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'Why Didn't I Tell?' -- Rochelle Riley Regrets Her Silence About Teen Sexual Attack

October 16, 2017, 2:36 PM

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Rochelle Riley

The Harvey Weinstein scandal reopens old wounds for some women, including Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley, who writes about a sexual attack while in high school in North Carolina.

She writes about hanging out with a male friend as a freshman and how that person wanted her to stop by his older sister's apartment to hear an Elton John song. The friend was from a well-respected family, and Riley writes that they were just friends.

What happened next wasn't about friendship.

So, when my buddy dragged me into a bedroom at his sister’s empty apartment and climbed on top of me and tried to force my legs open with his knee, I thought I was having an out-of-body experience.

It took at least 30 seconds that seemed like 30 minutes before I began to yell.

I was an athlete in high school, an independent virgin whose sole goal in life was to be smart enough, good enough, respected enough and chaste enough to get a scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and get out of Tarboro, N.C. I would not appreciate my town or its amazing people for years. That remains one of my great regrets, those years I missed the awesomeness of my hometown.

But my greater regret is: I never told my family what happened. I never told his family what happened. I’ll never know whether he tried what he did with me with any other girl. . . .

As that cyclone comes, I must do something first. I must apologize to the women – at least 20 so far – who have spoken out about Weinstein. I never wrote it, but thought: Why would they wait? Why did they aid and abet his behavior by not speaking up? I never wrote it, but thought, why didn’t they have the courage?

Then I realized the sheer hypocrisy of my thoughts: Why didn’t I tell?


Read more:  Detroit Free Press


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