Duke Rape Case Round-Up
| March 29th, 2006
Above: Photo from a vigil held outside the house where the rape took place.
* If you want to follow this story, the blog to read is Justice 4 Two Sisters.
* 15 of the lacrosse team members have been arrested before - mostly minor stuff, like drinking.
* Duke has canceled all lacrosse games until there is a “clearer resolution.”
* From the blog Life In The Chocolate City:
One of the young ladies was held down, beaten, choked, raped and sodomized. The police reports say that in the house they found her fingernails, her make-up bag and her cellphone. This is certainly the customary items a woman leaves behind after entertaining a group of athletes right? It’s typical for a white guy to holler out “Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt” while getting a lapdance from a Black woman right? Of course it isn’t. [...]
Let’s just imagine that this assault took place at a predominately Black university and the victims were white, this would’ve been front page national news. [...] It seems to me that this story has remained local to the North Carolina area. Their media is covering the story completely, but what about the rest of the nation. You can’t tell me that this isn’t newsworthy. It sure is newsworthy to African-Americans.
He’s right.
And regarding the details of the rape: These are mainstream, clean-cut, normal young American men. But look at the miles-deep reservoirs of woman-loathing and Black-loathing they were carrying around, just waiting for the right (wrong) situation.
Are all men like this? God no. But too many are - too many for it to be called abnormal. Cultural masculinity is a sickness that can turn men into monsters, and men in college sports are exposed to more of this virulent stuff than anyone. Do I excuse these rapists? No, of course not - they are responsible for what they’ve done, and I fervently hope they rot behind bars. But until our culture completely changes the way we construct masculinity, boys with their heart set on demonstrating their masculinity to their friends/teammates/frat brothers/whatever are going to keep on committing gang rapes.
Porn spam I routinely delete from comments sometimes uses phrases like “teen rape” and “black bitch gets raped” for a sales pitch. Why do they think they’ll make money with ads like that? Presumably, because they are making money with ads like that. Ordinary men, drawing on their own internal woman-loathing and Black-loathing, are plunking down money to masturbate to porn labeled “black bitch gets raped.” How awful is a culture in which that’s seen as no big deal?
Anyhow, more posts and articles worth reading:
I’ll put the race issue aside. This is also the result of universities allowing a negative athlete culture. More than a few studies have shown that athletes and frat boys are more likely to rape than other men, in part because all-male environments encourage aggressive and violent displays of manhood.
Q Grrl: Background From The Local Community
The town is pissed. Royally. And we’ve been pissed at the lacrosse team players and coach for the last ten years … even though the players obviously rotate out after 4 years. The team is notorious for it’s disruptive behavior in the neighborhoods around Duke. I lived across from the main lacrosse house for 7 years … and I can no longer count my calls to 911. In fact, a call I made a few years back resulted in 67 citations for underage drinking … the coach didn’t bat an eye. Similarly, I know that at one point, campus women were aware of sexual assault and harassment by lacrosse players. The house they lived in was repeatedly toilet papered … and once, upon seeing the black-clad women tp-ing the house I asked why. Their reply: to warn other undergraduate women that a woman had been assualted while at a lacrosse party.
Pinko Feminist Hellcat: Race, Entitlement and Rape
Don’t doubt for a minute that these women will be slut-baited. We already know what happens to women who are deemed sexual–they are sluts, whores, asking for it. They are suddenly trying to recapture lost virute. They are golddiggers trying to get cash on a false rape charge. Maybe they’ll be deemed crazy and therefore uncredible. Maybe the defense will decide that they really, really need their medical records and–ooops!–just release them accidentally on purpose. It’s happened before.
David Wright: Message to Duke Lacrosse Players
There are only two possibilities I see here. Either you come forward with the truth that reveals none of the criminal allegations actually happened or you come forward with the truth that at least with respect to some of your teammates, some or all of the allegations are true. To refuse to come forward with either version is to take the absolute worst course of action. If indeed that girl was raped, she is certainly some father’s little girl, and she could be some brother’s sister. If she was your sister, would you refuse to come forward with the truth to protect the “code” among your teammates?
(See David’s other posts on the subject, here and here).
Ruth Sheehan: Team’s Silence Is Sickening
Jill Hopman: Duke’s Lacrosse Players Still Defiantly Partying
Reflections of a Redhead: Break Room Conversation
Wouldn’t it be great to live in a country which had gotten beyond “well she deserved it” attitudes?
Dreams Into Lightning Pulls Together A Lot Of Interesting Connections
The iPinions Journal discusses how media coverage varies according to race.
Lacrosse has always been chock-full of the same types that later commit the white-collar crimes like Enron: rich, white kids whose only possession greater than their wealth is their cockiness and general sense of untouchability. The only difference between them and what they will become thirty years down the road is a total misunderstanding of consequences, a dangerous ingredient.
* * *
Backwards Assholes Read Newspaper Websites
The readers’ comments at the News Observer blog are pretty appalling. Some examples:
These men have been hanged in the court of public opinion, justice and liberty be damned. Witch hunts in days of yore are referenced by feminazis as examples of historical misogony. They don’t question their own actions however when they are the ones hunting for punishment.
Yes, because getting angry and demanding an investigation is exactly the same thing as burning innocent people to death.
But what do I know, I’m still assuming that if 3 actually are guilty, forty some other guys aren’t. But that’s crazy, men are evil, right?
I don’t think that men who watch and do nothing as three of their buddies drag an unwilling woman into a bathroom are innocent. I’m not sure what exactly it is that they’re guilty of, but I sure hope a courtroom soon finds out.
Praising protestors (who may have in fact been trespassing) for supporting a woman who may very well have been breaking the law (in working for an escort service) due to her allegations that have NOT been proven to be true is shoddy writing, no matter if the writer is a reporter or a columnist.
Yes, trespassing; that’s what we should be focusing on here. That, and laws broken by the victim.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Just a comment about coverage - I think it’ll be a bigger national story than “Chocolate City” claims. It’s the second story on the radio news this morning in the Boston area. It was covered in the first 5 minutes of the 11 o’clock TV news last night. I think it’s early to judge what the national coverage will be. Check the evening news tonight and see where it plays.
This comment was written by Stephen Stein.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 8:36 am
Briefly interrupting pedagogy to despair of the patriarchy
Although I don’t have anything especially insightful to add, besides a bunch of inarticulate rage and anguish, I can’t let the story of the Duke lacrosse players raping a black woman pass without comment. (Thanks to Ancrene Wiseass, who wrote
This comment was written by New Kid on the Hallway.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 9:08 am
Amen! What a great roundup! We really have to keep up the pressure on this and bloggers have a special role. People in Durham can go to the protests but us bloggers should be standing in virtual solidarity. Thanks for compling all this info!
This comment was written by lucky.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 9:48 am
“masculinity is a sickness” I was with you up to that, and for most of the way after that. You’d mis-defining masculinity to mean “male aggression”.
Femininity isn’t wearing dresses, masculinity isn’t throwing a football. Femininity is being female, masculinity is being male.
It’s not the sports themselves that make people violent, it’s the way people treat them because they engage in sports. They believe they are better than other people because they are treated as such. Take away that feeling of impunity and, sports or no, people will behave.
This comment was written by Soullite.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 10:11 am
It was on my local news (Norfolk, VA), and also on the Today Show this morning.
This comment was written by Amber.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Hey Amp, Can you add the link to Anthony Hall’s website? He is a regular poster on my blog and he is the first person to bring up this issue of “wilding.” Here is the link.
This comment was written by Rachel S..Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Gender, Class, Race, Rape.
By now, hopefully you’ve heard about the Duke University rape investigation that’s going on. If not, here’s the quick rundown: the entire Lacrosse team is under investigation for being involved in a gang rape of an exotic dancer they invited…
This comment was written by My Aim Is True.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I think “masculinity is a sickness” should be changed to “cultural masculinity is a sickness”, since, obviously, biological masculinity isn’t a sickness.
This comment was written by pdf23ds.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Good idea, thank you. I’ve made the change.
And Rachel, I’ve added a link to iPinion Journal - thanks for pointing that out to me.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 11:07 am
What Soullite said. I’ve never heard anyone who wasn’t a feminist or a rapper express a conception of masculinity that centers around dominating and abusing women. Insofar as the conceptions of masculinity to which I’ve been exposed relate to women, they involve protecting them and treating them with respect. I’m sure someone here will find something objectionable about that, but it’s certainly not in the same category as what you’re talking about.
Regarding spam and rape porn, I don’t think you can draw too broad a conclusion based on what people are trying to sell via spam. Yes, the fact that you see spam advertising rape porn suggests that there are people out there who are interested in that sort of thing. But I also see spam for porn involvings “hot moms.” Does that mean that our culture isn’t as “youth-obsessed” as feminists like to say it is? Spam provides a skewed representation of consumer desires, because it caters to less intelligent consumers and to those who may be unable to pursue those desires through traditional channels.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 11:38 am
I’ve never heard anyone who wasn’t a feminist or a rapper express a conception of masculinity that centers around dominating and abusing women.
Then you have led a very sheltered life. I have heard the concept of masculinity centering around dominating women (among other things) for as long as I can remember. Certainly since at least middle school. The concept of the “man of the house” as the one in charge is an example of what I’m talking about. Constant derogatory references to & about women would be another example. TV & the movies are full of the concept of masculinity as domination of women. In an adventure flick, who is more likely to need rescuing by our hero (who is almost always a man)? Is the person that she needs rescuing from usually a man or a woman? What message do you think that this gives about masculinity in US culture?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 11:48 am
I obviously spent a good deal of time thinking about this last night. This will sound contentious, but is not meant to be… I really feel that her race, although evident, is circumstantial to the crime/rape. She was targeted because she is female, a female these men purchased to perform certain sexually titilating acts. If she hadn’t been black, the only thing that would have changed was the slurs these men used to attack her. I know this from personal experience — a night invovling repeated calls to the police on my part to quell an out of control party resulted in my being threatened by lacrosse team members [the one man yelled: "I'm 100 lbs heavier than you Dyke and I don't have a problem kicking the shit out of you."] *
My point being, the culture that these men are living in and creating will do whatever is necessary to keep their level of privilege alive and thriving. These are young men with enough money to own their own Hummer’s or Jeeps or the current SUV de jour. The have enough money that they can rack up a year’s worth of parking tickets (at $75) a pop) instead of going downtown to purchase a parking pass for $5. They have enough money to host keg parties 1-2, sometimes 3 times a week. For hundreds of students.
I keep hearing Univ. officials saying that there are two completely different stories about what happened that night. These statements, coupled with the team member’s silence, makes me think that the defense that they are going to lodge is that they were under the belief that these two women were not merely dancers, but were in fact prostitutes who services they are already purchased and to which they had a certain financial right. The men know this is illegal, but that’s also why they so freely copped to serving alcohol to underage students… they want to be viewed as the ernest, yet slightly drunk students whose biggest error was in illegally hiring “prostitutes” — which in the end will be viewed as college-boy high jinx, probably quite similar to the one’s their fathers made, and probably quite similar to the one’s made by their defense attorneys. These men/boys study hard, the play hard, and they party hard — and they think that this earns them a certain right to buy the services of women, be they dancers or maids (yes, they have maid services clean up after them). These boys/men are also our future bankers, lawyers, and CEO’s — and they know it. They also already know that the money that their fathers have will keep them safe — even if convicted.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 11:54 am
something weird’s going on with that link to Ipinions. It’s redirecting to microsoft.com ???
[Whoops! Thanks for pointing that out. Error fixed. --Amp]
This comment was written by lucky.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
“But until our culture completely changes the way we construct masculinity, boys with their heart set on demonstrating their masculinity to their friends/teammates/frat brothers/whatever are going to keep on committing gang rapes.”
When the biblical standards of conduct for men (serve first not be served, come into authority through elevating others not through force, protect women and orphans not use or benefit from them, love others more than yourself ) stopped being taught and expected and instead we decided to embrace the great glorification of the individual, we were doomed to such behavior escalating. Feminism’s and human secularism’s messages of individualism and freedom, while positive in so many ways, also contribute to the decay of a moral center for society. Individuals invent their own morality without something common to rally around, and without a standard, young men are not taught or instructed in the way they should behave. They are expected to discover it for themselves. So we release unbridled, hormone ridden, me-centric boys into our midst and we end up with this type of result. Boys identify with and imitate the most powerful men they see (movie characters treating women badly, rappers talking derogatorily about women, etc.) because they aren’t being told that those words and attitude are wrong and violate the community standards and expectations placed on men. We all have a hand in this.
This comment was written by Mr from Minnesota.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Look but don’t touch is a learned behavior. The impulse is quite the opposite.
Collective agreement on the “don’t touch” concept is essential to the opportunity for women to stroll around scantily clad (or naked) without fear of it being interpreted as consent to more.
Some folks are confused, in our trial and error discovery process, about consent that accompanies even something as simple as acceptance of a dinner date . . . the exotic dancer though is at the greatest risk of being the victim of misunderstood societal roles.
We are still animals, which is an amoral truth. A vigorous prosecution could be a good exercise, as a political and public demonstration of civilized gender roles to a wider audience (local and abroad). Those boys are toast.
note: “[C]ultural masculinity” contains ambiguities, it does not directly point exclusively to sickness. Girls are competitive too, and I would not want that to be squashed as a sickness.
This comment was written by PDXNAG.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
I sure hope you plan to expand and defend this claim.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
By golly you’re right. Men never raped wome before we got all uppity and demanded that we be treated as individuals equal to the individuality that men are already treated with. We were so much safer barefoot, pregnant and cookin’ some man his evening slop.
Moral center’s change all.the.fuckin.time.
Treating another human being as a human being is about as simplistic and central a moral code as you will find. Expanding that treatment to women, apparently, requires another “special” moral code.
Damn those feminists.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Mr from MN: I want to know how stupid you think these Duke University undergrads are if you think they are incapable of making decent, moral decisions on their own without scapegoating the politics of equality. Are you saying these men are the moral equivalents of pre-pubescent boys? Boys who only behave if Mommy is behaving too?
Get real.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Thanks for the link, and thanks to all for your involvement on this.
This comment was written by Asher Abrams - Dreams Into Lightning.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
yeah, i guess the usual crap defending the men is to be expected. i choose instead to be encouraged by the larger volume of the outcry so far. i first saw this reported here in a post that predicted the case would be totally suppressed. i have been heartened to see that has not been the case so far.
the smoking gun has a police affadavit on the incident:
first of all, BARF.
second of all, i’d venture to guess that made some noise. i’d venture to guess the bathroom was occupied for 30 minutes during a kegger. i’d venture to guess no one at a kegger doesn’t wonder wtf is up when the bathroom is occupied for 30 minutes. i’d venture to say that everyone at that party was complicit, even if they didn’t commit the crime.
This comment was written by beth.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
[...] So, while the site was down, the big news burning up the feminist blogosphere is this horrific gang rape at Duke. I’m happy to see so much attention being paid to it; I’m even happier to see that there’s been protests at the university. Without social support for the victims of these crimes, the assailants usually don’t get any justice. Ampersand has a round-up of all sorts of great blogging on it–I won’t reiterate the details because you can get them all there. [...]
This comment was written by The gang rape is the essential scene of the patriarchy at Pandagon.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Q Grrl -
To criticize society moving toward a me-first standard does not equate to calling feminists uppity. But every socially transforming movement contributes both positive and negative things. As a Christian I can see tons and tons of negatives from the forward push of my belief system in the world in contrast what I can point to as positives.
Of course there have been criminals and rapists throghout history regardless of what moral code was commonplace. But the difference is there is no common moral code now. You can say it’s that humans should treat eachother well and respect eachother and blah, blah, blah…but that’s your idea, not one society embraces. The last one this country had was Christianity, and it had some pretty strong ideas as well as penalties a whole lot worse than prison time (hell for instance) as an added deterrant to harming others - men or women. Now certainly trustworthy rape statistics are not available from early in this century because women did not report rapes. But other crimes of violence like murder and assault were much much lower when there was a shared central moral code. The murder rate in the US was 1 in 100k citizens in 1900. in 2000 it was 91 in 100k. I would posit it likely that rape has followed a similar path as it too is a crime of violence.
I think these boys have never been taught to respect humanity. When one views an individual as created by God, they take on a lot more worth than when one looks at them as a pile of chemicals - an equal pile, fine, but still a pile. Take a me-first trained, priveledged kid at a great school on an elite sport and you’ve got someone who society has been affirming for 20 years despite clearly being pondscum. We got a broken system. These guys are just living it out.
This comment was written by Mr from Minnesota.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
http://christianparty.net/prison.htm
Source for my stats
This comment was written by Mr from Minnesota.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Mr., I think there’s some truth in your approach.
But your supporting site is, um, less than supportive. When I see a statistical site that tells me that “Up to 470,536 of the 470,000 American men now in prison for rape may have been falsely accused”, I tend to think that the people writing it are either nuts or sloppy.
Neither one is reassuring.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
I commend you on your amazing psychic abilities. Having been to more than a few frat/sorority parties in my life, I would assume 90% of the people there haven’t a clue what happened except through rumors afterwards.
This is a big house, and believe it or not most of the attendees were probably off talking to someone with a drink in their hand trying to hook up.
There are probably a dozen people who have any actual firsthand information about what happened when the girl returned, and those people are absolute scum for not coming forward with that info, even anonymously.
Let’s not indict every person who happened to be in the house because they didn’t conduct a thorough investigation of why one bathroom was occupied for a long time.
This comment was written by Nathaniel.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
David Wright’s posts are wonderful.
You see, I used to live on Long Island. And, from looking at the names and pictures David posted, I realized that I know some of these boys.
