Reformedville

Thoughts on the Duke Lacrosse Players Being Cleared

As everyone knows by now, the Duke lacrosse players have been cleared of all charges. While I respect the attorney general’s decision in the case, I stand by my original support of the woman that I still believe was assaulted. The three men charged have been declared innocent and perhaps they truly are (although it should be pointed out that cleared of all charges is not the same as innocent), but something happened in that house that night. I still believe that the woman was raped, and now, due to what seems to be a gross mishandling of evidence and a politically opportunistic, corrupt district attorney, we may never get to the bottom of the matter. This is a great travesty.

http://www.slanttruth.com/thoughts-lacrosse

Now if there was ever a time for black civil rights leaders to make their case of doing the right thing and not just race baiting today is the day, but my predicition is they will fall flat as ususal because they prosper from race relations being bad and they enhance them, not caring one iota about helping their alleged cause, but rather their personal cause.

How? If there was ever a time or a opening in American history to study prosecutorial misconduct, the american criminal injustice system and make a case for revamping it, today is the day. The upcoming months is the time with the trial of Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong upcoming. 

 I will be the first to readily admit, those who do not have money to prove innocence (and I am not talking about beating a charge you are guilty of), or gain the media spotlight (very rare), merely beome a conviction statistic for a prosecutor. The power of the prosecutor to hide, distort or manipulate evidence or target people is mind boggling. Blacks due to economic circustances and demographics are historically involved in more crimes and arrests. That is not racist, that is just a demographic fact.  Combine the two factors that then blacks will face the criminal injustice system more often than whites and they are the ones who will face the largest percentage of injustice in the justice system.

Today, when we see three rich white guys who were targeted for political reasons and poor judgment, the media spotlight comes upon the entire issue. But let’s not miss the forest for the trees. The case is unique perhaps in how far he turned his head to be a “attention ho ” and glean the spotlight for being “tough on crime”, with the details about whether a crime occurred or the ones charged were guilty being a incidental issue.  But I posit, it is in no way unique, this happens everyday. We have become politically correct and assume that everyone charged with a crime is guilty of that crime, because we just wouldn’t charge someone if they didn’t do it. In an instant solution society, charged equals convicted.

In steps Jesse and Al the Reverands of the god of race, not ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now is the time to put them to the test. Sharpton is already trying to spin his way out of blaming this all on Nifong , “for once ” taking the word of a prosecutor. Be consistent Rev.’s, that is all anyone asks. If you always questioned the motives of a prosecutor and always were for having the evidence tested and the credibility of the witnesses tested, despite the race, you would be a leader. But no, you have become nothing more than an attention “ho’s”, passing up a prime opportunity to make progress for true inroads into potentially revamping prosecutorial standards in America.

Jemele Hill  had this to say: (linked for full article)

So to Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans, the three Duke lacrosse players whose lives were mangled by an unsupported rape accusation, I say two of the hardest words in the English language:

I’m sorry.

It’s not enough, and I won’t pretend that it is. For the last year, your lives and those of your families have been more difficult than any of us can possibly imagine. I’ll never know what it was like walking around normal society labeled a rapist. I’ll never know what it’s like to lose everything — your school, your program and your life — because of one unproven accusation.

You deserve all of that back and then some, but unfortunately, you won’t get it. You have every right to not trust anyone and think less of people. Duke University abandoned you. An overzealous prosecutor tormented you. A community, a nation, didn’t believe you. Journalists everywhere, sensing ratings and salivating over the salaciousness of black strippers and white athletes, chose to keep you under attack.

Not that this is a contest to see who was wronged the most, but the Rutgers women’s basketball team at least received justice, because Imus was suspended and dropped by MSNBC, which simulcasts his morning show. Plenty of people are outraged on their behalf.

But who is outraged on your behalf? What justice will you receive? Will the same networks that willingly aided in destroying your reputations now give you airtime to vent your frustrations? Will Jesse Jackson now offer the three of you a free scholarship like he did the “victim,” since he helped assist in your battered reputation?

Maybe the only modicum of fairness you have received is that the News & Observer in Raleigh decided to print the name of your accuser. I don’t normally advocate that the names of alleged victims be printed, but it feels right in this instance.

