Posted by
Tzimisce on Monday, April 16, 2007 1:39:21 PM
So now that the Duke Lacrosse players have been declared innocent, all the supporters of the "victim" are now circling the wagons in an attempt to save some face. The argument has gone from "she was raped" to "well something happened at that party."
It's always amazing to watch the civil rights "we should never stereotype anyone by race" crowd bite in to every prejudice known (especially racial ones): white men always get away with it, black women are always abused by whites, the rich are always privileged, every exotic dancer is a fine upstanding citizen working to support her illegitimate children, etc.
Terry Moran of ABC news wrote in his blog entitled "Don't feel too sorry for the Dukies":
"As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives."
And what is Mr. Moran basing this on? Does he personally know any the Duke players? The answer is "no". He's basing this on the fact that the men accused were #1 white and #2 upper class. These are both prejudices. Truth be told, social problems like child abuse and neglect know no economic level. Furthermore it's a misnomer to just assume that whites have it easy in this country. This Lacrosse Team was on its way to a national championship. They worked very hard to that point. The other Lacrosse teams weren't just going to hand it to them.
"Their team specifically requested at least one white stripper."
Yeah, this makes them guilty. Right after the story broke, Jesse Jackson charged that white men had a long history of preferring black women that all whites secretly are more attracted too. With this in mind one can't help but wonder if the team's request for black dancers would have shown that they're more open minded or if they're getting a rush out of having power over people they think they're better than.
"During the incident, racial epithets were hurled at the strippers."
The Duke Lacrosse players admit to racial epithets. But according to them, the dancers started calling the players 'short d*cked white boys' first. It's the word of 47 players versus the word of 2 strippers - one of them having just been demonstrated to be a liar. It should be added that Constitutionally speaking, words aren't illegal.
"The young men were able to retain a battery of top-flight attorneys, investigators and media strategists."
Oh yeah - this makes them guilty. A lot of states require lawyers to do pro bono work. The Duke case was a high profile sham from the beginning. We had a rogue prosecutor (Michael Nifong) running for reelection in a largely black district and he had no evidence of anything. Of course, Moran isn't the slightest bit suspicious of any of Nifong's motives. That's unsettling considering this guy is a JOURNALIST. How can so many obvious inaccuracies and story holes go flying over this guy's head?
The bottom line is that if racial prejudice is wrong then it's wrong - even if you're prejudging white men. It's wrong to racially prejudge all blacks as "disempowered". Here is a clear incident where a woman destroyed the lives of three men based on nothing. She got their professors to turn their backs on them. She ended their chance to win the national championship. She has put them in a situation which they will never recover from - they will drag this around for the rest of their lives. And there will always be those people who (like Moran) will cling to the idea that these people got away with it.
I hope for their sakes that something like this never happens to Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or Terry Moran.