Which just confirms what I’ve always believed about rape and rapists: that you can’t dismiss it as the work of “animals” or “monsters,” because it’s People Just Like Us who do it. How much do we have to see before we realize that regular people are capable of horrific crimes? Particularly a crime like rape, which is sanctioned by the culture.
David’s catching heat for posting the pictures and blaming not just the young men but their parents and communities. IMO he is absolutely 100% right. Rape is a cultural crime, and until we realize that we’re never going to be able to fight it.
This comment was written by Lanoire.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
yeah, THOSE are reliable stats, Minnesota.
This comment was written by karpad.Report this comment to the moderators
March 29th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Should’ve known you’d be talking about this issue! Thanks for the mention and the additional links.
This comment was written by KelliAmanda (Reflections of a Redhead).Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 8:49 am
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/hmrt.htm
I distanced myself form the rape stats in my post. You want more sites supporting the murder rate stat I quoted, here you go. This one from the US Dept of Justice (which is the stat noted on that other page).
No what say you?
This comment was written by Mr from Minnesota.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Does anyone think that all 40+ suspects in the case are atheists? Agnostics? Or are they representative of the majority of the country and mostly Christian?
Don’t blame a lack of religion for crime. We’re one of the most religious countries among developed/first world/ whatever your preferred term nations.
Christians aren’t perfect– they just believe they are forgiven. Which can lead to some pretty interesting rationalizations.
This comment was written by Samantha Vimes.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 9:56 am
I say that during what you would probably see as the golden era of American Christianity, good Christians took their kids to attend lynchings. They thought of it as a fun outing. They packed a picnic and brought their tiny children to watch black men and women being tortured to death, and then they took souvenir photos with the corpses. They made these photos into postcards and sent them to their friends. And the next Sunday, they went to church with clear consciences. They did not see any contradiction between being a Christian and taking pleasure in watching people being tortured and killed.
A hundred years ago, a black woman who was gang-raped by wealthy white college students would have known better than to call the police. She would have known better than to tell her father, because he would be powerless to do anything about it, and if he tried, he would face terrible violence. She would have suffered in silence, because the white Christians who ran towns like Durham set up a system in which black women were totally vulnerable and in which white men considered it their privilege to take advantage of that vulnerability.
I have no idea whether they are religious, but many of them were educated at Christian high schools. Two of them went to the Covenant School, the motto of which is “academic excellence under the sovereignty of God.” Five went to the Delbarton School. According to its webpage: “The School is administered by the Roman Catholic Benedictine monks of St. Mary’s Abbey and is rooted in the values of the Christian community and in the monastic tradition of a strong liberal arts education.” One went to Georgetown Prep, which bills itself as “the nation’s oldest Jesuit school and the only Jesuit boarding school.” Others went to schools called “All Saints Catholic,” “Episcopal,” “St. Christopher’s” and “St. Mark’s.”
Christianity does not deter rape, and it does not innoculate people against racism. I understand that you want the country to become more Christian, but it’s dishonest and disrespectful to pretend that it has anything to do with this case. It suggests to me that you see this horrible crime as just another opportunity to pursue your own, unrelated agenda. And you’ll have to forgive me if I find that kind of inexcusable.
This comment was written by Sally.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 10:19 am
The house on Buchanon where the rape occured is not a big house. I would guess less than 1300 square feet. The other Lacrosse team houses are big, but not this one. 30+ party goes in this particular house would make it nigh impossible for someone to not see or hear anything. A direct neighbor to the house called in a noise complaint to 911 b/c some party goes were repeatedly banging a basketball against the side of the house for roughly 20 minutes at the time that the rape occurred. Doesn’t sound like coincidence to me.
If you mean by hooking up with each other, then maybe. I doubt that there were many women at the party — if there had been, there wouldn’t have been exotic dancers and the men wouldn’t have worked so hard to get the dancers to return to the house. Most lacrosse parties in this town are highly homosocial — and once the newness of partying wears off for the incoming freshmen, few women attend lacrosse parties at all. There might be a rough ratio of 1:10. *
*No, I’m not psychic; I’ve observed these parties first hand for over 7 years.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Mr. from Minnesota, underreporting on rapes in an era of stigma makes statistics very unreliable. At best you can show that the upper class men raped the upper class women less (and this is doubtful), but servants, black women, etc, had no meaningful legal recourse.
A guy who practiced true Christian virtues would be unlikely, if he practiced them perfectly, to be a rapist, fine. A perfect Christian culture would be unlikely to need laws against murder and theft, while we’re at it, and probably wouldn’t be capitalist. But the evidence you have just doesn’t support this conclusion. Overcrowding, better reporting (think the guys in the old West kept good stats on the outlaws they shot?) measures this more than a decrease in Christianity.
All feminism did, maybe, was make it easier to talk about rape and make it bad to rape any women, not just ones of equivalent social status. That’s not the same thing as increasing the number of rapes.
Anyhow. If these guys are guilty (and I’m having a hard time believing she decided freely to have sex with three guys in the bathroom and asked them to strangle her), well…. I dunno the punishment. Rape pisses me off so all I can think of now is something poetic like being beaten with lacrosse sticks and balls.
This comment was written by Cala.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 11:14 am
The murder rate in the US was 1 in 100k citizens in 1900. in 2000 it was 91 in 100k.
Check that. The Bureau of Criminal Justice stats say the murder rate was 1.2 (per 100k population) in 1900 and 6.1 in 2000. So yes, a five-fold increase, but not a 91-fold increase.
I wonder how accurate statistics are from 1900 regarding the deaths of non-whites. I wonder about the role of cheap guns and cheap drugs in contemporary murder rates. But mostly I wonder about the use of religion as an explanatory variable. What conclusions can we draw about the years 1913-1941 when the murder rate was even higher than it is today?
For what it’s worth, the putatively religious Southern states have among the highest rates of murder, rape and assault (and divorce, for that matter) in the nation; the lowest rates are found in the putatively secular Northeastern states. Admittedly, there are many differences between North and South. Arguably people are more willing to embrace religion -and specifically strict religion - in places where other forces of social cohesion are eroding. But that’s a whole ‘nuther thread.
Suffice it to say, the evidence suggests that religious participation causes changes in crime rates. Or perhaps crime rates cause changes in religious participation. Or both variables are tied to a third variable. Or there’s no relationship at all. But don’t quote me on that.
This comment was written by nobody.really.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Jake:
The role of the stereotypical “man of the house” is to protect and provide, and to provide guidance and discipline to the children. Depending on which version of the stereotype we’re talking about, he may have some measure of power over his wife, but he’s expected to use it responsibly. I suppose you could call that “domination” in some sense of the word, but it’s not the sense that comes readily to my mind in the context of the phrase “dominate and abuse.”
Some men frequently make derogatory references to women, but I don’t see what that has to do with masculinity. Being a jerk is just something people do—it’s not a cultural norm. Women make derogatory references to men, too, and I’d argue that derogatory generalizations about men are more socially acceptable than derogatory generalizations about women (”men are pigs” vs. “women are bitches”). Does that mean that popular conceptions of femininity center around dominating men?
TV and movies show women needing to be rescued from men by men because men tend to be physically stronger than women. If anything, I think Hollywood has gone too far in the direction of trying to promote gender equivalence by making implausible action heroes out of women. Anyway, the message I see in all this is that bad men dominate and abuse women, and good men do not.
Movies and TV are also filled with examples of men who foolishly try to assert dominance over their wives and eventually get their comeuppance and end up looking like buffoons. What message do you think that this gives about masculinity in US culture?
You might not like some of these stereotypes—I know I’m uncomfortable with some of them—but they’re a far cry from the “culture of rape” bugbear.
This comment was written by Brandon Berg.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 11:52 am
[...] If you want to see what other people in the blogging community (I steadfastly refuse to use the word “blogosphere” :P) are saying about this (most of them much more intelligently than I am able to do at the moment), check out these links at Alas. [...]
This comment was written by Definition - A Feminist Weblog » Duke University Rape Case.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Lacrosse players are making some pretty awful comments about it at the lacrosse forum.
This comment was written by Txfeminist.They are mostly worried about how it will affect the sport. For chrissake.
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March 30th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Brandon,
I strenuously disagree with you - but you already knew that.
The role of the stereotypical “man of the house” is to protect and provide…
Which position is the more powerful? That of protecting and providing or that of being protected and being provided for? Aside from which, have you ever heard the saying, “So and so wears the pants in that family?” What do you think that means?
Some men frequently make derogatory references to women, but I don’t see what that has to do with masculinity. Being a jerk is just something people do…it’s not a cultural norm.
I would say that most men make derogatory (and demeaning & belittling & dehumanizing) comments about women on a regular basis. I have worked in a wide variety of places & this is one thing that does not seem to vary. Examples (which other people have used already on this blog) are the way in which we refer to sex. He scored, nailed her, banged her, screwed her, etc. It implies that the man is the victor & that the woman lost as well as showing the man as the active participant while the woman is passive. (Yes, I know that you’ll come back with how you know women who talk about nailing some guy - but that is not what is common in pop culture)>
TV and movies show women needing to be rescued from men by men because men tend to be physically stronger than women.
Often women must be rescued from men who are not physically stronger but who have more power (whether that be henchmen or guns).
If anything, I think Hollywood has gone too far in the direction of trying to promote gender equivalence by making implausible action heroes out of women.
As opposed to plausible action heroes like Schwarzenegger, Segal, van Dam, XXX, Reeves, etc? How are any of these more plausible than, say, Lara Croft? They’re all fantastical dreams anyhow. Why is it more believable that Segal can hand fight his way through 150 foes than the idea that Jovovich can hand fight her way through 150 foes?
Anyway, the message I see in all this is that bad men dominate and abuse women, and good men do not.
Like in True Lies or Pretty Woman? Your eyes seem to be closed to the huge majority of pop culture that says otherwise.
Does that mean that popular conceptions of femininity center around dominating men?
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Context is everything and you are looking at those statements outside of the context of the reality of the position of women in US culture.
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March 30th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
why do the MRAs always show up on rape threads?
This comment was written by beth.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Because rape is theoretical to them.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
This story was sickening enough until I went to David Wright’s website and actually saw some of the players. A few of them are from my hometown. I know the older brothers of two of these guys, and they’re decent people. However, the town positively worships lacrosse players. These boys graduate from HS with a sense of entitlement that you would not believe. There’s also a nasty undercurrent of racism and misogyny running through the town.
This comment was written by Maeve.I’m horrified. I’m in shock but frankly, I shouldn’t be surprised.
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March 30th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Q: well, *being* raped, sure, that’s all theoretical to them. But as far actually, *raping*, I’m guessing that more of them than would ever admit it have had first-hand experience.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
That’s a great picture and post.
This comment was written by HumanityCritic.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
[...] But most of all, what inspired this post is this quote, found here: Cultural masculinity is a sickness that can turn men into monsters, and men in college sports are exposed to more of this virulent stuff than anyone. […] until our culture completely changes the way we construct masculinity, boys with their heart set on demonstrating their masculinity to their friends/teammates/frat brothers/whatever are going to keep on committing gang rapes. [...]
This comment was written by » The Duke Gang Rape - Cultural Masculinity Is A Sickness?! - androblog.com.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 8:42 pm
lacrosse team has been getting wide coverage in the blogosphere, and now by a few major papers as well: Washington Post article here, New York Times here and here. The blog Justice 4 Two Sisters is covering the whole story, while Ampersand has alink round up at Alas, A Blog. Finally, Pandagon has some analysis of gang rape: The gang rape is the essential scene of the patriarchy. As for me, I had a dustup with a co-worker over this at lunch today, fielding questions about why “they” are trying to make a
This comment was written by Secondhand Sun.Report this comment to the moderators
March 30th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
There are so many aspects to this situation, leading us to so much dialogue (and outrage.) One blaring gap I see regards questions of accountability. Why, in all of this media and blogosphere coverage, is no one questioning the role of the lacrosse team coach? In the socialization of sport, we have assigned the “coach” in college athletics the roles of mentor, parent, leader, and symbol for our athletes, our communities, and our identities. Yet no one mentions the Duke lacrosse coach as someone liable for the actions of these students. How has he slipped through the radar? We are so quick to judge the street level culprits (who bear the immediate responsibility) when there are so many institutions and individuals higher up in the hierarchy who have had it in their power to educate, transform, and mandate the change needed on the street. Bring the coach to testify!
This comment was written by Rob, a Duke alum.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 7:47 am
i do hear the boys/ captains statement stating they did not rape this women and the dna test will prove that. What, i don’t here them saying “like clinton” is no one had sex with this women!!!!! They could have use a condom. and if they used force there will be brusing. I am waiting for the attorney to come out and say she was hired for sex. I would like to here a statement that no one had sex with this women. I believe prosition sex for money and is still illegal!!! The reason why a nice young man would have to hire a women for sex is just for contriol! I want the hear no one had sex with her. Not the accusations are fales. The attorney is going to say she was hired for sex!!!! Wait it is coming next. It is always the womens fault for putting themselves into the situation. If you daughter go to a party with these boys it will be there fault not the godd upstanding citizen, WHAT a joke. If she was a prositute and not a stipper it is illegal. Also if she shows signs of assault or force it is rape. These boys did lots of things wrong they are not nice men. I am not goetting a good feeling about this, the dna test will not prove much except they may have used a condom. I want to hear the boys say out load that no one had sex with this women!
This comment was written by margaret entitlment.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 7:58 am
[...] Overview and links at Alas, A Blog. [...]
This comment was written by Feminist Law Professors » Blog Archive » Duke Rape Case Update.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 8:10 am
i just read what brandon wrote. I have have wonderful men / 5brothers who grew up around were most of these boys grew up and truly were all american boys. REALLY. no ego althletes up unile there middle ages. There are so many wonderful men in this world. I believe this is a reaction not to men in general but to athletes with privliges way beond what is acceptable to the human race. It is our job as parents, teachers and coaches to make sure these boys turn into good citizens and not savages. I went to college with boy’s just like this. I have left frat house feeling unsafe. I was smart enough. We should not feel that our daughters are in danger or son’s from the “entitlment/ego”. There was an article in the Baltimore sun about a high school lacroose season cancelled for the sex scandel i believe it was the saint paul school (the article is called entitlement/ good read) and in NY st. john University lacrosse team had a similiar scandle in the 90’s. This is a problem and no not all men are like this. But there is a sport culture that put these boy’s(not men) on a pedistal. It has to stop.
This comment was written by margaret entitlment.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 9:58 am
Can I ask what an MRA is? And I, for the record, have never raped anyone. Are new people not welcome?
This comment was written by Mr from Minnesota.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 10:13 am
MRA is an acronym that stands for “men’s rights activist.” There’s no bar to new commenters here and the bloggers will surely tell you that you’re welcome, but everybody will judge you by what you say and we are free to disagree pointedly. I think it’s fair to say that if you’re looking for an environment where people are buying what you’re selling, you ought to move on.
This comment was written by Thomas.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 10:30 am
Txfeminist posted some comments from a lacrosse forum. One person there qualified his mostly self-serving whining with this:
This comment was written by Thomas.“Although I am beyond appauled by the acquisations …”
Apparently he is unconcerned by the impact his spelling may have on the reputation of the sport.
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March 31st, 2006 at 11:53 am
If the players are so completely innocent then why are the 47 players “mum”. If they are certain nothing happened - and that the DNA will show that AND that the 911 calls are wrong - then why not have all 47 players come in to talk with the police, why not volunteer for a lie detector? Why are they hiring all these high powered attorneys? If they are so very innocent where is the truth - the whole truth and nothing but the truth…………
This comment was written by phil.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 3:08 pm
For anyone to claim that they “know” what actually did or did not happen is completely ridiculous. To say that these lacrosse players are all bad guys is similar to the arguments that this alleged victim “deserved” what may have happened to her. What happened to being presumed innocent until proven guilty? So the lacrosse guys are big partiers (shocking that they are a) in college and b) on an athletic team). Does that make everyone who is a partier in college a rapist?
And to make the presumption that all these guys are snobby, elitist, racist, privleged, pampered, etc., is in the same league as the people who claim that the alleged victim is a whore. Any sample of 47 college students who find some displaying those traits. One guy making a comment about a cotton shirt doesn’t make all of them racists and it doesn’t make them rapists by any stretch of the imagination. The earlier 911 call has all kinds of holes in it that any objective observer would have have to concede (Which side of the street are these guys on? Was this woman walking along or was she in a car? Why, if she felt so threatened, would she remain standing in front of the house to make the 911 call? How did she know the address?)
Further, the so-called “rap sheet” citing all the offenses these guys have been written up for. How many of these citations were for violent crimes? Exactly none. I’m willing to bet that 90% of college students are guilty of underage drinking, a noise complaint, or public urination. To use these minor infractions to paint the entire team as out-of-control, potential rapists is silly and doesn’t suggest any more than them being a typical college student. Also, as a recent Duke graduate, I know that virtually every off-campus house, whether it is rented by members of an athletic team, a fraternity, or a sorority, has received noise complaints (that’s what happens when the social scene is forced off campus). Where does that leave the “rap sheet”? These guys are typical, if rowdy, college students who throw parties.
And hiring an attorney is not evidence of guilt by any means. It’s just common sense, even if you have done nothing wrong. Now attempting to flee the state or leading the police on a slow-speed chase, that looks more incriminating. Frankly, it makes sense (and any attorney will tell you this) to keep quiet. It makes a lot more sense to have one statement issued by the captains of the team (who did give statements to the police by the way), than to have close to fifty individual statements flying around in the press.