I know I’d certainly like to ask your accuser a few questions, even though she stood by her story as North Carolina’s attorney general vehemently proclaimed your innocence. Does she understand she has tanked not only her credibility, but that of other women, too? Does she understand the next time a woman comes forward with an allegation this serious, all of our minds will scroll back to this case, and we will be less inclined to believe her? Does she know women with legitimate sexual-assault complaints will look at this furor and decide silence is best?

I can’t deny that your race, gender and class have everything to do with how you were treated then and how you are treated now. Some people believe white men are exempt from sympathy and incapable of being maligned, so they will not swallow their pride and offer you the decency you should have received in the first place. Yes, you made an unwise decision to entertain strippers at a residence, but that just makes you guilty of being like 90 percent of college males.

There will be a lot of finger-pointing in the coming days and weeks about whose fault all of this was. The media will analyze each other. Civil-rights leaders who claim to be against all injustice will stay silent. Hopefully, you will be able to regain a fraction of the life you once had.

As Kathleen Parker adds:

The air is so thick with irony and hypocrisy these days, it’s hard to find oxygen to breathe.

Two athletic teams - one mostly white male, one mostly black female. Two examples of race and gender colliding. One rogue prosecutor; one rude shock jock. Obviously, there’s no comparison between the two cases in terms of consequences. While the Rutgers gals suffered hurt feelings and Mr. Imus lost his television gig and his radio show, the three Duke men potentially faced 30 years in prison and District Attorney Michael B. Nifong faces ethics charges. But they do share the complicating and distorting factors of race, sex and politics. And of course, they both share the opportunistic involvement of those two rogue race-baiting reverends, Al Sharpton and Jesse L. Jackson. Both not only came to the aid of the Rutgers basketball team but also grabbed the microphones before the accused Duke players had their day in court. In the Imus case, neither was willing to accept the radio host’s apology for his unfunny racist remark aimed at the basketball players, and both worked, successfully, to get him off television airwaves. In the Duke case, we will succumb to suffocation, I suspect, if we hold our breath waiting for them to apologize for feeding the racist frenzy that condemned those three young men whose lives were nearly ruined by innuendo, lies, an out-of-control prosecutor and a complicit media. We will also collapse onto the fainting couch waiting for an apology from Duke’s “Group of 88″ - the coalition of arts and science faculty who took out a full-page ad in the Duke newspaper commending students who demonstrated and distributed a “wanted” poster of the lacrosse team. Duke President Richard H. Brodhead, meanwhile, suspended the accused and canceled the rest of the lacrosse season. It was not a pretty day for due process. But the man behind the curtain orchestrating this travesty of justice was Mr. Nifong. In the rap vernacular that brought down Mr. Imus, he pimped the accuser, using an apparently troubled young woman for his political gain instead of sending her home where she belonged. Despite the obvious double standard among those who purport to work for racial harmony, the convergence of these two events may be the tipping point in our national debate about race, sex and speech. Let’s do cut close to the bone, but, lest we become enamored of our virtue, we should acknowledge a couple of facts: First, despite protestations to the contrary, it’s hard to believe NBC and CBS dropped Mr. Imus only because of his remarks. The two networks fired him, at least in part, because the show’s advertisers pulled out. Does anyone really doubt he would be on air today if the cash were still flowing? Second, Duke administrators and trustees, who are now demanding a complete investigation into Mr. Nifong’s behavior, are a year late and a conscience short. With notable exceptions, administrators and faculty behaved abominably. What a contrast to the support Rutgers gave its students. Those who have performed most honorably throughout this disgraceful season of sexual spin and racial one-upmanship are the athletes from both teams. Mature and dignified during their news conferences, they’ve put the grown-ups to shame and offer reason to hope that the rising generation of Americans will put this corrupt house in order.So today a choice will come, will we allow this to go the direction that the Reverands want it to, and in fact every racist group wants it to go, or do we use this as a spring board to focus on the very real problem of  injustice in our justice system. It is time for people of all races to tell their racist brothers to quit the chicken little blame game and take advantage of a window of opportunity to poetntially fix a very real problem in America which has become the largest prison society in the free world. I have always questioned the wisdom of prosecutors and judges being elected officials because of the potential to forego their job to appeal a lynching mentality.