A CROCK INDEED: I've said it from day one: I think the Duke lacrosse scandal is a pile of shit. I think the girl is lying. I think the guys were dealt a colossal injustice because of her lying. I think the university president who suspended the program should be sued. And I think it's a shame that "frat boy" is a pejorative in this day and age (granted, these guys were not in a fraternity, per se), and that being a white athlete at an elite college makes it okay for people to assume that you're a boor, a rapist, a misogynist, a racist, etc. I mean, why else did everyone rush to judgement on these guys?
If you want to be treated with respect, here's an idea: Don't hire yourself out as a stripper and an escort; don't perform "vibrator shows" for couples; don't visit off-campus houses full of drunk guys and take off all your clothes; don't get so drunk that you can't remember anything; don't adopt a stage name of "Precious." Etc.
If you're a bouncer at a bar, don't be surprised if you find yourself embroiled in fisticuffs. And if you're an exotic dancer on a college campus, don't be surprised if a lot of drunk-idiot guys behave inappropriately toward you.
I don't believe in hate crimes, and I don't believe in date rape. There is crime. There is rape. Everything else is politics. If a rape was committed at the lacrosse house -- that is, if a woman was physically forced to perform sex acts -- then I'm all for prosecuting the perpetrators. But thus far the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that has emerged pre-trial seems to suggest that this whole thing is, in the words of our esteemed Supreme Court Justice Thomas, a "modern-day lynching."
6.12.2006
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add on, "if you're a group of students essentially paid to represent your university through athletics, don't go hiring strippers." i don't know if the party was exclusively lacrosse players, but it definitely made it seem that way. sounds like a poor judgment call on both sides.
"I mean, why else did everyone rush to judgement on these guys?"
I have no idea if the three Lacrosse players are guilty. Only they and their accuser know what really happened. I live in Durham, and have been living with these issues for much longer than this case has been going on, so excuse me if this comes off a bit on the abrasive side, but aren't you jumping to a conclusion without knowing the facts? The same thing that you accuse others of doing.
Everyone is quite a few people, so I'll only speak for myself and some of the other people in the neighborhood where I live, which is less than 6 blocks from the house. People didn't jump to any conclusions, if you read back through orginal articles, the lacrosse team was not cooperating with the police. Most people in the neighborhood weren't convicting the team, they were demanding answers, is there anything wrong with that?
To address your question on why some people rushed to judgement. There is a long history which is has not bee widely reported. In no way should this history lead anyone to conclude that there was a rape, but it does explain why alot of people in Durham were pretty pissed and wanted answers.
About 5 years ago Duke Admin decided there were too many on campus incidents related to large parties in the dorms. Their answer was outlaw kegs in campus dorms. For 90% of the student population, it was a pain, but they dealt with it. For the remaining students that really wanted to party, they started to rent houses in a pretty affluent neighborhood next to campus called Trinity Park. Fairly soon afterwards, large parties started taking place, people were being woken up to undergrads pissing on the side of their house, passed out, or throwing beer bottles in their yards. Campus Police was for the most part unresposive and did not believe any activity off campus was their responsibility, while Durham PD, as all the national media has reported, is pretty busy with all the murders, robberies and other high crime rate activity that plagues poverty ridden Durham. So the neighborhood played by the rules, they complained to city council and Duke. What was the powers that be answer? The students were not discplined, Dukes answer to the problem was to buy the party houses, let the houses run their leases and then sell them off. Hardly a deterent to partying til your lease is over, agree?
http://www.wral.com/news/7552567/detail.html
So, since Duke made the move to buy the 12 propoerties in Feb. (the lacrosse house was one of the houses purchased) the parties escalated, and why wouldn't they, the students had basically been told not to worry about consequences..Duke will take care of you. When the rape allegation happened in March and the team refused to even answer their door when the police knocked, let alone questions...you're damn right people were a bit fed up.
Like you said about the stripper..
"If you want to be treated with respect, here's an idea:"
If you live in a communitee, treat your neighbors with the same amount of respect that you would like to recieve.
No ouch at all for me. Paul makes great points, does so eloquently, and and I'm honored he took the time to do so here.
As he says, that's not evidence a rape happened -- and the evidence seems to suggest otherwise, thus far -- but it does explain an underreported subtext to the story, that these guys were seemingly presumed guilty by the locals immediately.
I read something in a Newsweek article recently that was referring to Haditha, but I think it applies here too.
"If you weren't there, your opinion doesn't matter."
L.