Is it possible that three lacrosse guys did this? Sure. Is it possible that the alleged victim is lying or not being entirely truthful (especially considering that certain aspects of her account of the events do not make all that much sense)? Yes. Anyone who cannot concede both those points is out of their mind.
This comment was written by Jim.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Thomas, thanks for the advice. Why have a discussion forum if there is no discussion. A bunch of people bitching about the same stuff is not discussion it’s narcisim, buddy. Introducing ideas and having them shot down is great. It’s how we all learn. Except of course htose like you who know everything. You buyin that?
This comment was written by Mr from Minnesota.Report this comment to the moderators
March 31st, 2006 at 6:48 pm
[...] Rachel and Blackamazon (and several others that i haven’t gotten to yet) have made it their persynal mission to get the word out about this case and to bring justice. (Update: looks like Alas put together a pretty good round-up of blog postings on the topic.)Â I’d like to join that mission. As someone who is moving in two months to where this all took place, i can’t possibly imagine ignoring it. So online and offline, you’ll be hearing me talk about it. [...]
This comment was written by vegankid » its not about sex.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 10:34 am
My son plays lacrosse at a D1 school, although there it’s a club sport, not a varsity sport (i.e., the athletes and their families have to pay the expenses of the team). While the various generalizations offered here characterizing lacrosse players may well apply to the Duke lacrosse team (about which I know nothing), they don’t apply to my son’s team or to my son. I rather suspect they don’t apply to 99% of lacrosse players.
I’m curious; I’ve read stories about this in the various media outlets. While the allegations are well publicized, so far I’ve not seen any discussion of actual evidence that a rape occurred. If anyone has seen such I’d like to know.
I don’t presume anyone’s guilty simply because they’ve kept their mouth shut in public and hired a lawyer, either. If my son had been accused of rape, or any other crime, and he told me, “No way, Dad, I didn’t do it and I want to tell everyone that”, I’d tell him to shut up and hire him a lawyer, too. The media are all over this, and any public statement that anyone makes will be edited, excerpted, and otherwise used in a fashion calculated to sell media advertising time, not to disseminate the truth. Look how one or two guys yelling racial epithets is being used to paint them all as racists. Look how people on here are presuming that if the bathroom was in use for a 1/2 hour that everyone at the party knew it, and knew it was the same people in there the whole 1/2 hour. I’ve been to parties where I’ve drunk plenty of beer and watered a tree and had no clue what was going on in the bathroom.
I’m not presuming that these guys are innocent. Plenty of athletes have been so idolized that they have an entirely twisted idea of what they’re entitled to. But I’m not presuming they’re guilty, either. Let’s wait and see what the courts come up with.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 12:27 pm
RonF: While the various generalizations offered here characterizing lacrosse players may well apply to the Duke lacrosse team (about which I know nothing), they don’t apply to my son’s team or to my son.
That’s what the fathers of rapists usually say, Ron. Even when there’s video evidence. I see no reason to take your assurance that your son wouldn’t commit rape any more seriously than I would take any other man’s assurance that his son wouldn’t.
so far I’ve not seen any discussion of actual evidence that a rape occurred. If anyone has seen such I’d like to know.
Right, because when a sleazy exotic dancer is medically examined, and there’s bruising and evidence of recent sexual intercourse, and she says she was held down and raped by three nice men just like your son, that’s not evidence.
God, every so often, I come back here, and right away, Ampersand’s anti-feminist friends who make him feel good remind me why I left.
This comment was written by Jesurgislac.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 12:53 pm
in its entirity to send a message to the rest of the school. Because we all know preemptive measures work FABulously… Now, lets compare this to the Duke Lacrosse Team, and someone tell me why this makes sense… Via Justice 4 Two Sisters andAlas, a Blog On March 14, 2006 two African-American women were allegedly raped,sodomized, and racially terrorized by white members of the Duke University Men’s Lacrosse team at a party they were hired to dance for.
This comment was written by I am a Goddess, Worship at Your Leisure.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 1:13 pm
This is what the media really cares about:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/23/bouncer.indictment/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/30/campbell.arrest.reut/index.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-huff30mar30,1,3074768.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-briefs30.4mar30,1,2820568.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The Duke rape tragedy obviously hasn’t received the national media attention it ethically deserves. The honest and genuine readers here know what kind of stories would get national media coverage right. Just add a little role reversal to this rape tragedy and you’ll get your answer. The truth of the matter is this country is breaking down and doomed to failure, if you’ve been keeping up with any true current events (the kind that you’ll never ever see during primetime) then you should know what I’m talking about.
Remember a long time ago when that white mother killed here two precious white children, she claimed that some black men killed them, but in fact she killed them. That story was almost everywhere; it was just as big as that missing Holloway girl story. I also remember a few years back when that older white guy raped and killed that 7-year-old black girl in a Las Vegas casino bathroom. http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/4.17/980818-iverson.html
This comment was written by jerry.The way that story received minimal coverage incredibly baffles the human mind. My point in all of this is this place we call home really isn’t for us, our true home is in the heavenly kingdom with God. The Bible tells us that we will no doubly go through persecutions and struggles here on earth because these are the curses of man, thanks to Adam and Eve. We African Americans know from day one this country has never really treated us equally and fairly. It’s long over due that we cut off our disturbing trust in man and have more faith and trust in God.
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April 1st, 2006 at 2:19 pm
RonF
From what I understand the woman came in to hospital with fairly severe injuries and the doctors say that she clearly is the victim of rape. Her nails, purse, cellphone et.c. was found in a policesearch of the house. A neighbour witnessed the racial abuse and hostile situation outside the house. As I understand it is a small house and apart from the team the two dancers where the only women present so it ought to have been pretty obvius to most of the team what was going on in the bathroom. Apart from confessing to the underage drinking and other obvious activities, the team has refused to cooperate with the police.
If these fact aren’t enough circumstantial evidence to believe that Dukes players are a disgrace as both men and athletes I don’t know what is. And if I had a son I’d make it very clear to him that I would never want him to go to a party like this or even associate with people who do so.
This comment was written by B.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 2:35 pm
RonF comments make me want to vomit - if I had any leftover questions about why boys and young women think they can get away with this shit, they’re answered. The fact that you would see fit to see this as an attack on lacrosse players, and to wonder if there was any evidence that these guys were racists (um, sitting in a room where your friends abuse a women while yelling racial epithets seems like enough evidence to me) or that a rape even occurred tells me everything that’s wrong with a) masculinity, b) the culture of hero worship towards athletes in the states, c) white people who don’t get that they’re racists.
This comment was written by dorktastic.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 3:21 pm
in the sex industry? Is that honestly the best we can do to support a college education? Is somebody helping to look after her and her children? Does she have adequate medical care in the aftermath of all this? Here’s a comment I picked up over at Alas, a blog. These men have been hanged in the court of public opinion, justice and liberty be damned. Witch hunts in days of yore are referenced by feminazis as examples of historical misogony. They don’t question their own actions however when they are the
This comment was written by The Paper Chase.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 4:45 pm
Not enough media attention? Have you turned on MSNBC in the last couple of days? It’s been featured, front and center, on the Abrams Report, Rita Cosby, Joe Scarborough…virtually every show except the one’s that focus usually exclusively focus on political affairs. Additionally, there have been articles in the New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, and other nationally read magazines. Not many other rape cases get that kind of attention. Perhaps that you’re upset that some of these news outlets have *gasp* questioned the alleged victims story and have not immeditately asked the athletes’ heads on a stick. Some of them have, brace yourself, shown some restraint and haven’t rushed to judge the lacrosse players when the evidence and accounts of the evening are less than a slam-dunk. There’s no Rodney King”“style video tape of the event, the DNA tests haven’t come back yet, etc….
And the magic word that has been missing from the many of the above posts is “allegedly”. Nothing is known about the case other than that the woman has been assaulted. By whom, we do not know. Could be the party-goers. Could have been a guy on the street. Can vaginal trauma be self-inflicted? Yes.
Lastly, suppose the DNA tests come back negative. Say that whatever samples they took from the rape kit do not match up with any of the DNA from the (constitutionally dubious) mouth swabs. I don’t see any way for the DA get a conviction. Because the alleged victim doesn’t seem to be able to give any description other than that her attackers were white, does he plan to charge all 46 guys (some of them not being at the party) with rape? Further, we know the party was thrown and attended by lacrosse players…but were they the only people there? Were there football players? Baseball players? Members of fraternities? Duke alumni? P-Froshes? Residents of Durham? We know that lacrosse players were there but are we prepared to look into every white male in the area? When police in Omaha took samples from two dozen black men to solve a rape case, the public went nuts calling it racial profiling. In Charlottesville, Virginia, police took sample from 187 black males to solve a case and the ACLU screamed. Where are they now?
This comment was written by Jim.Report this comment to the moderators
April 1st, 2006 at 7:05 pm
While following dozens of links and crawling all over reading about the Dukecase, I found a variety of comments. In one response, a man echoes what I’ve been saying about this case and others: If indeed that girl was raped, she is certainly some father’s little girl, and she could be some brother’s sister. If she was your sister,
This comment was written by MissPenName.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2006 at 4:16 am
Let me guess Jim.
You are a white male age 23-35. You believe in reverse racism. You also have African American friends. Did I get 2 out of 3 right? This next question isn’t related to the rape story that’s receiving minimal coverage. When a minority questions anything about civil rights, do you automatically jump on the defense?
“We know that lacrosse players were there but are we prepared to look into every white male in the area? When police in Omaha took samples from two dozen black men to solve a rape case, the public went nuts calling it racial profiling.” But all it takes is hearsay to put an African American male in jail with or without bail, when the purported crime committed is “black on white”. I’ve seen it many times you can’t convince me otherwise.
This is America and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but from day one, we haven’t had much luck here, hehe. Jim you seem like well-educated guy, answer this for me, what if your mom pleaded with you that she was raped by a similar group of guys? Would you say “I’m sorry mom, this is no Rodney King”“style video tape of the event, the DNA tests haven’t come back yet - I’ll get back to you on that one” I hope not because that would be brutal.
This comment was written by jerry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2006 at 6:48 am
RonF, I have a nephew who played D-1 lacrosse in a university non-club team. I would like to think that this could never have happened to him or his teammates either, but I think a few points are in order:
The impact of alcohol and its misuse is writ large in this incident — people do things under the influence that they would never do while sober, even if they consciously wanted to. Some of my nephew’s teammates were involved in a terrible, fatal car accident that was probably caused or exacerbated by the use of alcohol. So if your son or his teammates drink to excess at any point in their college career, they are at higher risk of doing all kinds of stupid and wrongful things.
Second, the propensity to do something bad and wrong is much higher if there are even a few instigators on the team, and the more influential they are (captains, etc.) the more likely it is that the “good” fellows will just either (a) do nothing to prevent it or (b) join in under a level of peer pressure. So even if 90 or 99 percent of players are great kids (which, I think gives these kids the serious benefit of the doubt), a few bad apples willing to act on their evil thoughts can and does infect a whole team.
And what if the coach or the university never punishes the “intermediate” not so bad behavior that everyone is pooh poohing here? Surely, as a conservative you have heard of the concept of defining deviancy down? It was used as a reason by Rudolph Giuliani to crack down very hard on blacks and minorities in New York City for minor offenses in order to forestall the general lawlessness that was said to thrive when the “small things” are overlooked. Tell me why that concept doesn’t apply to sports teams made up of overprivileged athletes drawn largely from NYC’s suburban enclaves?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2006 at 7:13 am
To answer the first question, you are in fact 3 for 3. I am white, 24, male, have black friends, and I believe that reverse racism does exist. If by “racisim” you mean any person jumping to conclusions about someone else based solely on the color of their skin, I think that it is pretty clear from reading some of these posts that reverse racism does exist…and since race and class are closely intertwined in the United States but especially in Durham, one could argue that reverse classism does exist as well. Being white and “privleged” does not make a person a rapist. Neither does throwing some loud parties or having a bonehead teammate make a racist comment. And yet, it appears that many people won’t be happy until these guys’ heads are on a stick, DNA evidence or no. So, yes, to presume something with such conviction without knowing intimate facts seems like reverse racism to me.
That being said, I am usually sympathetic to the minority opinion when it comes to the question of civil rights. For example, I am strongly in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage because I have not heard a good argument against it, at least not one that does not use theological texts as the base for its argument. But this case, to me, is not about civil rights as much as it is about a violent crime being committed. No one is systematically standing in the way or someone else’s right to vote or due process. So to me it is not a question of Jim Crow laws or separate but equal, it is a matter of a violent crime against one person by others.
If my mom claimed that she was raped, I would believe her provided that there was no evidence to the contrary. For example, if my mom had schizophrenia or bipolar disorder I would naturally question it (as any rational person would). (By the way, I’m not saying the alleged victim is mentally disturbed”“I was just providing an example of a situation in which I would question my mom’s claim of being raped.) That being said, if I had a son on this team and he swore to me that nothing happened, I would believe him (again, provided that he did not have a violent history or a propensity for felonious behavior). Were it my mom or my son, that presumption to believe a loved one or relative comes from the same instinct. But this means two things in particular. First, so far as I know, no one on this board is related to either the alleged victim or her alleged perpetrators, so for anyone to say that they believe either side 100% seems a bit hastey. Second, for the same reason, relatives, close friends, contacts of any kind would not be permitted to sit on a jury in a case like this. There would be no way for a person with strong feelings one way or the other to be a fair and impartial juror (or judge).
Lastly, and this may be a moot point, but if an African American male is put in prison without his due process, why would it make it OK to do the same to these guys? Do two wrongs make a right? America is not perfect but doing so, while placating the understandably upset residents of Durham, would not be right either. Logically, you cannot scream for these guys’ blood and then play a violin for others who did not get their due process. I’m not a lawyer but I cannot see a case standing up in court if there was not evidence linking the accused to the crime. Should the DNA come back negative, given that the alleged victim doesn’t seem to be able to recall anything about her attackers other than that they were white and on the lacrosse team (and even the second point is murky), I don’t see any way for the DA to build a case.
This comment was written by Jim.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2006 at 7:29 am
Jim, I will say, categorically, that I don’t want any person, white or black to go to jail if they are not guilty. Two wrongs do not make a right — but I have enough experience with the criminal justice system to believe with a fair degree of confidence that if it were not for the very loud outcry by protesters, bloggers, and even people like me (a Duke alumna), the combined influence of the various powerful forces connected to these players — the University, its donors and alumni sports buffoons, and the players’ parents and their lawyers — would almost certainly prevail upon the legal system to paper over any wrongdoing. Justice shouldn’t be so hard, but when it turns the tables on those who could never think of themselves as criminals and asks the affluent to temper their expectations of a smooth and profitable return from life’s investment, well, it is. Sometimes it takes a lot of yelling and screaming to balance the scales of justice.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2006 at 7:55 am
Jesu wrote:
What ? It doesn’t cheer you to know that if you were raped, nice, civil guys like RonF and Jim would sit on the jury if you decided to press charges ?
Tsk.
This comment was written by alsis39.75.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2006 at 8:43 am
Wow, do you ever make a lot of accusations without backing them up.
Jim, please provide a direct quote of someone here actually saying that being white and privileged makes someone a rapist.
And provide a direct quote of smoeone here actually saying that if someone throws loud parties or has a racist teammate, that makes someone a rapist.
And please provide a direct quote of someone here actually saying that it’s okay to put these guys in prison without due process, because that’s happened to a black man.
As long as you’re respectful of the other posters here, you’re welcome to argue for dissenting views. But insulting lies about what other posters have said, such as you’ve posted, are not resepctful.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 2nd, 2006 at 11:01 am
Jim, here is a useful perspective on the obsessive attention to due process that the well-connected and affluent exhibit when they get arrested and not otherwise: When you are driving in the slow lane you are exquisitely aware of how much faster those around you are going. When you are in the fast lane you don’t notice. Get arrested, and all of a sudden you are forcibly placed in the slow lane andyou become hyper-aware of the procedures and presumptions that protect the accused that you barely notice, and in fact, might even oppose as “technicalities” when they are applied to others who, as it happens, are usually travelling full time in America’s slow lane of race and income. I do think that class is a risk factor for unfair accusations, though the opposit of what you imply. I just watched an episode of Dateline last night in which a white man who made his living by auto salvage and happened to have a drinking problem and otherwise represented a nuisance to law enforcement spent 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. The sheriff never showed a picture of an actual other suspect to the victim — the suspect who was later proven by DNA evidence to be the guilty party. He was just “sure” that this lowlife was the guy. You can’t be so blind as to see that these over privileged white guys stand a much better chance of getting off even if guilty than they are at risk for being convicted even if innocent.
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April 2nd, 2006 at 11:26 am
Amazing.
I told myself not to reply if Jim answered yes to at least 2 of my questions. Unfortunately, I’m going to anyway. Jim I don’t mean any disrespect, but I was appalled by your earlier comments contained in these posts. It bothers me when guys like you, the majority, act as if you’re incapable of exhibiting any kind of deviant behavior. In this case, it’s group rape. In other cases, it may involve going on a shooting spree at a high school, or storing dismembered human body parts of gay black men in your freezer, etc. My point is you shouldn’t make excuses or use irrelevant arguments to dismiss abnormal behavior (the media does it all the time: “Oh those poor boys didn’t have any friends, they felt isolated, there must be a deeper meaning why those boys went out on a shooting spree”). When minorities exhibit similar deviant behaviors, it’s innate or it’s usually in their genes right? And since you answered yes to at least 2 of my questions, to some extent I can tell how you think and perceive the world ““ which tells me I really shouldn’t put much time in to this talk.
