
A Brutal Inheritance - smollett
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/virginiahughes/dna-test-rape-family-tree
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xrd
What an incredible story. These two men are such heroes for the way they have
sought to make peace and take ownership for such a sad event in their pasts.

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Crinus
Is this a low-key ad for 23andme?

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CPLX
No. An advertisement is a paid placement created by a marketer. This is an
exhaustively reported and fascinating piece of feature journalism.

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Simon_says
This kind of stuff is atrociously common in our evolutionary history. Every
single one of us has innumerable rapists and rape victims among our ancestors.

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ptah
when is the movie coming out?

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fapjacks
Did I miss something? The whole article goes on like there was a conviction
for rape, explicitly calling it rape. I mean I realize it's Buzzfeed, but
"safe to assume" seems like a dangerous way to present something of this
magnitude.

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gerbilly
As if there ever could be a conviction of rape against a white prison warden
raping a black inmate.¹

The standard of proof that you are demanding here is disingenuous.

Also, I noticed that on this site people have a profound misunderstanding of
what journalism is. Journalism is first and foremost _story telling._

The stories are based in truth of course, but the core of any news story in
the story, it's right there in the name of it!

If we replaced this with articles based on raw 'data', as many on this site
seem to suggest, then no one would read them.

1: In the south, during the 1920s, in a hard labour prison camp with whips
displayed on the walls, no less.

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fapjacks
Did you mean to reply to my post? I'm saying this writer has presented as fact
things which no one knows for certain.

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gerbilly
I did read your post, and I disagree, the writer presented the speculation of
the two main characters¹ as to the nature of the 'relationship' between the
prison warden and Bernice.

Basically, the writer related to us what those two men believe about this
event. There are two independent sources for this belief, and to me that's
acceptable journalistic practise.²

He is helping the two men tell their story, you are free to disagree with
their speculations, but that's what they told the writer.

1: And other relatives.

2: Now the subhead, does contain the word 'rape', and that's maybe the only
thing I can fault the article on. However, headlines aren't typically written
by the journalist, but rather by a copy editor. I'm not sure what Buzzfeed's
practises are on this.

~~~
fapjacks
But if you can only fault the headline, then I don't think you read the
article very thoroughly, because the writer explicitly states it was rape
multiple times throughout the article. I'm not sure how you rationalize
stating falsehood as any kind of "acceptable journalistic practice", but
_nothing else matters_ if the writer is making false claims. And if the cop-
out is that this is "storytelling" and not "journalism" then it's a whole
other issue of duplicity in publishing this clickbait with false information
under the _buzzfeednews.com URL_. But I suppose this is the difference between
Buzzfeed and legitimate journalism.

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gerbilly
> I'm not sure how you rationalize stating falsehood as any kind of
> "acceptable journalistic practice"

You're just being obtuse¹ now, it's such a reasonable inference given the
circumstances that it's petty of you to place such a high burden of proof on
the writer.

Also you're denying one other important piece of evidence in favour of rape.
Why did the mother never speak about it?

If she had had a joyful affair with such high ranking member of society,
wouldn't she be proud of it?

Why do I even bother...

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning)