Okay, I don't want to leave this topic on such an abrasive note. I certainly don't think I'm usually that sort of person. I know it's really difficult to not form an opinion or come down on one side of an issue before all the facts are presented. All too often people are put in positions of having to make make very important decisions without enough facts on the table.
When the community became aware of this issue, two weeks had passed since the report had been filed and nothing had been done, the school had not even acknowledged it. Ignoring the parties was one thing, but the people in the neighborhood were really not ready to go through the spring and summer with the way the behavior seemed to be spiraling out of control.
Here's where it got weird. As everyone was demanding answers, all these other organizations; media, activists, etc, starting showing up in Durham, not concerned about Trinity Park, Durham or Duke, but just with the drama of the story. That's when the sound bytes, press conferences, and ridiculous absolutes like "mostly black town," "spoiled, privileged students," and "politcially motivated" started getting tossed around. I that point it seemed that many people were drifting to one side of the issue and ignoring what they considered opposition to their view.
As much as I felt like the neighborhood needed a voice to get things going. Now I feel like there sides that are borderline over-represented while others are unable to talk or chosing not to do so. I don't want this to just "go away," I'd like to feel that justice can be had, but there has been so much posturing by both sides, it's difficult to see how there can be fair trial. I can only hope at this point.
Scott,
what I forgot to say in my last post was that I don't think alot of the "locals" presumed guilt. I'm sure some, or possibly many did, but mostly they wanted Durham Police and/or Duke to do *something* and not just not let the lacrosse team continue to stonewall everyone. I think the cries of guilt came soon after when the news vans descended on Durham.
Again, "If you weren't there, your opinion doesn't matter." Also, heard today, that, now that the local prosecutor has won his reelection bid, he's not so desperate to get in the news and his case is falling apart. My prediction...there will be no trial.
L.
Laurel: My opinion matters to me. But it's just an opinion.
Trisha: I don't know anything about *your* fault. I wasn't linking this to you in any way.
Paul: This story is very local and personal to you, clearly. It has a dimension for you that it doesn't have for me. Let me ask you: Based on what you've read/heard, do you think these guys are guilty of rape/kidnap?
Based on what I've heard thus far, I think they might get a kidnapping conviction. I have no idea about a rape, which in a guilty/non guilty sense means reasonable doubt.
Based what's been said by both parties, here's my theory of what might have happened. Early in the evening a lacrosse players calls an escort agency (bad idea #1) and asks for 2 girls. He tells the person on the phone that the girls will be entertaining around 5 guys at a bachelor party (bad move #2). Later that night girls arrive, without a male escort for protection(bad move #3), to find not 5, but 40 guys. I think at this point she was probably nervous, pissed, all the above. She says she isn't being paid to entertain 40 guys, and threatens to leave. This probably pissed off some of the guys at the party, and others throught they could convince her to stay either by the promise of more money, or just talking to her. For unknown reasons, she did agree to return. As far as the other stripper goes, she was either not pissed at the situation or didn't feel threatened for unknown reasons.
Now that she's back in the house, I think the situation went downhill, either because money was promised and not given, or the large group of guys didn't think they were getting "what they paid for" and started hassling her. If at any point they were making her stay to either continue "performing" is where kidnapping could have happened. If by "performing" that meant sex, then it could be rape, even if at the time she agreed to have sex because she was worried for her safety. If she stayed of her own will, but then felt she was underpaid at the end of the night, I wouldn't think it's kidnapping.
So..my feeling is that these guys misrepresented themselves and treated this woman horribly. I really have no idea to what extent, since it seems so beyond the bounds of what I consider human. Coincidently, I've recently finished reading "Among the Thugs" by Bill Buford, which is a book about crowd mentalities within soccer hooligans. It's shocking what otherwise seemingly normal and nice people can do when in a crowd. These guys could probably think of themselves as "good people" that are incapable of the things they are being accused of...but from what I've read, it really doesn't take much.
I'm not confident the real truth is going to come out in the trial, if it even goes to trial. My hope is that people will start to realize what can happen when you start down a road where there's a possibity of a bad outcome.
The crowd mentality is scary. I was caught up in a crazy, violent crowd situation while attending U of M the year the Fab Five won the NCAA championship. I ran into the street to celebrate with everyone else and quickly found myself nearly crushed to death by half-naked drunk college students (mostly men, by the way) peeing on each other, sailing broken beer bottles up in the air, and setting cars on fire. To this day, I have never been so scared in my entire life. I truly thought, "This is how people get trampled to death and die." But, what was even scarier to me was how quickly people I knew and respected got caught up in the maylay (I know, I went to Michigan and I can't spell) and started smashing windows and flipping cars over. It's amazing what happens in a "crowd."
L.
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