We all did.
If I get something wrong. If my facts are absolutely correct, please bear in mind that I am used to some noble Youtuber correcting me. You may correct me if you wish.
Affluenza: a disease that the wealthy get that allows them to get away with murder.
Ethan Couch killed a bunch of people and is going off to play with horses as punishment. His affluenza was so great he had no respect for the lives of lesser human beings and no knowledge that there could be consequences for his actions. He really believes that he can do whatever he wants, and the justice system is telling him that what he believes is absolutely true.
I could rant and rant forever about how wrong this is. The thing is everyone already knows it's wrong, so what's the point of attempting to take it apart and show that obvious wrongness? I only mention it because affluenza is a cool new (slightly hilarious in the worst kind of way) word and I love words. In adding it to my mental dictionary, I had to suffer the taint of its inclusion. It came with a rolling level of nausea. It made my stomach churn and my head ache. But I had to include it because it is now a real word. The spell checker is not quite catching it yet...but it will.
If a poor/middle class kid had killed all those people, he'd be under the jail now. He'd starve to death in the darkness of human disgust with the rats and the cockroaches that inhabit the shadows of such places. He would have been tried as a person who had murdered innocent people because he couldn't possibly have affluenza. He wasn't given everything to the point where it could be claimed that he didn't know the difference between right and wrong. He would be held accountable for the death and the destruction he had caused--and for the pain and suffering of the families he hurt so very badly.
Normal people, "Normies", I'll call them, don't get to make these kinds of 'mistakes'. No one feels sorry for poor Normies when they commit murder, even when they were abused all their lives, even when they've never known human kindness or compassion. The hardest life of a Normie is ignored when they recklessly or purposely slaughter other human beings.
I'm not saying this kid did this on purpose. I think what I'm saying is that I resent the fact that I've been forced to see him as a human being instead of a monster. ..
What makes one monster different from the other? Is it Ethan's youth which was played upon so heavily during the trial? No, they're locking kids up every day for lesser crimes. The same judge on this case locked a younger kid up for killing a person in a fight. So, it couldn't be youth...
Affluenza. Affluenza. Affluenza. Affluenza.
Word has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
_____
Sixteen year old, Cyntoia Brown did not have the luxury of having Affluenza. She is one of those people with those terrible childhoods I was talking about earlier. She was abandoned by crack addicted (I believe that was the drug) mother at an early age. There is a history of mental illness and drug abuse in her family. She did not 'trust' her adopted mother in her early years, and there was all kinds of sexual abuse, including some dude who turned her, at sixteen, into a prostitute. For fear of being beaten, Cyntoia went out to turn tricks and ran into a man who was forty-three years old. He took her home with him. And, she killed him. The man died because the child was afraid. There is strong evidence to support self defense in this case. She made no effort to cover it up. She stated quite plainly what she did and why.
This beautiful child was given life in prison. Her abandonment, the faults of her parents, the years of sexual abuse, none of it mattered when that life sentence was handed down by the court.
I'm not going to bitch and moan about the state of the world. Again Pointless. And besides, I learned from a kind man on Twitter, that you'll never see rainbows if you're always looking down. I want the rainbow here. What I am going to ask for is this:
There is a petition to grant Cyntoia Brown a little Affluenza. There aren't a lot more signatures necessary to grant this now young woman a chance. Learn a little something about her. Learn as much as you had to learn about Ethan Couch...
...and then sign it if she captures your heart. Please.
She takes college level courses, and she writes beautifully...
Cyntoia's Documentary
The Petition
Song:
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