WaPo's decision to suspend Sonmez was the right call, and why the Media should pay more attention to labels

WaPo was too afraid to publish this because my message was too harsh. Oh well.

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I commend the Washington Post for suspending Felicia Sonmez over her distasteful Twitter posts. While Felicia Sonmez was not the only person to drudge up the rape accusation against Kobe Bryant mere hours after his death, she’s the only one who was reprimanded. This is a good first step, but the media must do more to hold itself accountable more often when talking about someone’s past.

The media has a fixation with naming and shaming people who were accused or convicted of sexual offenses. I have personally faced this struggle as I have been listed on the sex offense registry for seventeen years. I spend my days advocating for abolishing the sex offense registry because I have witnessed firsthand how these laws destroy lives.

Over the years, my advocacy has attracted media attention, including a 2014 article from WaPo; in that article, the reporter referred to me by the derogatory label of “sex offender.” Many of my media appearances have also included this derogatory label as if it is some kind of job title. Since some people sign their names with initials for religious orders or their graduate degrees, some people must assume registered citizens sign their names with the initials RSO. I refuse to live by this label.

In December 2017, the mass media reported that one of three people who died in a train derailment in Seattle was on the public registry. Why was that important information? Did the train derail because people panicked upon learning a registered person was on the train, and everyone moved to one side of the train, causing the train to derail and kill three people? Assuming I live to the average age of an American male, my obituary decades from now will likely add my conviction from when I was a college kid, which would be over half a century prior to my death.

Labels are very powerful, indeed; the amount of hate mail I receive after a media appearance depends in part on the treatment I receive by the media. On a few occasions, a media outlet referred to me by a far worse label, causing the amount of hateful and threatening messages to skyrocket. Some reporters don’t seem to care about how their articles incite the public and potential harm it can cause to those brave souls willing to be interviewed on this sensitive topic. The media has never reported on the death threats I have received over the years.

Kobe Bryant was accused of a rape allegation the same year I was released from prison. Kobe Bryant was not convicted in a court of law, but merely of the court of public opinion. His accuser chose a civil suit over a criminal court and got a settlement, so people assume there was some guilt. Others assume guilt merely because we must believe the accuser; questioning the accuser’s truthfulness in any way brings about accusations of “victim blaming,” or worse, “an apologist for sex offenders.”

Victim advocates minimize the prevalence of false accusations by claiming only 2% of allegations are false, but even if that was true, that still means tens of thousands of people featured on sex offense registries are falsely convicted. Victim advocate Wendy Murphy famously stated during the Duke Lacrosse case that she “never met a false rape claim” and her own statistics speak to that truth. She still stands by her words long after the accused were found innocent.

Victim advocates also espouse a narrative that they are being “silenced” because some people dare to criticize their tactics and rhetoric. Victim advocacy tenets and mantras like “believe the victim always” are treated as religious dogma. People who claim they are abused are called “brave,” lifted to an exalted position and, as Samantha Geimer wrote in her book “The Girl,” “the moniker Sex Victim Girl.”

Everyone who stands accused or convicted of a sexual offense is seen as inherently evil while people who make abuse claims are canonized. There is no balance to this. The real world isn’t so black and white. People can be falsely accused and convicted of sex offenses. People convicted of sex offenses can change their ways.

The media can play a huge role in subverting the dominant paradigm, but will they ever do it? After all, controversy sells. Eventually, Sonmez will return to work, but will she learn from this mistake? Only time will tell. If she does not, then I hope WaPo gives her a more permanent suspension.