Mike Tyson said on Fox’s “The Pulse”
that he wishes he raped Desiree Washington — and her mother —
when he had the chance in 1991. In the glare of the media lights,
his rhetoric appears to get progressively more vile and inhuman. To
the naked eye, Tyson is becoming the personification of Bigger
Thomas, the amiable but painfully stupid center of Richard Wright’s
American classic, Native Son. Once loved, he became a
suspect in a heartbeat. His kindly, thick nature put him in a
situation gone bad that got worse still, until he was in fact too
guilty for anyone to save. But upon talking a closer look at the
substance of Tyson’s comments, we see an angry street guy without a
lot of media savvy. Or maybe too much for his own good.
Tyson’s comments come as new evidence suggests that important
testimony was suppressed at his 1991 rape trial. According to “The
Pulse,” witnesses say Washington was all over Mike, and had a
history of claiming rape after consensual sex. This was critical
evidence that a jury never heard. Quietly, it doesn’t take Columbo
to figure out that church girls in nightgowns aren’t in hotel rooms
with prize fighters in the a.m. hours looking for a bible study,
and that needs to be said. Fact is, no one knows what happened in
that hotel room on the night in question. But if this new
information has any veracity, Tyson may have been denied a fair
hearing that included all of the facts, and he will be called a
rapist for the rest of his life. The context for his quote has been
grossly underreported in the rush to demonize him, and the media
owe Mike an apology. Sure, he should have never said that he
regrets not raping Washington, but constant recrimination would
cause any man’s psyche to buckle. Sadly, Tyson’s outrageous PR
approach has made him the target of media exploitation.
The media tease Tyson like a vicious dog, only to watch him jump
and bark viciously, chewing at his own tail in frustration. But in
fairness, he often behaves like a child that needs that kind of
attention. By all accounts, Tyson knows how to work the press, and
his antics seem to be a mix of genuine mental dysfunction and a
calculated ploy to play center-stage in the theatre of the
ridiculous: to feed our insatiable need for opprobrium, our need to
watch a human being self-destruct. He may not be ill by any
clinical definition, but something is clearly wrong with Mike
Tyson. The best medicine for his ailment would be media
deprivation, if they could turn away from his macabre devolution.
But we demand to watch him melt away and become less and less human
before our eyes.
Of course Tyson doesn’t wish he raped Washington. This reckless
comment is a media ploy, hyperbole that Mike should have kept to
himself. In context, his words reveal more frustration than
criminal intent. Tyson wishes you would listen to his pain, and
adds this lament to a life full of wishes and regrets. He is eating
himself alive, and the media are only too happy to watch.
Tyson came out of jail perhaps more irrational than he went in,
and he wouldn’t be the first person to go to jail slightly
off-kilter only to emerge completely unhinged. Maybe a new trial
would give him peace. Maybe not. But in any event, Tyson isn’t an
animal or side-show attraction. He is still a man — a man who is
fast becoming less a boxer than the sum of his apparent psychosis.
It’s hard to know how his story will proceed without a disastrous
end.
Wondering what Mike will say next is fine sport, but it isn’t
funny anymore. The media should avert the cameras long enough for
someone to come to his aid before the inevitable implosion that
will reduce this troubled man to dust.
I hope someone loves Mike Tyson enough to save him. Surely,
someone must love him.
