<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  Scott Raab, Esquire writer-at-large, is now writing about sports for Esquire.com all week long. Follow his posts here I&amp;#039;ve been meaning to pay tribute to Serena Williams, the greatest player in the history of women&amp;#039;s tennis, but I thought it wise to wait until she finally stopped apologizing for what she said to a magazine reporter about last summer&amp;#039;s notorious Steubenville rape case: &amp;quot;Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don&amp;#039;t know. I&amp;#039;m not blaming the girl, but if you&amp;#039;re a 16-year-old and you&amp;#039;re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don&amp;#039;t take drinks from other people. She&amp;#039;s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn&amp;#039;t remember? It could have been much worse. She&amp;#039;s lucky. Obviously, I don&amp;#039;t know, maybe she wasn&amp;#039;t a virgin, but she shouldn&amp;#039;t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that&amp;#039;s different.&amp;quot; To someone who makes his living partly by asking famous people fatuous questions, recording their answers, and \u2014 helped by some of the finest editors in the world \u2014 selecting their words for publication, this is a spectacular example of a money quote, guaranteed to make headlines and generate controversy. But this case \u2014 a female athlete casually tackling the subject of an outrageous sexual assault \u2014 made for a perfect shit-storm.  The fury Serena&amp;#039;s words triggered reached beyond humankind: God Herself smote the top-ranked and \u2013seeded star with a fourth-round loss to a player seeded 23rd. But I myself am far more interested in the wrath unleashed by us mortals upon a young woman for the sin of naively speaking her mind \u2014 and for telling uncomfortable truths to a land full of folks who&amp;#039;ve turned public discourse into little more than the shrieking and moaning of what Philip Roth has termed &amp;quot;the ecstasy of sanctimony.&amp;quot; I don&amp;#039;t share or care about Serena Williams&amp;#039; implied opinion about the two rapists&amp;#039; convictions and sentencing, and no doubt she was entirely unaware of the howling mob that erupted in protest when a TV talking head, also female, had the gall to voice compassion for the two high school jocks found guilty of the crime, which was an awful blunder. One can&amp;#039;t be attacked for feeling badly about these young men&amp;#039;s fates and their families&amp;#039; suffering, but \u2014 in a zero-sum culture where all argument is reduced to mutual contempt and ad hominem attack and the citizenry is simply divided into angels and devils \u2014 one must keep any such feelings, all nicety and nuance, to oneself. And yet, however much one might prefer &amp;quot;monstrous,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;subhuman,&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;evil,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;stupid&amp;quot; is apt enough. &amp;quot;She was lucky,&amp;quot; though inaccurate in any literal sense, is here equivalent in meaning to &amp;quot;it could&amp;#039;ve been worse,&amp;quot; which seems obvious and rings true. Artless and insensitive, perhaps, but Serena, whose oldest sister was shot dead in 2003, in Compton, the rugged Los Angeles neighborhood where the Williams family grew up, was not issuing a formal statement at the time. Likewise, I find no general fault with the reference to parental duty, but Serena&amp;#039;s failure to address the obligation of parents of sons to teach those sons that never, in any situation or circumstances, is it in any way acceptable to rape or assault women, or to countenance such behavior, may be viewed as evidence of what some refer to as &amp;quot;a culture of rape.&amp;quot;  That&amp;#039;s a subject of huge, vital importance \u2014 not just to every parent or every woman \u2014 and a discussion that ought to be ongoing and out loud. But no pro athlete is going to lead it, and it&amp;#039;s not a tennis pro&amp;#039;s fault that any chance of advancing it here was smothered at once by the now traditional ritual of shaming and apologizing.  Which leaves us at the heart of the matter \u2014 Serena&amp;#039;s assertion of the victim&amp;#039;s agency. To say that &amp;quot;she shouldn&amp;#039;t have put herself in that position&amp;quot; is to say something most people, apparently, would rather not ponder.  Serena Williams didn&amp;#039;t say that the victim was responsible for the criminal act, and the fact that so many people have responded as if she had said so doesn&amp;#039;t mean she did. She said, in essence, that the victim was accountable for her own behavior \u2014 for getting black-out drunk, for rendering herself unconscious and therefore helpless. And she is right, and she is entitled to say so.  If you have a problem with that \u2014 or with the man writing this column \u2014 rest assured: I&amp;#039;m already working on my apology.  THE MISSION OF RAABID: By Scott Raab  I believe that sports are more vital to human nature \u2013 and often vastly richer and more exciting than \u2013 than other performing arts, revealing truths fundamental to our individual lives and collective cultural constructs, truths beyond the reach of safer, less sweaty efforts to express and inspire the soul, with the possible exception of line dancing. I believe sports do this naturally because, unlike &amp;quot;serious&amp;quot; artistic endeavors, they are not by nature exercises in social or intellectual elitism or the pursuit of false purity, with the possible exception of polo and \u2013 if it were a sport rather than a game \u2013 golf.  I believe that writing is a mission, and writing about sports is a holy mission. I believe that flags fly forever. I have to: I&amp;#039;m from Cleveland. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/news/a23380/serena-williams-steubenville/>