It was just after 2 a.m. on a pitch-black Friday morning when Bernadette Greene-Placentia’s life changed. The Democratic candidate for Congressional District 8 strolled across a parking lot to repair a damaged campaign sign. It was a routine she’d followed all summer. This time, she only made it a few yards.
An attacker smashed her over the head. She blacked out. She woke up to find a strange man on top of her.
Greene-Placentia struggled to open her eyes. She felt a sharp pain below her waist. The attacker was pulling his penis out of her.
She heard him mumble something like, “-ic bitch, not a very good fuck,” which her mind filled in as “Democratic bitch,” she recalled. She wasn’t sure that was exactly what he said.
One leg was out of her jean capris. She wore brand-new tennis shoes and a campaign t-shirt. Another man came over. Greene-Placentia felt his weight nudging her left leg further apart. She began swinging her foot at him. “Not even worth it,” she heard the man say as he moved away. He wore black boots and had small feet, she recalled.
The two men left Greene-Placentia face down in the parking lot. The hatch of her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee was still open. The car was still running. She heard music.
She doesn’t remember pulling up her pants or picking herself off the asphalt parking lot. She doesn’t remember closing her Jeep’s hatch and putting her foot on the gas. She doesn’t remember pulling her car into the driveway and collapsing into her bed.
“It’s just these little tiny flashes of things that I do remember,” Greene-Placentia said in an interview with Phoenix New Times. “As much as I don’t want to remember, I’ve tried very, very hard to remember more stuff. But that’s where I’m at.”
You’re welcome to clarify your statement.
Which part do you need help understanding?
Everything. I read your statement twice and it reads the way Velma assumed because you didn’t say what you meant and just beat around the bush. You may think you said one thing, but you communicated another.
And you are still refusing to say what you actually mean. If you can’t distill your point into one simple sentence, then you don’t have anything worth saying.
Your comment strongly suggests to me a possible pre-existing negative framing of what I’ve said, and I’m not interested in opening myself up to further verbal abuse from you. I’m happy to engage with substantive disagreement, but your comment leaves with little confidence you are capable do that here. I’m not going to continue a conversation that starts with personal insults and character judgements.
And your comment suggests you always knew you were going to say something contrarian and confusing and that you were never going to explain. And instead insist that you said something that wasn’t what you knew you would actually be communicating to everyone who takes issue to what you do say.
You advertised your own character with your piss-poor responses to all opportunities to clarify, and a complete avoidance of it. Now you have to sit in it. Complaining about how you chose to portray yourself is a problem of your own making.
Which measures or actions do rape victims need to complete before the wider public believes they’ve been raped? I’ll go ahead and condense our two conversations into one right here.
So not about the unclear part where your assumption was wrong?
Why are you avoiding the question?
Because you changed the topic I was offering clarity for. I did not offer to clarify anything you wish.
I had already quoted the line of your comment that needed clarifying, it’s not on me that you can’t read.
That’s uncalled for, and you know better.
Do you think I care at this point?
We’ve already done this dance many times before, minorkeys.
Alright, now you’re just being deliberately obtuse. Either clarify your comment or stop wasting everyone’s time.
This is how rape apologists work. They like to dance around the subject, draw up false equivalences, and sow discord in order to obfuscate the true crime here - that this woman was raped by two men.
This is pure projection. The shape of your entire posting here has been pivoting, mischaracterization and redirecting.
Why are you avoiding the question?
Because you keep redirecting the conversation whenever it suits you.
As do you.
Hard disagree.
Calling in the backup? You being here is a choice you make to waste your own time that you chose to consider wasted.
Which comment? Because the comment that seemed unclear was apparently not what Velma wants to address now.
Uh huh… That’s enough of you now. 👋
Have a good one.