I don’t know where that argument came from. I simply said that based on suspicion or speculative evidence, it’s easy to issue an arrest warrant against an African American male. It happened to Kobe Bryant, Broadway actor Alton Fitzgerald White, Tupac Shakur, Mike Tyson, etc. All of which where either proven innocent or released from jail due to lack of evidence. Like you say, I’m assuming in this frat house incident it’s more challenging to make any arrests based on such speculative evidence, it’s a good thing Kobe or anyone of his peers weren’t around. Yes I think this is unjust. But like I said, bad luck just seems to follow us in the strangest way. Especially for this rape victim.
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April 2nd, 2006 at 12:10 pm
I don’t remember whether Mike Tyson was arrested based on flimsy evidence but he was definitely convicted of rape, and his victim was black not white.
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April 2nd, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Barbara.
This comment was written by jerry.You could be right. I remember Tyson was caught in the unfortunate, but common rape scenario. Girl goes to or leaves his house around 3am. She goes to the police with marks and bruises, Tyson go to jail, I think. If Tyson and the others went to jail due to someone else’s word then so be it. Logic tells me there should be some sort of consistency with this tragedy as well.
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April 2nd, 2006 at 6:53 pm
and gender in the southern United States. It seems that everytime I get online, someone else has written something really illuminating, so my list is going to be sadly incomplete. Ampersand at Alas, a Blog has a great round up post that you can findhere
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April 2nd, 2006 at 10:39 pm
to actuality. I hope that further coverage doesn’t come off like this AP article. Consider this my gesture of support (however feeble) for both of the black women’s rights and their voices. Finally: a few links - Justice 4 Two Sisters (blog) andAlas, a blog (round-up of links).
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April 2nd, 2006 at 11:13 pm
…atAlas, a blog. Several people remark on not just the deep, disgusting racism, classism, and sexism fuelling this, but the entitlement mentality of the jocks in question, or as blackfeminism puts it, the influence of “negative athlete culture.” To wit: racism,
This comment was written by Fetch me my axe.Report this comment to the moderators
April 3rd, 2006 at 12:07 am
I think that regardless of whether this alleged gang rape has been proven yet- college rape and fraternity rape is a big problem and does need attention. I do think that people are innocent until proven guilty. The problem is that only 2% of accused rapists are convicted according to the World Book Encyclopedia 2002.
As a victim of fraternity related gang rape (drug facilitated) I can tell you that justice is hard to come by for rape victims. The just world theory explains why some people are hesitant to believe rape victims: (I am not saying anyone here is doing this- I just want to raise awareness)
The Just world theory states that:
“Individuals that have a strong belief in a just world can have this belief challenged when they encounter a victim of random misfortune such as a rape victim. The individual wants to believe that the world is a safe, just place where people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Even when evidence suggests otherwise, the individual is very reluctant to give up this belief that the world is not just. In the face of contradicting evidence, research suggests (Kleinke and Meyer, 1996) that people with a high belief in a just world will do one of two things: either they will try to eliminate the suffering of the innocent victims or else they will derogate them for their fate. Since it is impossible to reverse the crime of rape, and thus relieve the victim of her suffering, the rape victim is often subjected to derogation and blame. In this manner, the person who believes in a just world can maintain this belief as there is no longer a suffering person, but a woman who deserves her misfortune.”
Here are some resources on college rape as well to think about:
Date Rape: College’s Dirty Secret
“Three years ago, Heather* remembers how hard it was to leave behind her family and friends. She remembers having to face the fact that she was once again a freshman. She remembers wanting so badly to be well-liked. But there is one thing that Heather does not remember at all - the night she was raped by two freshman males in a room full of people.”
Our Guys
Lesson plan based on a published book - Find this book in a library
“Thirteen teenage boys lured a retarded girl into a basement where four of them gang-raped her while several others looked on. The boys were the most popular athletes in high school. And although rumors of the rape began quickly circulating through the town, it was weeks before anyone reported it to the police and years before the boys finally went to trial…. Why did the town’s supposedly responsible adults–including teachers, coaches, parents, and law-enforcement officers–turn a blind eye to the increasingly violent and aberrant behavior of Glen Ridge’s golden boys? The expertly told story of the rape and the subsequent trial makes a compelling national drama of conscience and morality, charged with a significance that reaches far beyond one town and its criminal justice system.”
Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus Find this book in a library
Sanday, Peggy Reeves. (1990) Fraternity gang rape : sex, brotherhood, and privilege on campus. New York : New York University Press, 203.
“The evidence reveals a common pattern; the “brothers” target a vulnerable “party girl” who wants acceptance or is high on alcohol (sometimes her drinks have been deliberately spiked); she is taken to a room in the fraternity house where she may or may not agree to have sex with one man; she then generally passes out, and a “train” of men have sex with her. Such incidents of gang rape are rarely prosecuted or even labeled rape, reflecting an institutional attitude that grants men sexual privileges and accepts sexually aggressive behavior.” (Sanday, 1990)
It’s pretty well known that the term ‘running a train on a girl’ means to spike a girl’s drink and line up to rape her after she has passed out. It is literally not considered rape by the college boys who partipate. They will tell you they watched this happen as though it is not a crime. They explain it as “it’s not hurting anyone. She wont even remember”
I think people should remember that girls who attend these partys are someone’s daughter, sister, friend. They are normal, healthy students themselves. Not after being raped. They are rape trauma syndrome sufferers. They often have eating disorders, OCD, self injury (cutting themselves), suicidal thoughts and incredible stigma.
Just something to think about.
A survivor
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April 3rd, 2006 at 5:33 am
Reposting my comment from another thread here:
Speaking as someone who’s a bit older than most posters here, I am actually heartened and astonished by this case. People are acting as though white men raping a black woman is a crime. And white women are backing her up! In the South! I’m honestly gobsmacked.
For most of this country’s history, and certainly for most of North Carolina’s, white-on-black rape was *not* a crime. Sometimes it wasn’t a crime even on the books, and the rest of the time it was unthinkable that charges might even be filed, much less prosecuted.
I don’t know if anyone since William Faulkner has been honest about the sexual dynamics between the races in the South, but he was. Southern white fear of “nigrahs marrying our women” was (and I assume is) largely driven by the fear that black men would exact vengence for the way white men have traditionally treated black women … as their rightful prey.
Even if the case never comes to court, the fact that there’s an uproar about it across color lines is an enormous advance over the situation in my youth, and I’m really impressed by how far North Carolina has come.
This comment was written by Doctor Science.Report this comment to the moderators
April 3rd, 2006 at 5:49 am
A survivor, thanks for the reminder, because a lot of rape defense is about making people forget that the woman is a member of a family and a community. If there is one thing I could wish for, though, it is that a woman who has been raped should not feel, or not be made to feel, stigmatized. A woman who has been raped has done nothing wrong, and her value and self-worth should never be tied to whether or not she has had sex with anyone, including the accused rapist. It makes me angry that women should be made to feel guilty about any sexual act, whether they derived pleasure from it or not, but especially when it was forced upon them.
Wishing you peace.
Jerry, Mike Tyson’s victim was a contestant in the Miss Black America contest (or a similar type of event). She was a high achieving college student who he asked out — suffice it to say, when the defense attorney’s strategy is, basically, that the guy you went out with is such a notorious jerk that you must have realized when you went to his room that rough sex was part of the bargain — there isn’t much of a defense. Tyson had an uphill battle and was caught in at least two lies on the witness stand, being contradicted by his chauffeur, among others, about what the victim was wearing and the fact that he had more or less begged her to go out with him. He really didn’t understand that what he had done was wrong, however, that’s not the standard: his belief was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances. Why do I follow these things so obsessively? I don’t know, maybe I should change my “major” to criminal law.
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April 3rd, 2006 at 11:47 am
Guilty until proven innocent.
The way of the American media!
I can understand demanding that an investigation be launched (it has).
I can understand sympathizing with someone who has alleged that this has happend.
I can understand the demand for justice if this proves to be true.
But the fact of the matter is, there is very little evidence to demonstrate that these boys have committed this crime. But as of right now, they have been convicted in the media.
If no charges are filed because of a lack of evidence, it won’t be because the boys are innocent, it will be because they are white (and in some cases rich) young men. They won’t be innocent, they will have gotten away with a heinous crime because the girl was black.
If this didn’t happen, it won’t matter, you’ve all convicted these young men.
If it did happen, by all means throw the book at everyone involved.
Victim rights are important, but so are those who are not guilty, or those not charged.
We’ve seemed to forget that last part.
This comment was written by Derek Blasutti.Report this comment to the moderators
April 3rd, 2006 at 6:19 pm
So at best these “boys” are only guilty of racially insulting a black woman? Or does this type of behaviour become accepted if it is directed at someone with less entitlement then theirs? Boys just being boys…and the tawdry black stripper bringing out the worst in them?
And when they insult their neighbors who ask them to quiet down? Once again they get a pass?
I suppose there is not punishment for them being louts, but why they get defended for this behaviour is beyond me.
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April 3rd, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Amazing to me how many supposedly, well-educated and thoughtful people in this blog do not understand the basics of American liberty — innocent until proven guilty. Instead, they are taking this horrible incident as grounds for some kind of racial or gender-bashing statement. For once, it would be nice if people actually did what they say they stand for — and let the facts be laid out before making assumptions and unfounded claims.
Who knows, perhaps the lacrosse team did not rape this woman. Of course, they might have. But, unless someone out there has hard evidence that they aren’t sharing in this blog, no one really knows until the facts come forth.
But, hey, it’s alot more fun to just jump in and accuse people of something, make a fuss to stir up trouble when you can — why not? Why wait for the facts? Why assume innocence until proven guilty? As an American, I for one am ashamed of how the public and press is treating this. And I am at a loss to explain it to the children around me — accusations with no facts. just to stir up trouble. What a waste. We have become a shambles of a country.
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April 4th, 2006 at 8:13 am
Mr from Minnesota:
From the cite:
America is a largely (90% or thereabouts) Christian nation.
Japan is a largely non-Christian nation.
Proof positive that Christian values lead to five times as much crime.
Next?
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April 4th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Jake Squid:
When does a character “need rescuing”? Surely, it’s when something bad will happen to them (usually death) if they don’t get rescued.
So to answer your question, ordinary men are more likely to need rescuing, but are less likely to be rescued.
That ordinary men are expendable, dispensable cannon-fodder.
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April 4th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Ampersand:
Is this standard of debate going to be required across the board? Because if so, then please provide a direct quote of me actually saying that all the world’s problems are caused by women, as you alledged recently. And I could compile a lengthy list of similar remarks by other feminists and pro-feminists if I was so minded.
And while we on the subject, perhaps you could say something about This post. Contributors should not be subject to aspersions of this nature, And I don’t think for a second you’d tolerate anyone suggesting that posters here were false accusers.
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April 4th, 2006 at 11:16 am
And thirdly, please fix the link I buggered up in the previous post.
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April 4th, 2006 at 11:36 am
1. As I recall, that was my sarcastic response to your utterly unsubstantiated claim that (paraphrased from memory) rapes caused by women egging on men to rape were actually a lot more common than we might think. Sorry if you failed to follow the nuances of that.
In contrast, I don’t think Jim was being sarcastic.
2. As the moderation guidelines say, I give more slack to posters I find to be more interesting and/or to add more to discussion here. I also give more slack to long-established members of the community. So Cyrs T gets a lot of slack from me, whereas Jim doesn’t.
But I did find her post unfortunate, because I think it distracted from Q Grrl’s post, which I think was closer to the mark. The extent to which MRAs are drawn to disrupt threads about rape, more than any other subject, is quite striking. Myself, I think it has to do with desire of MRAs to see men as victims and nothing but victims in all contexts. Since rape is an instance in which men clearly are not always victims, MRAs want to prevent it from being discussed in any coherent fashion.
3. Fixed.
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April 4th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Daran,
Thanks ever so much for taking my questions seriously and not even hinting at being deliberately obtuse.
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April 4th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
I’ll deal with the substance of that post if I ever get round to replying to it directly. For now I’ll just say that I disagree with your analysis, and leave it at that.
I wasn’t aware that sarcasm or the lack of it was a criterion. But if it is, then your remark below doesn’t appear to be sarcastic. I doubt you could quote anybody saying that “men [are] victims and nothing but victims in all contexts”.
My understanding is that ‘more slack’ meant that you would be much quicker to ban unfavoured posters, not that you would hold them to a different (and impossible) standard of debate.
I found her post unfortunate because it was an unsubstantiated and grossly offensive ad-hom, and my understanding was that such insults were not welcome here. I wouldn’t expect you to ban her, or even threaten a ban, and I certainly don’t want that. I did hope, though, that you would have more to say about it than that it distracted from a better post.
The reverse criticism can be leveled at feminists.
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April 4th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
I’m not entirely sure whether this was intended to be irony. If not, then thanks, but I would have preferred a substantive response.
However I think irony is more likely. I may well be obtuse, but not deliberately so. I did take your question seriously, and responded to it likewise. I’m sorry you didn’t reciprocate.
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April 5th, 2006 at 3:01 am
Daran:
First of all, regarding Crys T’s post, point well taken. You’re right; in context, it was an unfair thing to say, and I ought to have objected to it on that basis.
However, since you’ve focused on that post, it’s worth pointing out that - unlike Jim’s post, which was full of lies - Cyrs T’s post was true. Among MRAs - like among all large groups of men - it’s safe to say that there are more rapists than there are admitted rapists.
I think she was also correct to imply that there are probably more rapists among MRAs than among most groups of men. This is because I expect that angry misogynists are more likely to rape than other men, and there are more angry misogynists among MRAs than among typical groups of men.
(I am by no means saying that all MRAs are rapists.)
The primary difference between my reply to you, and Jim’s reply to… no one in particular? The blog as a whole? … Is that I quoted the specific thing you said that I was responding to. Thus readers didn’t have to wonder who I was talking about, and could judge for themselves if the way I characterized what I was responding to was fair or not. Jim didn’t give the readers that opportunity.
As for my statement about many MRAs seeing men as victims and nothing but victims, you’re correct - that statement was inaccurate and hyperbolic.
It would have been better if I had said that many MRAs like to deny that women are oppressed by men in any significant fashion. For that reason, they are particularly drawn to derailing discussions of rape, since rape (apart from prison) is a fairly obvious case of a problem in which the most-often targeted victims are female, and virtually all perpetrators are male.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 5th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Some of you evidently haven’t read much about the evidence of this case. $ fingernails found in the bathroom. These were not Lee Press on Nails.. You can’t just pop them off, they hurt and sometimes bleed when they come off. I don’t believe the girl pulled her fingernails off, left her purse and $160.oo,cell phone and ID in the bathroom to frame some lacross players. That doesn’t even make sense! Why? What would be the point. If she is as battered and bruise as reports said, when did that happen? The five minutes it took to leave the house and get to the Kroger store? She may be a stripper, and maybe she has done a few tricks, I don’t know just putting it out there, but to volutarily have sex with three white guys in a bathroom and then leave all your stuff makes no sense. To be sure she would have taken her money and cell phone, ID….What woman do you know,especially a working girl leaves her money at the scene. If the DA really thinks there was an assult believe me the girl had many bruises, not just vaginal/anal tearing. She was probably beat up. You think she had the other stripper beat her in the car just to frame the guys. Not many women would willing let someone beat them in the face and bruise them up to fake a rape. Not black women anyway! I know, because I am one. We might throw a brick through a window, but we aren’t going to the police about some made-up stuff evolving white folks because we know that just isn’t going to wash.
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April 5th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
True, a black woman would never go
Just ask Tawana Brawley, after all. Perhaps that’s a low blow, but your sweeping generalizations about what people would do (I’m a Japanese girl and wouldn’t cheat on my test, therefore no Japanese girls would ever cheat on their tests) seems a little… broad.
The propensity on this board to dismiss entirely even the possibility that the allegations are somewhat untrue is unnerving for a community that would usually be very much in favor of due process and evidence. Sure its just a blog and won’t, in and of itself, legally damage the defendants, but the fact that you blithely dismiss these comments as innocuous belies your understanding that these written words DO have an impact on public opinion.
No serious posters are claiming that the lacrosse team was composed of angels. Some of them are most likely guilty of being racist, overly rowdy, and even misogynistic. This fact, however, does not mean that they are rapists and should be prosecuted as such.
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April 5th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
This country is going to hell.
Our society that is mostly seen as “black and white” has a serious race obsessive disorder. It makes me sick to my stomach to know how the “guilty” whites, not the “innocent” whites, have treated any person they have come in contact with through out our history: native americans, early mexicans, africans, and etc..
Apparently one of these sick men who allegedly participated in the rape of the african american girl, sent an email stating “I plan on killing the bitches as soon as the walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off,”. A minimized version of that stated actually could result in some broken fingernails and scattered remains of blood. If an african american guy directed that statement towards a “blue-eyed blonde haired girl”, this country would declare a state of emergency. It’s literally unmentionable as to what would happen if that were the actual case.
read article.
This comment was written by jerry.http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/04/05/duke.lacrosse.ap/index.html?cnn=yes
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April 6th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Blog following Duke rape story A blog, Justice 4 Two Sisters, has been created to follow the rape investigation at Duke University. Make sure to check it out and show your support. Also:Alas, a Blog has a great roundup of stories and posts. Hat tip: Alternet’s The Mix. Posted by Jessica at 03:08 PM | in Blogs , Sexual Assault , Violence Against Women | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) >
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April 6th, 2006 at 4:44 am
Ampersand:
I appreciate your saying that, though I’m disappointed that you go on to defend it.
