You know what this mess tells me? That if you report a rape, you have to be perfect. You can’t make foolish choices. You can’t talk to a drug felon on the phone, (especially if they’re one of a disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated for drug crimes.) You can’t be too poor to hire investigators to do their own digging. You can’t live in housing associated with HIV. You can’t be an immigrant. You can’t be a woman. You can’t be a woman of color. Unless you’re the right kind of witness, you just can’t afford to tell the police or anyone else that a man with power, money, global connections and sense of entitlement raped you. Because you’re below his, the prosecution’s and The New York Times’s pay grade.