It isn’t my job to tell you if Jameis Winston is a rapist or not. People have opinions and that is their right as an American. My job is to lay out what we know about Jameis and from there you are on your own.
We know Jameis has done a lot of stupid things from stealing Burger King soda and Crab Legs to things like saying F*ck her right in the P*ssy on campus.
“I was with my friends,” he says. “I was quoting — it was a meme. Like it’s just something people say, and me being, wanting the attention, I burst it out. I got a bunch of laughs. You know, that’s childish, but I did it. I’m going to own that. That was stupid.”
We know FSU and police were a little lax in their rape investigation. We also know that Jameis’ accuser story has changed a few times and even though she said she was drugged, the toxicology report found nothing and she wasn’t even drunk at the time. In the end, only she and Jameis know what really happen, but we have become a society that lives by the motto guilty until proven innocent, not the other way around. In rape cases it is almost impossible to prove your innocence. If you aren’t charged they blame the cops, if the woman recants they said she was pressured, so if you are in a situation like Jameis how can you prove your innocence?
Simply put you can’t, all you can do going forward is try to indeed move forward knowing there will always be the Ann Killions of the world who think you got away with it. Here is what Jameis had to say about that.
“So many people try to dehumanize me,” he says. “They say, ‘Off-field issues.’ They say, ‘The sexual allegation stuff.’ People view me as a convict, and I didn’t even do nothing. People say, ‘How does he play like this and all this stuff going on?’ Like by me playing well during that adversity, that made people think about me worse, thinking I’m a sociopath.”
Winston continues. Of the allegation he says, “It hurts the women that I respect”- — his mother and grandmother and his girlfriend, a college basketball player at Rice, who is his high school sweetheart and remains by his side.
He pauses, sticks out his chin, hoping to brush past his vulnerability.
“I’m not …” he says.
A beat passes.
“You know what I’m saying?”
In the end, rightfully or wrongfully Jameis’ ability on the field is what is going to matter to most people (Ben Roethlisberger good example of that). If he plays well this will be a footnote, if he doesn’t or he continues to put himself in bad situations, people will be less likely to believe him about his past.
Ball is in Jameis’ court.
H/T ESPN