I've been holding off saying anything here, because I said almost all I felt way back when when IE hashed this to death four years ago. BUT....
If one insists on handing out "guilt" in this circumstance, that guilt goes to the parents... not the girl, and not the boy [neither of them were angels, but the parents created this risk.]
How? They had a daughter, by all reports a wonderful and beautiful girl, who just happened to have a brain chemistry glitch which required her to take some serious anti-depressant medicine --- at least that is what the post-suicide reporting said. These parents, wishing for the fantasy that a daughter in this situation could just go out there and live like any other young girl [of what? a sheltered 19?] SENT HER AWAY TO SCHOOL, and away from her safety nest, while still requiring medication. One can see how some parents might have wanted to believe that she could handle it, but it's still foolish.
So our sweetheart [and I say this very affectionately and in anger over her lost life] tried. One day she decided to go to an event where she and her girlfriend would try to stretch their wings. Lots of girls were doing the same with the masculine ND jocks. She and her girlfriend "take a little chance" with a big powerful freshman and his friend and wander away. She's almost by definition flirting with this move, and the guy begins to see where this will go.
She panics. He angrily caves and walks away. He's scared for his football life. She's panicked about her own ability to cope normally. His jackass friend soon pours gasoline on the nerves of everyone.
Sometime later ... several days later if I remember it ... this, plus whatever other stresses she is feeling, make her take the worst possible "solution" to what she feels about herself.
The parents never grow up. They pursue every rumor and media opportunity like ... well, like people refusing to face the fact that it is THEMSELVES who put their daughter into a situation that she couldn't handle.
The world will never focus on the people who really screwed up here. They'll focus on the athlete ... because he's cheapshot easy to try to blame for what?.... fondling the breast of a pretty girl who walked away with him.
Yeh. He's the "criminal" alright.
I should have just kept out of this thread, but DAMM this one makes me angry ... for Prince and even more for Lizzy.
Best post I have ever seen in terms of honesty and biting insight. To add to that, not expecting that these folks were in the one per cent that didn't see race at all, in addition to everything else swirling around this sheltered Caucasian girl has engaged with an African-American young man. This may not seem like much, but lets not kid each other. What a child hears about equality, and the images of Aunt Elvira's scorn, are two different things. With kids involved in other gender extra-racial relationships it is ideal meet social stigma.
I know. My oldest is bi-racial. Handsome like Adonis, at about that age girls that had been friends for years started to get lost, and parents were downright unfriendly about it. In front of my eyes. Years later I asked my two oldest, and they told me the truth of what seemed like a confusing situation. My son had a thing for a neighborhood girl. Her parents were very prejudice, and she was a year or so older than my son.
Supposedly he "liked" this girl's cousin, but this girl, who was older would always drive them on dates. (Because she could drive). So naturally they would invite my second son to go along. To keep the first girl company? No. So it wasn't so hard to understand how later the cousin became my younger son's girlfriend. And their was no bad blood between them.
It still happens, even though there is more interracial dating, the stigma still exists, and it may have been just enough to make a bad situation, seemingly unmanageable. Doesn't matter whether the parents were good or bad. Only what caught the daughter in her fears. Remember. Fear, and dealing with fear, is not based upon rational thought. It is irrational, so the imagined can be as real and dangerous as the truth.
Edit: I hope I didn't offend anyone. I was just trying to make the point that you had two young people trying to negotiate the most delicate of social interactions, and based upon the fishbowl that College Athletics are, I am not sure
either was
equipped with the tools to handle the situation at the time. Not only did Prince have the normal student-athlete issues that have been a challenge for so many as we have discussed on this site, but I strongly doubt he even had the first inkling of the issues Lizzy was dealing with. So on the basis of the latter, I do not believe that Prince had the tools to effectively deal with the situation.
