Demetrius Bell, a young football player who just got drafted by the Buffalo Bills, has a dad who's also an athlete — veteran NBA player Karl Malone. There's nothing exceptional about that, except for the fact that Malone impregnated Bell's mother when he was 20 and she was 12 or 13 and had no role in Bell's life. Elsewhere in the blogosphere, I've seen this story contrasted with the serious press former baseball player Roger Clemens is getting for a recently revealed relationship he had with country singer Mindy McCready when she was just 15. A sign that the statutory rape of a young black woman is less important than that of a young white woman? Maybe — it certainly wouldn't be the first time. Then again, maybe not.

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