I’m not sure that I would class them as lies. On first reading I thought he characterised his opponent’s positions fairly accurately - at least, no more inaccurately than is par for the course. When I went back to look for the post I thought he was referring to, I saw that he hadn’t. So, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I’d put it down to sloppiness - sloppy reading, sloppy checking, and sloppy expression, rather than a deliberate intention to misrepresent which the word ‘lie’ implies.
Moreover, Jim makes a valid point in his post, which you evade by focussing exclusively upon his inaccuracies. Several people seem to have argued that white suspects should be treated less favourably than blacks, and justified their stance by referring to past injustices committed against black suspects. In the specific post he was replying to, the exchange went like this:
Jim: We know that lacrosse players were there but are we prepared to look into every white male in the area? When police in Omaha took samples from two dozen black men to solve a rape case, the public went nuts calling it racial profiling.
Jerry: But all it takes is hearsay to put an African American male in jail with or without bail, when the purported crime committed is “black on white”. I’ve seen it many times you can’t convince me otherwise.
I don’t know about the Omaha case, and it may be that Jim mischaracterised it in some significant way, or there may be circumstances that differentiate that case from this one, and which justify a different treatment, or it may be that in that case, blacks were being put in jail based upon heresay, but Jerry didn’t say of these things. He merely offered the example of the historic and continuing unjust treatment of blacks suspected of crimes against whites, as an apparent justification for treating them differently - or perhaps as an explanation for why people argue differently in the two cases.
Now, I’ll buy that as an explanation, but not as a justification. The only thing that is justified by historic inequties against blacks, is that we should take extra care to do now, what we should have been doing all along, which is to demand the same (or similar) treatment for suspects in the same (or similar) circumstances, regardless of their colour, or that of their alledged victims.
Moreover, we should be demanding fair treatment. All the analysis in the world of past injustices against black suspects will not answer the question of whether it is fair to require forty-six-or-however-many-it-was men to give dna samples under the circumstances in which they did.
Personally, I strongly agree that it was in this case. If I knew more about the Omaha case, I might come to a different conclusion based upon different circumstances. But my conclusion would not be based upon the skin colour of either suspects or alleged victim.
Crys T was replying to a sequence which began with this post. She wasn’t talking about MRA’s in general. She was talking about “MRAs … [who] show up on rape threads”, and by implication, specifically the MRAs who have shown up on the recent set of rape posts. These MRAs are not a “large grou[p] of men”. They are a sufficently small group for me to feel personally implicated by Crys’s remark, given that the label gets pinned to me.
I’m sufficiently thick-skinned not to be bothered by aspersions like that - or even direct accusations - from people I have no particular regard for, but it’s disappointing when those remarks are defended by someone I consider to be a friend - and I do regard you as a friend, even though we go at each other hammer and tongs.
The rest of your defense fails on this point, but I’ll respond to your remarks anyway.
This is unsubstantiated speculation as I’m sure you would admit, but a very plausible one. I have two responses.
I would also expect that there are probably more rape victims among MRAs than among most groups of men. This is because I expect that male rape victims who have been subject to hostily, denial, discrimination, victim-blaming and bigotry from feminism are more likely to become MRAs. For these men “*being* raped” is not “all theoretical”, so Crys’s post fails the ‘truth’ criterion, even if we construe it as refering to MRAs in general. Moreover, it exemplifies precisely the hostility, denial, discrimination, victim-blaming and bigotry I was talking about.
I would also expect there are probably more false rape accusers among feminists than among most groups of women. This is because I expect that angry misandrists are more likely to falsely accuse, and there are more angry misandrists among feminists than among typical groups of women.
But if someone were to suggest that being raped was theoretical to women posting to rape threads , but false accusions wasn’t, then I’m pretty sure you would come down on that individual like a ton of bricks. I don’t think you’d countentance a ‘truth’ defence either.
So would I, and neither would I.
See? You move the goalpost again. Now the problem is no longer the lack of a direct quote by Jim of exactly what was alleged to be said, nor is it the lack of a sarcastic tone. Now it’s the lack of reference to the post being replied to. Do you really believe that I’m going to any more difficulty in getting the ball past the line than I did last time?
In fact I had no great difficulty in finding the post Jim was replying to. But who are the “rape apologists” Sheelzebub desn’t see censoring themseves? Are they on this blog? Where are they? Perhaps she should quote someone apologising for rape.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 5:10 am
I knew sooner or later someone would bring up Twanda. That is the thing, no matter what happens, someone always brings up the one example they can find of when someone may have lied about something. Because Twanda may have lied this woman may be lying too. I doubt that the two came up with a conspiracy together. Of course all black women are not above lying to get what they want, no one is, but what could she possibly want. It happened off campus and so a law suit against Duke isn’t going to fly. these guys while some may come from upper middle even wealthy families, dont have their own money yet, or if they did, mommy and daddy promptly took it out of their names, so there is none. This chick is reasonably intelligent, she is 27 and in college, divorced and I heard one report that she had been in the navy too, so let us concede she is probably not a complete idiot. If all the allegations are false how does she expect to get away with it. Did she send someone back to the house to plant the fingernails ID wallet and other stuff……probably not. Did she hide the stuff under the bath mat, so none of the poor boys would see it? Come on!!! What is the scenario for the set up. You think she will get a book deal, hell no! When is the last time you saw a lucrative book deal and or T.V. movie invovling black folks, unless it is scadelous like the Barry Bonds book or something….If she did make it up there is absolutely no benefit for her, because after a few weeks noone will care. She ain’t Natalee Holloway or the runaway bride so noone will be talking about her next year! Beside if the allegations are false they will throw her black butt in jail so fast for false charges and throw her kids in foster care, unlike the runaway bride who only had to cut the grass a few times for community services, got a half million dollar book deal and great interviews on dateline.
This comment was written by chaka.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Cry me a river lady. Those boys may very well be guilty. But guess what? You aren’t the judge. Neither am I. Why don’t you wait and see what the court says? Or perhaps the DNA reports. If they are guilty I’d be among the first to say hard time for the lot of them. And lots of it. Bringing up the Bonds and Holloway events are cheap shots. If you’re going to do that you may as well toss in Cynthia McKinney too. BTW, if you don’t think there will be a book deal in it, think again. A single incident has increased tensions in an entire state. There will be a book.
This comment was written by marteen.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 10:20 am
[...] Last night, The Daily Show ran a tongue in cheek look at racism in America. Sadly, it might not have been the best timing, what with the Duke rape case still in the national news. [...]
This comment was written by Academia as an Extreme Sport » Duke Rape Case.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Daran says:
My words are quite substantiated by the many heterosexual men out there who have not experienced male on female rape personally, yet feel the mighty urge to try to define rape for women and to define for women how they should deal with rape. In that very real sense, rape *is* theoretical. My post was not an ad-hom; and if you think my words were offensvie, then maybe you need to reconsider your avid participation in threads concerning rape and your inability to keep your ego off of your sleeve. If you want to support dense, theoretical musings about rape, then I think you need to be prepared for all criticism — even those, like mine above, which weren’t even directed at you.
Your ability to repeatedly side track discourses about rape into a treatise on how women should treat Daran is mind boggling. Certainly one might say that they boarder on morbid fascination.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Wait a second here…
on second thought Daran — you claim I made an ad hom, yet you didn’t join this thread until days after my comment. I would say your actions and your postings are the true ad hom. All you ever do is derail threads about rape. This, no longer, is speculation, but truth.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Q Grrl:
No. Crys made the ad hom. I did not say that you made an ad hom.
If that’s what I’m doing, then how come I haven’t touched any of the Louise Nicholas threads? They’re also about rape. (At least I assume they are. I’m not reading them.) So why aren’t I in there disrupting them?
Fact is, I’ve been following the Duke case since it broke. The discussion has been spread over several threads, and I’ve commented as I and when I felt appropriate, without keeping track specifically in which thread I’ve said what.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Daran, if you thought my post was about you in any way, all I can say is you’re wrong: as far as I can recall, I wasn’t even aware of your existence at the time of writing. In fact, it was a general comment, not directed to or in any way about any one specific person.
Amp thinks it was unfortunate. *shrug* I think that being raped and being subjected to rape culture 24/7 is far more unfortunate. Yeah, yeah, your blog, your rules. Whatever. But no way in hell am I going to apologise for getting fed up with the constant hate directed at all women.
As for it being “ad hom” or whatever crap: BULLSHIT. Everyone who knows that stats knows that incredible numbers of women get raped. Anyone who knows the theory knows that the culture at large has a way of entitling men to get away with rape by defining nonconsensual sex as “not-rape”. Nearly every woman I know has had experiences that could be classed as rape. And, guess what? Not one of their rapists has ever had to own up to it, much less pay for what he’s done.
Many, many men have got away with/are currently getting away with repeatedly raping women. And they’re not “psychopaths” or “monsters” or in any other way apart from “normal” society–they ARE normal society. And yes, many of them are rape apologists and rape deniers. I have personal experience of seeing men I know to be rapists behave this way.
None of this should surprise anyone. When a man starts bleating rape denial/apologia, the first thought that I have is that he’s obviously got a stake in keeping rape culture alive and well. Whether that makes him an actual rapist himself or someone who just gets off on the terror and anguish that rape culture inflicts on ALL women, I don’t claim to know in each specific case. But to assume that out of all the men current bleating on in this fashion, not one single one is himself a rapist is beyond ridiculous. OF COURSE some of them are.
Yeah, yeah: and a lot of guys who rape aren’t posting the same type of stuff. And you can’t say specifically that any old rape apologist is in fact himself a rapist (which, I point out AGAIN, I never once did). It doesn’t change what a lot of people realise is the truth.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
My comments about the runaway bride and Natalee were in response to someone bringing up Twanda Brawly. There are always comparisons. Unfortunately not many cases are looked at individually. That is just the way it is. Cynthia Mckinney has nothing to do with rape or any type of real attack. I think she did over-rect. show the guy some ID, hell it wasn’ the first time some one didn’t recognize her and it won’t be the last. Bringing that into this discussion makes no since, but then again. All of them must be the same, right, Marteen. Nope I am not judge nor jury, but like you I am entitled to my opinion, everyone has one, you certainly do and a strong one at that. Just like Rush calling them a “hoes” who got what they deserved. Or as I listened to FOX news a nice church going lady said any woman who dances in front of a bunch of guys deserves to get raped, even the news anchor had to ask her to repeat because she couldn’t believe what was said. And guess what, the nice church going lady repeated it a second time. I love self-righteous, it really is kind of funny sometimes. God probably looks at all of us and just shakes his head sometimes. In the future Marteen, read all the post then you might undersatand the relevance. Cynthis McKinny..wow that was a great one! I am not crying either honey, but this is enough to make anyone sob.
This comment was written by chaka.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Crys T:
Yep. Between the perpetual “kindly, civilized” regulars who just can’t bring themselves to ever believe that rape actually happens to women all over the world, all the time– and the sort of stuff that’s been going down on Ginmar’s blog this week, I can honestly say that I’ve learned a truly invaluable lesson. If I meet up with a rapist, I’ll try like blazes to get out of it– whatever it takes. However, the last thing on Earth I’ll waste time, money, and energy doing is trying to press charges against him. Juries will be by and large composed of all these “kindly, civilized” men that just want the status quo to stay as it is. I won’t stand a chance.
This comment was written by alsis39.75.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Seeing rape culture
It was at that point that I understood exactly how gang rape occurs.
This comment was written by F-Words.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
I realize race will ultimately become the biggest issue here. I don’t believe it should be. I think a lot of people need to become aware of how often women in general are physically and mentally abused by men. Athletes seem to just be allowed to do anything they like without repercussions. Or they get a slap on the wrist. Probation helps everything right? I pray that the woman assaulted will not look with hatred on the rest of the white race because I am sure that women of all races have there hearts going out to the victim. I hope that she heals mentally and physically well. Also would like her to know that a nation of women are behind her to stop the violence against us.
This comment was written by CarrieE.Pittsburgh, PA
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April 6th, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Chaka is certainly making it a race issue which was the basis for my adding dear(but miraculously overnight rehabilitated) Cynthia into the discussion. FYI Chaka, hitting a cop isn’t “over reacting”. It’s assault.
This was a dancer that may or may not have been raped by a group of jocks. Whether she’s white, black, indian, or hispanic should have no bearing on the case. She is either telling the truth or she isn’t. I read all of your post and saw…no relevance. No new insight.
Here’s one to chew on. Who in their right mind would allow themselves to be called racial slurs by a bunch of young jocks(probably drunk young jocks), then be told on their way out the door “thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt”, and then willingly re-enter the house? Certainly isn’t an excuse by any stretch, but it is puzzling.
This comment was written by marteen.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
When the DNA test comes back negative, I hope these guys sue the university for cancelling the lacrosse season. There is no evidence here other than the DA being “pretty confident” a rape occured. This guy seems to be caught up in the racial hysteria, which discredits him in my mind. Hmmm.. the DNA was back from the lab five days ago, wonder why they are stalling? Why was that e-mail released to the public? It’s absolutely meaningless and does not make them look guilty of anything.
This comment was written by neocon76.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
A struggling student and single mother who needs the money to get her and her family through the week.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
http://www.wral.com/news/8513890/detail.html
Looks like our “victim” has run afoul of the law herself…
This comment was written by neocon76.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
“Looks like our “victim” has run afoul of the law herself…”
Yea, I also heard that police made frequent visits to the house where the victim as raped. I also saw that 15 of the lacrosse team members have been arrested before - mostly minor stuff, like drinking. So both sides had run-ins with the police, what’s your point?
Also, Is it me or is everyone disregarding that morbid email that was just discovered. That kid was ready to party like Jeffrey Dahmer style.
This comment was written by jerry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
The point is, her criminal record indicates she has a history of using her position as an exotic dancer to defraud and outrightly steal from customers. The near vehicular manslaughter on a sheriff’s deputy while driving at 2X the legal limit doesn’t bode to well either, does it? This house of cards, like %90 of rape allegations in the western world, is about to topple.
This comment was written by neocon76.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
“Also, Is it me or is everyone disregarding that morbid email that was just discovered. That kid was ready to party like Jeffrey Dahmer style. ”
The e-mail is completely irrelevant, and will more than likely be deployed to exonerate the accused. Those are the types of e-mails people write when a stripper has just charged them $800 for a three minute lap dance. The stripper hid behind female privlidge to rob them in what is a legitimate business transaction. Since arguing with women is considered hate speech in this country, what other outlet would he have?
This comment was written by neocon76.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
neocon, show me the contractual right the lacrosse players have to complete the season. The university funds the coach, the upkeep of the field, the equipment, and certainly, the scholarships. The team is there for the university, not vice versa. Whether or not the players are guilty of rape, their sociopathic conduct finally became too public for the university to quietly brush aside. Having gotten away with so much in the past I am sure they are confused but there you have it.
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Some blog commenters are indistinguishable from parodies, except that this isn’t a laughing matter…
Hey, I clicked on the link. Funny stuff. How’s that boycott of western women going? I guess if there’s no action you might as well claim responsibility.
This comment was written by Barbar.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
This is a pretty nicely organized, blog, kudos to the blogger. Ok, back to bidness. I do not believe a rape occured here, and some of my original theories about what actually happened look like they may be spot on. All I”m waiting for now is for someone to say, “well, either you are a rapist, or you are a potential one. You’ve probably raped many times, and you justify it in your mind somehow.” The reason I want someone to say that is because I collect bogus “rapist” accusations against me in a Word document, I need three more to get 100. Almost all of them use the exact same language, its uncanny how intellectually bankrupt western feminism is. It reminds me of that SNL skit, “I loved it, It was better than Cats”….you know, about theatre production, with everyone repeating the exact same phrase……lol….gotta get some sleep. a bientot.
This comment was written by neocon76.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
neocon, show me the contractual right the lacrosse players have to complete the season.
good point, forgot it was just a college. Duke is such a powerhouse I get confused. Their NCAA mens team of the early 1990’s was one of the best ever. They must be rabid about sports down there. I’ve only been to Ft. Bragg, which is in Fayetteville, never to Durham. Fayetteville is among the scummiest towns I’ve ever seen.
This comment was written by neocon76.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
I would advise anyone people to click on neocon76’s name to visit the linked website before responding to him; it will be helpful, trust me.
This comment was written by Barbar.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Thanks!
However, I’m afraid that I’ll have to ask you not to post on this blog any longer. Best of luck to you.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Ok you’re right, I guess stealing a wallet wasn’t much of a challenge. So she decided to make a claim that she was raped, knowing of the severe consiquences- looseing her children, prison term, failing grade in microbiology.
This comment was written by jerry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 6th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Most men like Jim and neocon76 really just want to crawl into the fetal position and cry. neocon76 if you’re still reading this then you should go away for a second and give your mom a big hug-trust me you’ll like it.
This comment was written by jerry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 1:22 am
I’m with Crys T.
Her post was accurate, and a legitimate response to Q Grrl’s post. It wasn’t an ad-hom, as it is wasn’t attempt to discredit the arguments of the various rape apologist/ rape denying MRA’s, it was an attempt to discuss them as a phenomenon.
Complaining about being maligned by accurate statements about a class of people to which you belong is pretty sad, particularly since it wasn’t even a generalized statement. Unlike Q Grrl’s statement that MRA’s view rape as theoretical, to which “No I don’t!” is a reasonable, if unproductive and obtuse, response, “No I don’t!” is a total irrelevancy in response to Crys T’s comment that more MRAs are rapists than admit to being rapists. It would likewise be an irrelevancy in response to Amps expansion of Crys T’s comment, in which he argued that MRAs probably are more likely to be rapists than the general population of men.
