cliterature

In glib terms you could say there are two main types of fiction.  Literary stories explore the ambiguity of human experience–somehow having the goal of enlightening us and making us better people.  While genre fiction provides a more orderly picture where the good people are rewarded and bad people punished–with a goal of giving people leisure and respite through a satisfying story.

Life does not reliably reward only the good and humble hero.  Sometimes it might seem so when a poor native Alaskan man, orphaned as a child, wins the half a million dollars and pledges to use it to take care of his sisters and help people.  But then we discover he is a not-fully-repentant child molester.  When he needed help, friends took him in, and he abused two young girls who lived in the house.  When released he offended against another young girl.

For such a man to win a big raffle prize is perhaps just one of those things, but this raffle was held to benefit a group called ‘Standing Together Against Rape’ (STAR).  That irony seems almost deliberately cruel.  But the telling point is that this is not really as unlikely as might be thought.

As the spokesperson of STAR states, their group was formed because Alaska struggles with the highest rates of rape of any American state–there is no reason a victim or abuser would not win–and this man was both.  It is the inane TV frontperson who annoyed me most in saying the raffle was just ”bad PR”.  If the point is to raise the profile of the problem I would hope the irony is instructive not just some kind of meaningless blooper. 

This is one of those stories of ambiguity.  It spotlights a person orphaned, institutionalised, bounced around in care, abusing substances and then children, multiple times.  This is abuse, this is rape, this is the cycle of despair.  STAR expresses that tenuous hope that telling the stories of abuse can help the people that hear about  it somehow be better people, living in safer communities–somehow urge them to become in some small way a part of the solution.  And they also do the work on the ground to intervene, to help victims and to try to prevent sexual violence.

 I only hope the winner follows through with his promise to give 20% of the prize to STAR.  That might be one step in the right direction.  Then he could get some job training, drug counselling and psychiatric treatment and pay the remaining money to his victims.  In the real world happily-ever-afters cannot be relied upon; in the real world it is something we have to fight for.

STAR is fighting an uphill battle and if the winner doesn’t follow through in his donation they may struggle to make any profit of their most recent raffle.  But perhaps the twist in the the tale could be that the morbid media coverage might provoke a few more donations to help them keep doing their work for the victims of rape.  Their online donation system is not up and running yet but donations are welcomed at:
STAR (Make checks payable to STAR)
1057 W. Fireweed Lane, Suite 230,
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
USA

They suggest a donation starting at $25 (which I have written and stamped and will mail tomorrow) but I am sure they will be happy to accept whatever you can spare.

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