On the heels of last night’s post about the smear campaign and hostility toward Jill Carroll, I have some balancing of my own to add about a recent issue: the Duke lacrosse team and accusations of rape.
Polimom wrote last week about this story, and in the days since, several oddities have surfaced that further muddy the water already swirling in Durham.
Race and Politics
The situation at Duke couldn’t be more racially charged, and it’s a sad commentary on America’s race relations that much of the analysis and discussion centers on geography (North vs. South). Bad enough at the individual level, but Newsweek has an article suggesting that politics may be playing along racial lines:
There is, however, possibly a different side to the story—a chapter from another Tom Wolfe novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” a tale of a prosecutor exploiting racial tensions with a trumped-up charge. The players say they are completely innocent, that no one had sex with the stripper that night and that they will be vindicated by DNA tests expected early this week. Joseph Cheshire, a lawyer representing one of the players, says that the prosecutor has unfairly tried the players in the media to serve his own political agenda. (Nifong is up for re-election in May and one of his opponents is black.)
Considering the extremely high-profile of the accused (and their related financial resources to legally fight charges), Polimom thinks it’s unlikely that the accusations have been “trumped-up” by the DA. I’d find that scenario more believable if the players were non-entities.
Odd timelines
But there’s more going on, as this Raleigh News Observer article discusses:
Just before 1 a.m. that night, someone called 911 and complained that people outside the house, which had been leased by three lacrosse players, had shouted racial slurs. The rape was reported about 30 minutes later.
One of the players’ attorneys, James “Butch” Williams of Durham, has said the first call was suspicious and might have been part of a setup.
Nifong dismissed that theory, saying a hoax would have to include faking injuries to the woman’s body. A doctor and nurse determined after the incident that she had signs and symptoms consistent with her story.
I agree that there’s something strange about that first call (both 911 tapes are posted on the News Observer site), but the woman’s injuries seem to make that moot. I’m more disturbed, frankly, by the (apparent) fact that when the search warrant was served two days later, there was so much physical evidence found. Did the accused team members not see it there? For two days? That bothers me.
Innocent until proven guilty
Primarily, though, Polimom agrees that the case has been tried in the media – including blogs. Including mine.
For the record: I do think a sexual assault occurred. I also believe there were racial overtones – particularly given the neighbor’s statement, which includes hearing one of the party-goers say, “Hey b——, thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt!”
Nasty.
However, it seems obvious that police are sitting on a great deal of information we don’t know about, and since there have been no charges yet, that’s as it should be.
The story is very important, but it is so inflammatory that it requires all of us to back up and take a deep breath. Jumping to conclusions is like pumping an emotional bellows, and I can hardly call out others for smear campaigns if I’m doing it myself.
Time. Facts. Wait…
I resent the media offering up recommendations about the type of demeanor and posture one should take about an incident when that same restrain was not present in the media nor even in this Newsweek account. Newsweek and other white controlled media outlets salivate over the intersections of race, class and of course sex, the media is an industry which needs trainwrecks and sleeze.
Newsweek since it decided to be a tabloid carrier for this saga could have elaborated on the the depth of moral decay in white families which created the kids they send to great universities like Duke. Newsweek could have explored how black woman feel about exotic dancing as a means to an end .
Newsweek had a great opportunity to display the relationships between a elite university like Duke with a Black college in it’s shadow North Carolina Central and how this factor was just as significant as the relationship between Duke students and the city of Durham . But that story is not juicy and seductive as young white males with sexual fantasies and black woman meeting those needs,
I am ignoring any recommendations by Newsweek or any other media outlet regarding this ugly tale. I reserve the right to evaluate and define reality from my vantage point…
I must admit that my initial reaction was that it it turned out to be a good thing that some idiot called 911 for the wrong reason. I thought that only a moron or narcissist would call 911 because she had been insulted (no matter how hateful the insult) but at least in this case it would make it easier to prosecute the (insert epithet of your choice). Now I’m wondering if I was incredibly naive, though I haven’t really been following the story.
A tale of two cities! Duke/NCCU, Vanderbilt/TSU&Fisk (Nashville TN), Georgia Tech/Morehouse& Spellman, et al (Atlanta GA), FSU/FAMU (Tallahasse FL), Georgetown/Howard (Wash. DC), Univ. of Memphis/Lemoyne-Owen College (Memphis TN). The list goes on and on. Our forefathers set up a skewed culture and society based on artifivial priviledge. These institutions and the “elites” that are spawned by them should not come as a suprise to us. Remember this biblical truth, “and the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the third and fourth generations of their children”.
I dont think the rape occured, atleast based on the dual statements made by the DA and the victim. DNA- the holy grail of criminal forensics has been put on the back burner and I have to wonder – why? If the “rapists” were thoughtful enough to use condoms, dont you think they would be careful in sending out email messages? The email message seems like a pumped athlete being casual and silly about serious things like killing people. Then the overshadowing allegations of ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ encourages observers to be biased against the players. I think this is a witch hunt called on by people who want to perceive everything in black and white. Feminists who otherwise would strongly attack ‘exotic’ dancers are now backing up one, dont they have any loyalties?