The funny thing is that I have this vague recollection of Daran distancing himself from MRAs in general by commenting that most of the MRA movement were pretty crazy. Given that, it seems strange that he’d take an accurate negative assessment of MRAs as a class so negatively.
But then, maybe I have him confused with some other MRA. I have to admit they all look pretty much the same to me.
And NOTA! this thread has been over-run by some seriously fucked up people! Is it an Ad-Hom or a description? I think it is a description, as I don’t think most of their insane disgorgements deserve even the engagement of an Ad-Hom.
This comment was written by Charles.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 6:58 am
Charles:
That’s another possibility, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s any better. I’m sure that if an MRA was to suggest that some of the survivors who “show up on rape threads” had “more first-hand experience” of making false accusations “than would ever admit it”, then that MRA would rapidly be shown the door. I don’t think the excuse that he was ‘discussing the phenomenon’ would wash, do you?
The ‘class of people’ in which I happen to be regularly included by feminist posters here, is “MRA’s [who] show up on rape threads”, by implication, those labelled as MRAs who have posted recently. If there is evidence that any of these people are rapists, then let’s see it.
That was not what Crys T said. She was not talking about MRAs in general, but about “MRAs [who] show up on rape threads”.
That probably was me. I’ve said things like that on several occasions, and I can’t think of anyone else who might be confused with me.
It’s accuracy about that class is speculative and it wasn’t applied to that class anyway.
Not to me.
Neocon76 is a nasty rape-denier, whom I just just getting ready to kick into touch when Amp banned him. I understand that it’s not appropriate to criticise banned posters, so you’ll never get to see what I would have said. (I would have deconstructed his arguments, not abused him personally.)
Mr Minnesota is religious nut-job who was left without a shred of credibility after he cited a truly risible site. He may be educatable, but honestly, that would be such a huge job that I’m not prepared to even attempt it. His best hope would be to go away, and come back under a different name.
Jim needs to pay more attention to detail, and generally to raise his game. Giving him the benefit of all doubt, I’d say he was worth going the extra mile with.
Me? I’m an equal opportunity bigotry-basher. You don’t see bashing the idiot MRAs much here, because Amp usually bans them before I get the chance. Check out some of my crossposts to soc.men on usenet to get a quite different picture of me.
what is NOTA? I’m sure it will be obvious when you tell me.
I don’t think even seriously fucked-up people should be called rapists or similar, unless that’s what they are, and I’ll defend them from an unsubstantiated charge even as I condemn their fucked-up views. (Excuse the typo in that post: ‘detestation’ was supposed to be ‘devastation’.)
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Correction: His best hope would be to go away and get an industrial-strengh clue.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Which will make no sense while the post it’s ‘correcting’ is stuck in the moderation queue…
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Here’s one to chew on. Who in their right mind would allow themselves to be called racial slurs by a bunch of young jocks(probably drunk young jocks), then be told on their way out the door “thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt”, and then willingly re-enter the house?
A struggling student and single mother who needs the money to get her and her family through the week.
She is a 27 year old college student, not a non-skilled welfare recipient. I would find another way to survive(yes, there are some), before I would allow myself to be denegrated by a bunch of punks. I would also have my children foremost in my mind when someone tried to cajole me into re-entering that hostile environment.
Your justification for her doing so Ampersand is absolutely ludcrous.
This comment was written by marteen.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 8:52 am
As I have said so more than once, stupidity isn’t a crime. All those people who buy land in Florida are still being defrauded by criminals, even if they really should have known better. Pointing a finger at someone because she was naive or even opportunistic is just another only slightly less reprehensible way of blaming the victim. Let’s turn the tables a bit: What’s wrong with you that you are you so willing to make excuses for such abominable behavior?
This comment was written by Barbara.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Yes, marteen. Of course you’re right. It’s her fault for choosing to be a stripper and choosing to return to the house. It’s her fault that she got raped.
If you go away now, I promise that you won’t be missed.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 9:14 am
People with an intense need to believe that the world is just and fair tend to allow a lot of injustice and unfairness to occur.
This comment was written by Barbar.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Agreed. Marteen, you’re no longer welcome to post on “Alas.”
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
This story just proves that we have not progressed very far in race relations.
The media would have been relentless in its coverage of this incident if it had been a football team with black athletes and a white stipper. Remember kobe?
In no way am i suggestiong that it would not have been equally wrong. i am just stating that the media would have made it the main event.
This comment was written by theresa.hiring a black lawyer was a very cleaver tactic. it just proves that a soul can still be bougth for a price. (30 pieces!)
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April 7th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
When I was watching the morning newscast, there was a mention of the 46 lacrosse players at the Dupont Duke university who are accused of gang raping a black stripper. For the past few days, the feminist blogosphere has beenup in arms about this case, since as we all know perfectly well, this case would get no national media attention otherwise, since the American media typically wants to downplay and cover up crimes where the perpetrator is white and the victim is black. Especially
This comment was written by Sixteen volts.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Boy, it sure is easy to judge someone who’s not you, not in your shoes, nad who has a considerably more difficult life, isn’t it?
Race in a rape case just makes it clear that men regard women as property. When a rape crosses racial lines, men get outraged that some other group of men molested ‘their’ women, and the rapists get outraged that these ‘people of no account’ dare to htink they’re human.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
April 7th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Daran:
None Of The Above. It’s an atheist’s or agnostic’s substitution in such phrases as “Oh, God,” “I swear to God,” and so forth…
This comment was written by alsis39.75.Report this comment to the moderators
April 8th, 2006 at 7:34 am
OK, Let´s blame the alleged victim
The alleged victim went to what she thought was a bachelor party of around 6 men
This comment was written by Greg.The ladies were surprised to see 40 or so guys there
The ladies got scared when the guys started to get aggressive in tone and suggestion
The ladies left the building
The ladies were talked into returning to the party
The ladies were separated as soon as they walked into the house the second time
The accuser according to what the lacrosse drunks said, went into the toilet ALONE
The lady breaks off her own nails, rapes herself, chocks herself, kicks her own ass
The lady leaves all her belongings in the bathroom…including her cell phone, money ect.
The lady leaves in a hurry being sped away in a car according to a witness
The lady gets a ride to Krogers a few miles away, gets someone to call 911
Boy she really set those innocent drunk, rude, racist lacrosse players up.
What’s wrong with this picture?
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April 8th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Have you been following this story? This is a culture of entitlment. Maybe some of them are spoiled rich kids but i think it is the pedistal we put our All American Jocks, black, white, poor, rich? Not all, but i bet 10% of these boy’s have abuse issues. My parent always said you are who you hang with, so choose your friends correctly. One of the duke players last fall was arrested in Georgetown(dc) w/ a fellow georgetown lax player for attacking a young boy on the street. Something to do with the man being a homesexual (what he wasn’t man enough for him to be walking on the same street as you?), the young man was sent to the hospital for his injuries. I don’t think it is this sport (lax) specifically it is all sport and the super star mentality. We have (parent, teachers, schools, coaches) have brough these children up in a culture of entitledment. Extra power when they are too young and immature to handle it.
Boy’s well be boy’s. That phrase discust me. I am a white upper class women whom was sexually assalted when i was young. IT HAPPENS TO US ALSO. I hope this stays an abuse problem/rape/assualt? This does happen to white co-eds also and schools turn their heads.
I read an article from a sports writter that made a statement to all the men out there. “Lets keep loving sports guys. But It is time to get smart, watch the games. Cheer (or boo) the players, But leave the women Alone”. Women are not prizes and are not to be taken. We are not awards for a good job or getting on the cover of some lacrosse magazine.
The INTERNET will change how these players will do things. Watch out we are all paying attention. How humilliating for these parent to see and know that photo’s of their druken frat boys are all over the net. Maybe now we will pay attention to what we are Letting are children do. That goes for coaches, NBA, NFL, NHL? Maybe it is time we look at what we as a society are admiring!!!!
I have a very young son, we have been involved with athletics only a couple of years. You should see the parents on the side lines. Their son’s are the trophies at a very young age. I have a nice life and can afford nice things, i hope my son goes to a univesity like Duke some day. I came from lower middle class home and a large family. My only child gets soooooo much more then i ever get and is a private school boy. He is aware everyday and is greatful. I make sure of that. It does however scare me to see the seroiusness of the parent regaurding the “Super Star” mentality of these children. It starts very young and these boys are to immature to handle it. They have become our prizes, like our houses and suv’s for our job well done. IT SEEMS TO ME WE ARE DOING A HORRIBLE JOB. The super stars are getting carried away. They are abusive bully’s. Not ALL OF THEM, but you are who you hang with. It does show what your charater as a human being is! I would bet there are some very nice boys on that team it a shame no one was repremanding the bad ones for there past distructive/abusive behavior. If they did they wouldn’t be in the HELL there life will be for some time.
I just hope this is a wake up call! I am only sorry that i THINK it was at another womens expence. All the signs of abusive mentality are there. Sorry the last e-mail #42. What the hell was that, I don’t care if was a joke. Who, what kind of person jokes like that? o
This comment was written by margaret.Report this comment to the moderators
April 9th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
This kind of tragedy was bound to happen (or finally get discovered)
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0405061duke1.html?link=eaf
http://www.slate.com/id/2139536/
This comment was written by jerry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 10th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
As I have indicated to colleagues and friends, if there is any comfort in this situation presently, it rests in the fact that there are few white male writers in the world who are writing honestly and candidly aboutwhite male aggression and the culture of racialized and sexualized masculinity that undergirds it. This is important. After all, we are talking about young white males, whose collective average age is 20 years old. These boys have grown up in upper middle-class to affluent white neighborhoods, on Eminem, Fifty Cent, BET and MTV, and the toxic
This comment was written by Notes from the Sleepless Edge.Report this comment to the moderators
April 11th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Mr from MN may have shot himself in the foot by providing the link for his statistics. Check out this page on the same site about Feminism–which is here referred to as “An Abomination Before God”. If Mr from MN is using this site for his statistics, he might want to reevaluate the strength of any argument he might try to make.
http://christianparty.net/feminism.htm
This comment was written by Natty-G.Report this comment to the moderators
April 11th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
athletes and frat boys are more likely to rape than other men, in part because all-male environments encourage aggressive and violent displays of manhood. Terrence at Republic of T. And Alas has just put upa round-up of some of great analysis flying around the blogosphere on this. 4/11/06 UPDATE: DNA results are in and there’s no match. They’ll have to use other evidence. Because of the news there’s a lot of traffic coming in from google searches.
This comment was written by Lucky White Girl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 12th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
Race was the frosting on the cake.Power and control over women is what rape is about.Untill we stand strong and make changes it will continue.Both women and children are treated as less important.We are in 2006 and men with money or in sports (which is more important to men than some silly woman) get away with rape.The woman is further tortured by highly paid lawyers dragging them through the mud.Apparently its okay to rape imperfect women.I fear that I would have to not report if I were raped because I am 3 times divorced,have been on medicine for depression for 11 years,was “easy” for several years after high school etc…When we stand up they put us down.I have 3 children to care for and to protect.Susan B. Anthony,Elizabeth Cady-Stanton,and other women stood up for women when we had no rights.They fought thier whole lives and we have benefitted from thier struggle.We need some more brave,strong women to fight to change things for the better or in 50 or 100 years from now our daughters will be dealing with this same injustice!God forbid !
This comment was written by A woman.Report this comment to the moderators
April 17th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
How would that be different from the way this thing has actually been covered?
For all you know at this point, she might NOT have been raped. If she made a false accusation, THAT sure as Hell IS her fault.
This comment was written by wumhenry.Report this comment to the moderators
April 19th, 2006 at 11:05 am
Came upon this site by chance…just had to have my say.
Unfortunately, the notion that the rape was deserved because the woman was a stripper is also, quite often, taken to other extremes. A woman deserves it if she’s out walking at night, if she’s wearing certain clothes, if she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time without a guardian, etc. Meaning, if a woman does anything but hide in her home afraid to go out, she deserves rape. What miserable lives. This is just simply another excuse to blame women for the out of control, violent actions of males. If males can be so tempted to act out, and have so little control to avoid their physical need to overpower and dominate, that says a whole lot about the nature of men. They have no control. They live for dominance and power and care nothing of the effects that their actions have on others. They should not, at any time, be allowed in positions of power. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t even deserve human rights. If they want to act like animals, they should be caged like animals.
This comment was written by evolved.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2006 at 8:32 am
i just want to remind all writers of the established american rule with regard to the placement of commas and periods in relationship to quotation marks: commas and periods should be placed inside of quotation marks.
correct example: “Diane,” she said, “put the book down and go outside for a little while.”
incorrect example: That was not what Crys T said. She was not talking about MRAs in general, but about “MRAs [who] show up on rape threads”.
thanks
This comment was written by mobius32.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Duke Rape Sex Scandal: A Summary…
There’s a lot going around about the Duke Rape Scandal, where the Duke University Men’s Lacrosse Team hired two exotic dancers (read, strippers) for a house party and later allegedly raped one of them upstairs in a bathroom. Besides the is…
This comment was written by Elliott Back.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2006 at 8:46 am
… commas and periods should be placed inside of quotation marks.
Almost, but not quite, I think. I believe that the rule is: punctuation mark then quotation mark. You even did it in your example:
“Diane,” she said, “put the book down and go outside for a little while.”
See? Quotation mark, words, comma, quotation mark. Followed by non-quote words then comma, quotation mark, words, period, quotation mark. It’s actually a little more complex than that, but it’s a good starting point. This may very well be my favorite rule of grammar.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
April 20th, 2006 at 10:50 am
wumhenry wrote:
Well, there you are. I guess that it’s okay to beat up strippers and insult them with racial epithets. Why, those princes of civility. Isn’t it wonderful that there’s a slight possibility that all they did was insult and assault her. Truly, we are blessed to have such men as our future leaders.
Hey, that makes perfect sense, if you’re a heartless asshole.
This comment was written by alsis39.75.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 2:00 am
I am really afraid. There never will be a good resolution to this. And that will be bad for everyone.
Let me say up front that when I first heard about this case, I believed the woman was probably telling truth or close to it, even though she was a stripper, and the “boys” were probably lying at least somewhat to try to save their asses.
But I took it for what it was, a snap judgment and first impression, nothing more. I’m forced to agree with Jim that anyone deciding to believe one side or the other 100% before anyone hears at least a good deal of the evidence is stupid.
I’m so glad to have stumbled across this blog a few days before this happened because I want to follow and keep up with this story without the sensational and titillating and just all around bad coverage of the news shows and the papers. You guys (and gals) are pretty fucking good at this and ABC News could probably learn a thing or two from you. (That’s usually where I get my headlines first. I never thought I’d come to rely more on a blog.)
And I agree that any one who equates following the story and commenting on it and forming an opinion on it with a “witch hunt” is also an idiot. No one has been physically harmed or detained by Suzy Q. Public’s harsh word choice. Pleez.
But, in subsequent days I have been forced to rethink my initial decision. I was still on the women’s side when I heard the boys were not talking and the racist email, in my opinion, clearly pointed to premeditation. The first accounts of the 911 calls also seemed to back up the woman’s side. The lack of DNA evidence threw me a bit and I began to lean toward the boys until I heard someone mention they could have used condoms…I’d considered that but I thought their would still be some DNA evidence if what she said happened, happened. I was however, convinced to stay in her camp when I read (in this blog I think?) that her Dad saw her and clearly she was beaten by someone.
Until I heard more about the 911 calls. If it was the other women/stripper? who called from the store parking lot? Why didn’t she mention that the victim was beaten? Wouldn’t that have been more important that saying she was just drunk?? And if it was actually a police officer who made the second call, surely he would have mentioned something about the women looking like she was beaten up, especially if she really was looking as bad as her father said. I began to be a little skeptical that a stripper who was smart enough to be a college student and caring enough to be a mother was also stupid enough to get drunk at a gig like that. (For the record, I do of course, realize that stupid doesn’t mean she was asking for it, neither does stripping nor drunk. I would have thought that Jodie Foster movie cleared that up for everyone under 50. Even sluty, drunk, stupid, reckless, irresponsible idiots don’t DESERVE it. No one asks to be raped. And anyone, ANYONE even very, very privileged, rich, well-thought of white boys should sit in jail for a long, long time, if not forever, for doing it even once!!)
And so I will continue to watch and I will hope to get enough information from some relatively reliable source to form at least a reasonable opinion of who was more likely to be telling the truth.
But like I said at the beginning, I’m afraid I won’t.
So sorta like the O.J. case we will forever have large parts of the population believing one side over the other and no clear resolution from the courts and our legal system (it’s not a justice system…which is precisely the problem) about who was more likely to be right and who was more likely to be wrong. And every aspect of this whole incident will just add to continued divisiveness over race and sex and class in this country rather than be an example of truth and justice that we can start to come to some common ground and understanding of one another.
–Jane at http://cupofjane.livejournal.com/ or email me at acupofjane (at) gmail (dot) com
P.S. the lesson I think we should have learned from the O.J. case is that at least some small part of racism has been vanquished because now even a black man, provided he has some sort of macho status like being an athlete and enough money and privilege, even he can buy his way out of guilty verdict, just like any of the wealthy, privileged white men who’ve been doing forever. I’m not sure why I’m glad for that, but I am.
This comment was written by Jane.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 6:00 am
Jane -
The second 911 call (the one from the story parking lot) was made by a store security guard. This isn’t speculation; it’s known, he’s spoken to the police and the press about it. As for why he didn’t say she was beat up, who knows? It was late at night and he was peering at her through a car window in goodness knows what kind of lighting; maybe he just didn’t get a clear look at her.
