’s the one that people won’t stop talking about.
Tyson once explained to ESPN how he thinks the public sees him: "I don't feel love from them because there's no love. They don't know me as an individual, because they pay to see me smash anybody. The only thing they have respect for is my ability as an athlete. But if I was in court and I had to use them to testify against me on my character, they wouldn't testify positively and they would think I'm a cad."
In the old ‘70’s detective show, Baretta, the theme song admonished listeners “Don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time.” Tyson has done the time and now he’s so angry about it, he has dreams/nightmares of doing the crime. Rape is an ugly crime, but I was so certain of Tyson’s innocence that I was angry and nearly in a rage when he was convicted. No one accused me of rape, sent me to prison, tarnished my reputation or crushed my career, yet, I am still angry over this case.
Now, how must Tyson feel?
Originally Posted by kris kasper
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