As long as we're discussing it...
Maybe I'm living in the wrong world or have seen a small slice of it, but is my reading on this correct that a woman accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her. These charges proved to be unprovable and (possibly) false. The entire country is acting as if three white men being falsely accused of raping a black woman is perhaps the greatest crime in the history of the US.
That's it right? The "overzealous" prosecutor has been fired. The "boys" have been given an extra year to play lacrosse. Crazy right-wing pundits are allowed to babble on about "name rape" and "emotional murder." College sports announcers are allowed to go on and on about how the Duke lacrosse team had their season "stolen" by this woman. Less crazy right-wing pundits use this case to show that the Times is a far-left paper because the editors believed the accusation. Everything wrong about the liberal rush to judgment has been exposed, right? This is the narrative I am seeing.
Ash, please tell me in Durham there is someone pushing the counter-narrative of 400 years of white men raping black women with no punishment whatsoever. Someone is mentioning the history of lynching in the south (other than to try to say these innocent angels were lynched by the prosecutor, which I pray, but don't doubt, is being said) where black men were summarily executed with no evidence at all. Please tell me that someone is pointing out that normally the assholes who want the prosecutor to go to jail don't really mind it when black men go to jail on drug possession, which is almost solely based on the word of the arresting officer and prosecutor. Everyone knows that black men go to jail on completely bogus stops with no probably cause. In other words, everyone knows that the judicial system in this country is set up in favor of whites and against black men and women. Is this narrative being discussed?
Has anyone else seen any strong counter-narratives in our supposedly crazy-liberal blogosphere? I think I've seen one or two references in passing putting forth the idea that the rape(s) did happen, but otherwise I see a lot of people trying to distance themselves. What am I missing?
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4 comments:
I think what your missing is that so many of the crazy liberal blogosphere pushed the idea that the players were guilty last spring they just want the phrase Duke Lacrosse shoved down the memory hole.
Great posting. I love your arguments for totally ignoring the truth and go straight for the narratives. After all, the truth really shouldn't matter at all. Decisions of the justice system should be based 100% on the more politically correct narrative. The hell with facts, it's who makes a more convincing victim. That is the liberal way isn't it?
these are excellent questions, dave, and i'll answer them soon in a different forum. but the short answer to your question is that any strong narratives that might appear online are quickly harassed out of existence by the duke LAX posse, which, apparently is everywhere, all the time.
early on there were several blogs that regularly discussed issues raised by the case, but every last one of them was eventually hounded out of existence by people who would rather spew misogynist, obscenity-laced, hate-filled invective than have a dialogue. of course, if as a blogger you decide to delete 500 comments calling you a fucking cunt who needs to be tied to a chair and raped with a stick, or using disgusting racial slurs to refer to the accuser (or any other black woman), etc. etc. or if you decide to block those people from posting on your site again, YOU'RE the PC thug who wants to silence dissent. funny how that works...
--ash
Yes, yes. A few people were accused (accused!) of something that they didn't do. ACCUSED! They missed the entire lacrosse playoffs of one fourth of their college careers! My God! They worked so hard and now they will have to suffer in no way for the rest of their lives. In certain circles, and those that count at that, they will be celebrated for years to come. This is a national scandal alright!
Of course every single day a black man is accused, tried (if he's lucky enough to get a lawyer who doesn't force him to take a plea deal) and convicted of a crime he didn't commit. No one cares.
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