As for the DNA evidence, I’ve already written a pretty extensive post about that. In a nutshell: some experts say that it’s very unlikely that no DNA could be left, but others say that it’s quite possible. None are willing to say that lack of DNA proves that no rape happened, although how strongly they say that varies.
And I agree with you that “I don’t know exactly what happened” is a reasonable opinion to have. And that it’s quite possible that we’ll never know for certain.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 6:16 am
mobius32:
It is also an established rule to begin sentences with a capital letter, and to capitalise the word “I” and proper nouns such as “American”. However, if you wish to depart from these conventions I have no objection.
With respect to quoting, I’m not ignorant of the rules. However, I am British, and prefer to use the logical quoting style, which is prevailant here. I also use British spelling.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 6:37 am
If you read the account from the taxi cab driver who has no bones to pick either way….he isn’t sure if the one accused did anything, BUT!!! He later came back and saw a girl arguing on the Lawn with maybe 6 guys..saying”I am calling the police!” Then 4 of the guys get in his Taxi and one looks injured and one guy says, “She is just a stripper who is going to believe her!” Also the fact the gilr left a show and her money!! What person leaves a show and money and says the are calling the cops?!! Something definetly went on!! The second time the Taxi cab driver went out there isn’t really being high lighted just the first time…making the Duke boys look a lot better….read the whole article…
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192404,00.html
Mostafa confirmed to some media outlets that he picked up Seligmann and another passenger at 12:19 a.m., took them to a bank and a drive-through hamburger stand, then dropped them off at a Duke dormitory.
“They were just joking and laughing inside my car and everything just fine,” Mostafa said in an interview Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Mostafa told MSNBC that he returned to the house later to pick up another customer. He told FOX News that when he arrived at the house the second time, some players were on the front lawn and a light-skinned black woman was walking away from the house. She was arguing with the players, then Mostafa said the woman said, “I am going to call the police.”
Four of the lacrosse players then got into the cab; Mostafa described them as agitated. He then heard one player say to another, “don’t worry, she’s just a stripper.” He also said, “it look to me like somebody get hurt. But what kind of harm … I have no idea.”
This comment was written by rock.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 7:00 am
I am not sure which party is guilty. The Lacrosse team members with the bad reputations from past activity; members of the black community who take every opportunity to take advantage of poor white-black realtions; the notroiously suspect black leadership in Durham at all levels; a white prosecutor out to make a name for himself while running for office in the next two weeks; the news media which will chrage up any situation - making the news, creating mischief and enflaming while not “just” reporting; or the rest of us who have to listen to this. Let the legal system function and let’s all stop this retoric. I wish some judge could put a injuction on all of this banter; allowing only reporting events during the the trial itself.
This comment was written by Will Anderson.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 9:24 am
Heres a likely scenario on the whole case,,,the 2 dancers come over and perform,,for whatever reason many of the guys are LESS then please with the performance. They tell them to get @#$% out and EVEM use the N word and other expletives. Now you have 2 dancers, feeling quite spurned. The one calls 911 and says she was walking by with her friend and they were called racial slurs. Obviously she was trying to get back at the guys and she did what she could to do so. WHY ELSE WOULD SHE CALL AND SAY WHAT SHE DID. No one has given me a more plausible explanation. The alleged victim now completely drunk and disoriented states at the hospital, where she was taken due to her intoxication, has suddenly be raped. Possible yes, likely no. Extremely unlikely she could have been attacked, beat up and raped and her partner heard nothing and saw nothing. Not much of a case here at all. Just a DA up for re-election in a majority black city playing politics with peoples lives.
This comment was written by brendan Michaels.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 9:53 am
” I began to be a little skeptical that a stripper who was smart enough to be a college student and caring enough to be a mother was also stupid enough to get drunk at a gig like that.”
The second dancer went on air last week before revealing her identity and stated that, having never met the first stripper before the gig that night, she still noticed a marked difference between when the first stripper arrived and when they left together — she believes that the first stripper was drugged.
Similarly, this is what she had to say in today’s news (from wral.com):
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 21st, 2006 at 9:56 am
Of note: In Durham, both the Food Lion and the Harris Teeter stores hire off-duty Durham Police officers for thier security guards (and maybe on-duty too, as they are usually in uniform). I would be surprised if Kroger does differently, but I don’t shop there often enough to remember. In talking to a neighbor last night, we were wondering if key information is being left out precisely because the security guard is also on the police force.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
April 24th, 2006 at 6:00 am
See how one sided this is??!! No one is dealing with the Taxi cab driver who has no bones to pick saying what he saw!! WHY are you guys so quick to say the Dukes guys are innocent??!! They say nothing happened yet the taxi cab driver saw a argument and a hurt person and he said “Who is going to listen to a dancer!” She also left here money and sell phone??!! If the race was flipped would you guys be so quick to say nothing happened??!! Heck NO!! You guys would at least listen to the WHOLE taxi driver story and wait…..I don’t know what happened but there is evidence on both sides and the TAXI CAB driver is the smoking gun and what he said was critical but all you guys are ignoring that!! WHy??!!
Read what the Taxi guy says!! Also what about the trained Doctors who said she had classic rape bruising??
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192404,00.html
This comment was written by rock.Report this comment to the moderators
April 24th, 2006 at 11:19 am
please read what she is going through..remember there are two sides to this story..lets wait and hear the conclusion of the whole matter with a FAIR EYE AND EAR..
http://www.essence.com/essence/lifestyle/takeastand/0,16109,1186512,00.html
This comment was written by rock.Report this comment to the moderators
April 25th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Reading all the many stories and editorials about the alleged rape of an exotic dancer, college student and mother of two by Duke University lacrosse players, I was compelled to write and share with your readers the story of the Martinsville Seven.
In 1949, in Martinsville, Va., seven black men were accused of raping a 32-year-old married, white woman. Within 30 hours of the alleged rape, all had signed written confessions. Within 11 days, all seven were tried, convicted and sentenced to death by all-white juries. Two were tried during the same trial. The youngest was only 17 and the rest, except for one, were all in their early 20s. The oldest was a 37-year-old man with a wife and five beautiful children.
Although no white man in Virginia had ever been executed for rape, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case and President Harry Truman refused to grant clemency. All seven were executed by 1951.
This case was instrumental in helping change the rape laws of this great country. Around the world, they became known as the Martinsville Seven.
No matter what, if some of these Duke athletes are indeed guilty of rape, they will never face the death penalty, thanks to the Martinsville Seven. By the way, three of the Seven were Hairstons, relatives of mine and I was born and raised in Martinsville,Va. And for the record, the true story of the Seven has never been told.
Thanks for listening and may God bless and protect our children and soldiers everywhere.
This comment was written by Pamela A. Hairston.Report this comment to the moderators
April 28th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
I am really disheartened by chronology of posts I have read over the past fifteen minutes. Every once in awhile an inkling of common sense but the posts are predominated by emotionally charged speculatiton. The feminist views (most of which I agree with) inundating this dsicussion are mostly irrelevant to the question of rape. It seems that some posts concede that the question of rape can be reduced to “he said, she said” and that “she said” must be right for generalizations “x, y and z” which are either convictions against men in general or wild speculation about the meaning of certain items of “evidence” that have been made public.
I was not at the party. I do not know what happened. I do know that the volume of seemingly factual items that have been unearthed (taxi driver testimony, time line, previous allegations of rape that resulted in apparently not even an investigation (not to mention the father’s statements that “those boys did nothing to her”), the initial statements by second dancer that she doubted the accuser’s story before realizing she could spin the story for monetary gain, the absence of DNA, the corroborating statements of 40 other witnesses at the party (why posters here have questioned their “mumness” is baffling to me… they have cooperated with the investigation, all have attorneys, and all are wise to stay out of the public eye), the apparent intoxication of the accuser, the failure to mention anything about a rape for 31 hours, and the extensive history…….. unless you are truly blind, at least raises a doubt as to the accuser’s claims. In a criminal trial, reasonable doubt has been established thrice over (this does not mean that much of the above cited evidence is not capable of cutting the other way… though in my opinion those theories are less plausible and just make for good media play)… you simply cannot send two 20 year old kids to jail for several years with all that has come to light.
The ACLU once said that bad cases make for good law, meaning that some of its most important gains in legal arena as a defender of civil liberties have resulted from cases bearing only the most frivolous legal claims (and factually dubious as well). But I fail to see the parallel here for victim’s rights activists, for the cause of gender equality, or for anything for that matter.
This crap is just another legal matter juiced for all its worth by special interest groups and the media… a weak legal case where the truth will likely never be known, and only the wounds caused by the racial and feminist undertones will fester at the end.
This case is just really making me sad and I hope no one takes offense to my comments. I repeat that I was not there and do not know what happened. Mine is just one more opinion, hopefully viewed as emotionally charged only insofar as it is painful to me to see others’ views so swamped by gender, race and “financial privilege” issues.
This comment was written by Matt.Report this comment to the moderators
April 29th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
What is revictimization or multiple victimization?
The risk of sexual revictimization, according to the CDC, is based on vulnerability factors. One of these is the pre-existance of PTSD from a previous assault. Being the victim of child sexual abuse doubles the likelihood of adult sexual victimization (Parillo et. al., 2003) (Sarkar, N.; Sarkar, R., 2005). PTSD levels are actually higher in those who have been previously victimized than in survivors of only one assault (Follette et. al., 1996). PTSD could give the victim the appearance of vulnerability in dangerous situations and effect the ability of the victim to defend themselves.
One study found that of the 433 sexually assaulted respondents, two-thirds reported more than one incident (Sorenson et. al., 1991). Two further studies also found that women who were victimized more than once or in both childhood and adolescence had a higher risk for adult revictimization and more PTSD (Siegel & Williams, 2001), (Breslau et. al., 1999). Intervention such as counseling for mental health issues (like PTSD) and for possible addictions related to the abuse can help women with child sexual abuse histories overcome some of the abuse-related sequelae that make them vulnerable to adult revictimization (Parillo et. al., 2003). Other factors influencing recovery are emotional support from friends, relations, social and community supports (Sarkar, N.; Sarkar, R., 2005).
Problems experienced by retraumatized women were that they were more likely to be alexithymic, show dissociation scores indicating risk for dissociative disorders, and to have attempted suicide compared to the other groups (Cloitre et. al., 1997).
http://www.ibiblio.org/rcip/mvrv.html
This comment was written by survivor.Report this comment to the moderators
May 11th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
monsters, and men in college sports are exposed to more of this virulent stuff than anyone. Do I excuse these rapists? No, of course not - they are responsible for what they’ve done, and I fervently hope they rot behind bars.” (complete article here):http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/03/29/duke-rape-case-round-up/ I’m embarrassed for Dr. Baker and “Ampresand.” Seriously. I think they should write a critique on self-righteous presumption of guilt based on people’s race, class and gender in light of these events. Deanna Zandt borrowed the above quote on Alternet
This comment was written by Navigation By Dead Reckoning.Report this comment to the moderators
May 12th, 2006 at 10:04 am
I think that the rape was wrong. It doesn’t matter what we look like on the outside, or our race.
This comment was written by Kiley.I think that our parents taught us better than this, rapes, murders, sexually abusing children? What’s wrong with those people? They have no reason to hurt other people, no matter what or who they are. I know for a fact, that if I were raped that I would be afriad of men and afraid to tell or have sex. I would much sooner die. I also know somone that has committed suicide because of rape.And if anyone who has raped before that is reading this message right now, I hope that you consider these casualities.
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May 12th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
and interesting than this. And if you really believe this kind of imagery is power, check this story (and also the links below) and tell me how powerful victimization is. http://justice4twosisters.blogspot.com/ http://justiceforher.blogspot.com/ http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2006/03/29/duke-rape-case-round-up/ http://motherspirit1196.blogspot.com/
This comment was written by carlagirl! blog.Report this comment to the moderators
May 18th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
I am concerned that the pendulum of “rights” has swung so far to the … what? … to the anti-male corner … that equal rights are no longer in sight.
Specifically, that the names and images of David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann can be so casually bantered about in the press, while the name of accuser, [name deleted by Amp], is shielded by the press from the public sector.
It seems to me what’s good for the goose has to be good for gander, as well.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 1:09 am
Steven, there’s a post on this blog addressing that exact issue, here.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 5:53 am
Steven probably wouldn’t be allowed to post in that feminist only thread. Here’s a link to the Identical post on Creative Destruction.
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 7:23 am
Ampersand:
Sadly, I rest my case — vis-a-vis the swing of the pendulum (i.e. the absence of equality between women’s rights and men’s rights), of which in wrote in post #154.
IMHO, there can be no equal rights when the “rights” accorded to one “group” are different from those of another “group.” Your example of censoring “Duke Lacrosse Accuser” [deleted by Amp]’s name from my earlier post, without according the same priviledges to David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, to me is clear evidence that the dynamcis of our cultural female/male paradigm are a long way from achieving balance.
I can understand how censoring my name may, on the one hand, give me solace and security against what I perceive might be public shame, if not outright potential danger to my person. On the other hand, such a “safe harbor” holds inherent what I believe is a signficant part of the substance that creates and enables (negatively) a continued paradigm of victimhood and fear.
In the meantime, I suggest that either “we” publish all names or no names.
This comment was written by Steven.Short of that, then we are effectively telling our young men and women that in this political culture, men are expendable and women are protected. And I don’t think that’s the message that anyone with wisdom really wishes to impart.
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May 19th, 2006 at 8:15 am
I can’t believe you just posted her name again. It’s awfully difficult to take you seriously if you walk into someone else’s forum, are instructed directly not to post something, and then do it anyway. In fact, I don’t take you seriously. You are emblematic of the reason why “men’s rights” are a joke.
This comment was written by Idea.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 8:19 am
Steven. Not your blog, not your call, and not only do you not understand the issues in play here, but you are utterly rude and disrespectful for re-posting the name of the Navy veteran who accused the members of the Duke Lacrosse team of rape against the expressed wishes of the author of this blog.
There is no message here that “women are protected”, but that rape accusers are protected, regardless of gender. The “victimhood and fear” you see is a direct result of a culture where, contrary to what you have stated, men who rape generally get away with it, and women who accuse men of rape have their names dragged through the mud. Women know that if they press rape charges, they are unlikely to get justice and extremely likely to be harassed and have their names defamed. Men know that if they rape they are likely to walk away to do it again another night.
And again. This is not your blog. You are no part of the “we” Amp was referring to.
This comment was written by odanu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Ah, but if you dig just a little deeper, there is another underlying cautionary tale for our young folk: be very careful about which young women you purchase for your sexual titillation.
Of course women are protected, they’re sexual commodities for men. And, if you’ll note correctly, it is other men who have bandied these names about — IOW, men are sending a message to other men: if you are going to purchase a woman, don’t be a stupid ass while doing so because other men still want access to the purchased woman and they don’t want damaged goods. Therefore, only stupid men are expendable, the smart ones are left to pillory the young, wealthy, privileged, and stupid.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Alas, I do not wish to offend or disrespect anyone.
This comment was written by Steven.I posted here because I found the other posters’ comments to be aptly cogent toward enriching a dialogue of sorts on the Duke Lacrosse subject that is notably absent in other blogs.
Perhaps I may have, indeed, missed the forest for the trees.
Unless invited, I will not post any further.
Thank you for your consideration and comments.
(I do appreciate them)
Steven
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May 19th, 2006 at 10:38 am
Steve, if I had the power to remove the accused rapists’ names from our public discourse, I would. (I’ve posted many times about the Duke rape case, but I don’t think I’ve once posted their names. I have more than once pointed out that they may be innocent, however).
But I don’t have the power to do anything about their names. I’m not conceited enough to think that once their names have been mentioned night after night on network and cable news, it matters whether or not their names are mentioned in the comments here on my blog. For anyone who isn’t totally blacking out the news (in which case, I doubt they read this blog), the names of the accused men are unavoidable.
The same thing isn’t true about Mary Doe’s true name. Although there are some exceptions, for the most part the only people who have read her name are people who have sought it out on the internet. Since not allowing her name on my site does do a tiny, marginal bit of good, I don’t allow her name on this site.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Alas, I do not wish to offend or disrespect anyone.
Then why are you stomping onto a feminist blog and bitching about poor men, as well as posting the name of a rape victim twice?
Rock, you’re posting links from Faux News. Try finding a real source. Oh, yeah, and multiple exclamation points do not add logic to your ‘points’, such as they may be.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 19th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Ginmar wrote in post #163:
Ginmar, thank you for your inviting questions.
I certainly don’t view my commentary and observations as “…stomping onto a feminist blog to bitch about poor men.” Rather, as I noted in #161:
As to my posting the rape accuser’s name twice — this is far less than the number of times that the alleged defendants’ names have been posted across all media. But that is another issue.
For my ethics, I do not believe equality should ever be compromised — at all. What is good for the goose must be as equal for the gander.
This goes to the posting of names - everyone’s names — accused and accuser alike.
Alternatively, we could opt to have no one’s real name posted … just a bunch of John and Mary Doe’s.
Certainly, the media would not like that. But then, who cares about the media, huh?
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
May 20th, 2006 at 6:08 am
Steven, do you really think we haven’t seen that faux equality claim here, either? Bullshit. For starters, if the ganders in this case are so equal, how come they didn’t wind up getting penetrated? How come they have their previous criminal histories brushed aside as mere hijinks? How come no one is criticizing their morals for hiring a stripper? If you really were in favor of equality, you’d have to spend a lot of time fixing the inequities the victim in this case has suffered. You’ve displayed no interest in that whatsoever.
Treating unequals equally is the greatest inequity of all. It wasn’t even a case of gander versus goose, here; it was forty versus one.
