Controversy around Nate Parker

I've struck out some factual mistakes and made some corrections on August 29, 2016. My apologies for them. - Levois
 
I've been hearing about this for a while now. Nate Parker who has a movie coming out in October - The Birth of a Nation. Lately he's been mired in bad press over a past rape charge for which he had been tried and convicted acquitted.

At Instapundit we see a rebuttal to this. Basically it's that men unfortunately have often been unable to shake any charge of rape even after they were found innocent or acquitted. The rebuttal is basally we believe the victim over the accused even if it turns out the accused may not have committed the crime after all.

This is what happened to Mr. Parker and is what's happening. Unfortunately the victim is not with us to tell us her side of the story, she killed herself in 2012. Her family continues to speak for her however and seems to still believe Parker and another young man assaulted the victim.

All the same the story behind the alleged rape is as controversial as the subject of the movie. The film essentially is about a slave rebellion led by one Nat Turner.

In the comments about this I find on social media it's always emphasized that being acquitted doesn't mean it didn't happen. Which is technically true and we have one case of that look at OJ Simpson and he's in prison right now. Not for killing his ex-wife and her male friend, but for something completely different. It's an example how his life unraveled after he himself was accused of a major crime and also acquitted. He later lost a judgement in a wrongful death civil suit.

But then having to say acquitted doesn't mean it didn't happen also bothers me. Because in our system we're innocent until proven guilty. For that trial Parker wasn't proven guilty and now this case is coming back out. Someone out there isn't going to let him shake it and will believe he did something. It won't even matter if he stayed on the straight and narrow after his release acquittal.