Is that equality to you?
Furthermore, this stuff isn’t happening in some perfect society where men and women are equal. You act like it is, it’s not.
This is utter bullshit. I’m sorry, but I’m not dignifying this with something it doesn’t deserve. The victim has been the victim of a crime; the accusers are accused of a crime. Guys like you just love the idea that one set of rules fits all, even when those rules are deployed against a backdrop of sexism and misogyny you ignore.
The biggest privilege is ignoring the costs of that privilege to others. You couldn’t be a better example if you tried.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 20th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Indeed it should, but the hypothesis of the goose/gander maxim is that there is no pertinent difference between the parties that could justify different treatment. A black person who commits a crime should be given the same sentence as a white person who commits the same crime, all other things being equal, because the only difference between them - skin colour - isn’t pertinent.
That isn’t the case here. The three Lacrosse players are suspects charged with a crime. The complainant isn’t. The same principles, applied to a pertinently-different factual basis, may lead us to different conclusions. Or it may not, but even if not, we can’t demonstrate this with an equality argument.
Do you think that the complainant should have the right to remain silent? Or to be confronted with the defendent in court? Or to have legal representation? Perhaps she should have these rights, perhaps not, but if so it will be for essentially different reasons from why we give defendants these rights.
Another problem with equality arguments is that they don’t tell us what’s right. Should we suppress both sets of names, or publish them? Equality arguments can’t answer that question.
Finally equality arguments lead to injustice. It would be unjust to murder Steven. (I presume you do not dispute this). But many people have suffered that injustice. That’s not fair. Why should Steven live when other people have been murdered? We could remedy the inequality between Steven and murdered people by murdering Steven. Do you think we should do this?
This comment was written by Daran.Report this comment to the moderators
May 20th, 2006 at 10:57 am
Ginmar at #165 wrote:
You’re right. I am confused.
So, in what you have written:
Who is the victim?
Who are the accusers?
And: Are “unequals” only to be treated “unequally”? …to avoid “the greatest inquity”?
Thus far the facts in this case raise serious question as to the accuser’s credibility.
What I “hear” in your comments, Ginmar, is a position that because the accuser is a woman and the accuseds are men, you unquestionably accept her being the victim, and their being the criminals; moreover, that if I fail to accept this as gospel truth, then I clearly am the prototypical example of those who ignore sexism and misogyny.
I cannot and therefore will not presume who the victim(s) really are in this case.
For that reason alone, it is my belief that all parties’ identities would then best be kept on par — either full disclosure or no disclosure.
Daran in #164 states that:
…and for this reason the equitable “goose/gander maxim” should not apply.
I disagree.
I believe that there will be a greater tear in the fabric of the true quest for establishment of a cultural equality paradigm, if we fail to safeguard the rights of all people - regardless of what prejudices each of us carries (e.g. Ginmar’s “the woman is always the victim; the men are always the perps”; Steven’s “ignoring the costs of privilege to others”; or Daran’s “equality arguments leading to injustice”).
For me, it is the cultural paradigm that must be nurtured and carefully monitored. It is the subconscious of our world.
Obviously, what I defined as “rights” is a prejudged.
Hopefully, however, in dialogue can I explore the differences and, perhaps, be influenced to a different vision.
What judgments might you further?
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
May 20th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Steven, when you sto p playing word games I’ll bother with you. Knock it off. Nothing like a poseur who l ikes to hear himself talk. Well, you might say excrement but I say shit. If this crap you’re posting is really news to you I’d suggest you get started reading the list of books at my blog. Until I see evidence that any of it has sunk in, you’re not worth my time.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 20th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Ginmar
This comment was written by Steven.You’re absolutely right ( I would say “excrement” )
Send me your blog address. I love to read.
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May 20th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Ginmar …”my dear”
This comment was written by Steven.Nevermind the requrest for a link.
I see your anger is well posted already.
Alas, as you note, that is so unacceptable…unlike men, who “can never be too angry, because their anger is righteous and just.”
Yikes!
Obviously, there’s no room for argumentative dialogue in your world.
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May 20th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
More investigations are necessary and when we talk about rape, we have to talk about false rape allegations as well.
While rape is a crime, a false rape allegation is also a crime.
Should these ‘rapists’ be innocent, I hope this woman will face criminal charges and will be punished for filing this wrong police report.
False rape allegations are very frequently - a considerable number of accusations are turning out as a product of pure fantasy.
100s of men in the US were released from prison after found innocent. They spent decades in prison for crimes, which never took place.
This comment was written by Yohan.Report this comment to the moderators
May 20th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
Steven. There’s lots of room for argumentative dialogue in feminism in general and in Ginmar’s blog in particular. Gin has heard a certain large set of “arguments” before, has debunked them, and no longer listens to those who persist in pushing their agendas and thereby hijacking her journal. There is, however, no room for treating women like second class citizens with less human rights than men. There is no room for condescension from males for anger over long standing and daily oppressions. There is no room for railroading conversations to “why aren’t feminists worried about the men”? (men have all the systems they need to correct any imagined or real injustices they face. They don’t need feminism).
One of the most difficult concepts for people in the oppressing classes to accept in the field of -isms is the concept of privilege. Privilege is the idea that if a group of people is systematically denied opportunities and basic assumptions of humanity at the hands of a different group of people, the people doing the oppressing, whether or not they individually contribute to the oppressing factors their dominance in society has created, are the beneficiaries of unearned privilege.
Did you earn the 17% more than an equally competent and qualified woman in the same field typically earns? Did you earn the ability to go home from your forty hour a week job and sit down while your female partner, just home from her forty hour a week job, does almost twice as much housework and child care? Did you earn a culture in which if you get too drunk and crash on a friend’s couch and that friend violates your trust and rapes you, you are believed and people you tell are outraged, but if you were a woman you would be blamed for that “friend’s” rape of you because you were 1) drunk and 2) trusted the wrong person? Did you earn better deals at car dealerships? The (still) almost unimpeded ability to walk away from (especially) child care duty and financial responsibility of your offspring [only 1/3 of men who are court mandated to pay child support are typically current on their payments. A good quarter of men who are supposed to be paying child support are over $10,000 in arrears). Did you earn the ability to earn more in “historically male” jobs than women earn in jobs that require higher level skills and more education? {an interesting side note: as women enter a field, prevailing wages tend to decrease in proportion to the percentage of women in the field). Did you earn that your co-workers, clients, bosses, and customers rarely if ever respond first to your “fuckability” or lack thereof, and only then, if then, to your professional demeanor, skills, and competence? Did you earn the (almost universal) assumption that you’re telling the truth if you say she consented and she says she didn’t? Did you earn a word where “girl, pussy, sissy, bitch, cunt, and other words denoting femininity are insults, but even words like dick and asshole, while insulting, still carry a tone of strength? Did you earn a world where only the joy and pleasure of the male in heterosexual sex is imperative, and the woman only needs supply consent or acquiescence?
These are all examples of privilege. These are all things you experience that women in general do not. Are you saying that the (wealthy, white, upperclass) boys who hired a stripper to perform for them and then publicly and loudly insulted her and threatened and intimidated her are on a “level playing field” with a black, middle class (at best) single mother (and Navy veteran) who supports her children at a job that is humiliating and dangerous and socially stigmatizing, but pays better than nearly any other job available to her before she finishes her college degree? Are you saying that those accused of a violent crime should have more care taken with their reputations than the reputation of the victim? Are you aware that there have been so many death threats against Mary Doe that she and her children have been “couch surfing” afraid to go home to her parents since the crime happened? Are you aware of the stringent standards of a SANE forensic rape test in determining whether or not forceable sexual intercourse occurred, and setting it into a time frame?
There is a lot of righteous anger floating around in feminist circles. There is good reason for it.
This comment was written by odanu.Report this comment to the moderators
May 21st, 2006 at 4:16 am
I think she was suggesting you read the books, not the blog. The books might grant you a common ground for discussion.
This comment was written by Idea.Report this comment to the moderators
May 21st, 2006 at 5:30 am
I do love dipshits who read one sentence and then quote it out of context without considering the thoughts behind it. Then again, he’s an MRA. Why on earth hasn’t he whipped out, “You just hate me because I have a penis!” yet?
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 21st, 2006 at 12:49 pm
wow
This comment was written by Steven.dialogue
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May 21st, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Wow, reading comprehension. Yohan, are you trying to act like a parody of an MRA, or what?
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 21st, 2006 at 3:16 pm
OK, so the white, male dominated press has only been reporting the privileged-white-boy slant. Has there been any other press offering something else?
Reporter CASH MICHAELS of The Wilmington Journal (part of the BlackPressUSA Network) wrote the following in his May 21, 2006 article entitled:
A NEWS ANALYSIS, HOW STRONG IS THE DUKE CASE EVIDENCE?
http://wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=69635&sID=4
This would definitely change the landscape in the Duke Lacrosse case. Indeed, it may be the only thing to substantiate the accuser’s claims.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
May 21st, 2006 at 3:22 pm
MRA?
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
May 21st, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Men’s rights activist.
This comment was written by Mandolin.Report this comment to the moderators
May 22nd, 2006 at 6:43 am
Gee, steven, I can’t tell how you how impressed I am by anonymous sources in a newspaper.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 24th, 2006 at 10:25 am
DUKE LACROSSE WOMEN TO WEAR “INOCENT” BANKS
MSNBC - USA
Duke University women’s lacrosse team members will wear sweatbands that read “innocent” in their game against Northwestern in the Final Four on Friday in …
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12953411/
Comments?
This comment was written by Steven.Epithets?
Traitors?
Realists?
FMRA’s?
He’s Missing The Whole Forest?
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May 24th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Oops!
not BANKS
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
May 24th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
And….this proves what, exactly?
Amp, can you ban this stupid fuck yet or what? He’s just wasting time now.
This comment was written by ginmar.Report this comment to the moderators
May 24th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Ginmar … I have refrained from swearing at you or anyone else. I believe I have comported myself respectfully as well.
For you to call me a “stupid fuck” is certainly swearing and I believe anyone would agree that it is disrespectful.
I don’t believe anyone should be censored (this includes you as well as the names of the accuser and the accused alike).
However, based upon Amp’s Moderation Policy you have certainly gone beyond the spirit of this blog.
If you indeed wish to make a difference in this world — you’re going about it in a way that will certainly turn my eyes and hears off to you — and most likely those of the folks for whom a difference would truly be worthwhile.
This comment was written by Steven.Report this comment to the moderators
May 24th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Ginmar, Steven’s right about one thing - and only one thing. You’re not only treating Steven like shit when you say stuff like “ban this stupid fuck yet”; you’re treating me like shit, too, because you’re making it clear that you can’t be bothered to respect the moderation goals here.
Please try to respect the rules in the future. Don’t call other posters stupid fucks.
Steven, you seemed to have missed out on the most important part of the “Alas” moderation goals. Here it is again:
Ginmar and I have known each other online for years. She and I disagree on a lot - especially on the question of how to treat folks we disagree with - but I respect her. Ginmar falls into the “given slack” category, in other words.
You, on the other hand, are playing rules lawyer. I HATE it when comment-writers play rules lawyer. Not only is it poor behavior, but the very fact that you’re playing rules lawyer WHEN THE RULES SPECIFICALLY SAY NOT TO show that you don’t respect the rules you’re trying to use to put me in a corner.
It’s also very telling that when Odanu wrote you a very long, thoughtful reply, you pretty much ignored it, preferring to post articles from elsewhere and exchange silly insult posts. That kind of stuff moves the discussion here AWAY from what I’d like it to be. Admittedly, some of Ginmar’s posts move things in the wrong direction, too - but she also has posts moving things in the right direction, sometimes.
I’m banning you, Steven. If you want, you can email me in July and ask me to unban you, but until then you’re gone.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:17 am
In the beginning of the case, I sided with the so-called victims. As time passes, I have less and less belief in their story. I was put in very similar situations at least twice, although I was never raped. I too was an exotic dancer I to worked or danced at private parties similar to the dancers at the Duke one. I also brought security with me as well as a partner. As time goes by, I have less faith in the girls. I, myself think that the acusers are looking for publicity as well as monies. I think that the Duke players are bieng fasley accused and the dancers should be proscesuted. I have sinced gone to college, massage school, am a certified Pharmacy Technicion through two agencies, and I will soon be starting Radiology School. I have excelled in every study, married ten years, have a soon to be 5 year, very well behaved daughter. I believe that I am well versed in this subjech. Mbelief is, that these players are being falsley accused and their reputations are being ruined!!!!
This comment was written by Teresa Doucet.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:33 pm
I used to read this blog a lot. Then the Duke case hit the news and the boards went totally, batshit insane. Everyone was rushing to judgement, and I saw several posters gets slapped down for voicing honest questions about the accuser’s credibility. Now, it looks more and more like they had a point.
People would point out that she was a stripper/escort with a felonious past, and that she was on the verge of being carted off to jail for public drunkeness when she first made her allegations. Everyone here seemd to have the attitude: “So what??!! Those posters are misogynistic jackasses for questioning whether any woman would lie.” Well, that was enough for me. I stopped reading. It’s one thing to support an ideal. It’s another to willfully ignore reality and pretend we live in a vacuum. If you want to tell me that escorts with rapsheets are just as honest as the next gal…well go sell it somewhere else.
But tempers were hot, and I can forgive, so I decided to give it some time. Cut to two months later. I thought I’d come back and see if the tenor of the discussion had changed. Instead I find that nobody wants to talk about it at all. I think that’s pathetic. Let’s look in the mirror. And let’s not try to be so knee-jerk next time. Stop. Look at the facts. Withhold judgement. And yes, look at what is known about an accuser before deciding how much weight to lend their statements. Because at the end of the day, most cases aren’t JUST he said/she said. There will be evidence one way or the other. So even if an accuser has lesser credibility, she can still prove her case.
But it won’t happen in this one. I don’t think the case will see trial. That’s just a prediction. And let me be the first to say - that doesn’t mean a damn thing about our society in general. This is just one case. It doesn’t “represent a narrative that plays out in the south, between races, between classes…blah blah blah.” It’s just one case. One false accuser doesn’t mean most women lie about rape. But neither should one false accuser be used to paint all men, or Duke students, or rich guys, or lacrosse players, or whatever, as evil rapist thugs.
Thoughts? Somebody restore my faith in responsible feminism.
This comment was written by LostFaith.Report this comment to the moderators
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Teresa and Lostfaith,
This comment was written by Rachel S..I stand behind my statements. I just simply can’t believe everything I hear from the defense attorneys. Personally, if I believed everything the defense said and felt all of the evidence was out I would agree that there is reasonable doubt, but I don’t believe everything the defense says, and I think the remainder of info. will come out at trial.
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June 22nd, 2006 at 9:31 pm
What can be a definitive proof of a rape given the absence of conclusive DNA material? Any guesses? Remember, it has to be SO concrete as to wipe off the inconsistencies revealed yet. My guess -
A video tape of the rape (ofcourse the jocks would be stupid to keep an evidence like that, when they meticulously hid all others).
This comment was written by Curious.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:14 am
Hypothetically - what happens if this woman comes out and admits she made the whole thing up?
I don’t really expect that will happen. And I’m not saying she did make it up. But just for the sake of arguement, let’s imagine she says “Sorry. I lied about everything.”
At that point, who here would be woman enough to say, “You know what? It’s time to admit that some people had a sense about this accuser and I missed the boat. They weren’t racist, or misogynistic…they just have a firmer grip on who is credible and who is not.
Or would you challenge that point? Do you honestly believe that everyone has the same ability to detect B.S.? What if you’re just being incredibly naive? Stop and consider whether you are using the right criterion to evaluate how much credence you give to the testimony (for lack of a better word) of strangers.
Specifically, should any of the following be factored in to whether you take the word of an accuser as gospel: a) a history of criminal behavior, b)a history of mental illness, c)prior accusations that did not result in charges being filed, d) habitual drug abuse, e) current employment in the sex industry, or f) all of the above. And really - feel free to take on each on individually. I do. They are not all equal strikes against. But none of them would BOLSTER my confidence…. in any accuser.
If you disagree with all of the above, you apparently use no B.S. filter at all, and I would ask that you please send me your address. I’ve got some great Nebraska coastline properties for you to invest in…you could make a fortune!
Point is…if these guys did it, there will be a way to prove it. In this instance, why would it come down to her word against theirs? She didn’t shower away any evidence. There were dozens of possible witnesses (including a female who stands to benefit in her own legal woes by supporting the prosecution). You shouldn’t have to close your eyes and hold your nose while you choke down conflicting stories and fantastic details. You ought to be able to say “her word doesn’t count for as much as (say) my grandmother’s, but I still think something happened…and here’s why.” Then list your evidence. If there is no evidence…I suggest the DA ought to spend the county’s money on 10 other rape cases he can actually win.
This comment was written by LostFaith.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:09 am
So ya’ll are conveniently forgetting that the reason the two women left the party in the first place was because one of the lacrosse players threatened to sodomize them with a broomstick? I stand behind every criticism I’ve levied at the lacrosse players.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:57 am
So ya’ll are conveniently forgetting that the reason the two women left the party in the first place was because one of the lacrosse players threatened to sodomize them with a broomstick?
Is there anyone besides the accuser and her friend who testify to this?
As I’ve said in the past; there’s way too much self-serving statements (from both sides) flying around on this. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens when people have to testify under oath and evidence is actually brought out at trial. Right now there’s no way to believe anyone in this case.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:34 am
Everything I’ve read suggests that ONE of the guys held up a broom after the dancers said they didn’t bring any sex toys and said: “Here. Use this.” That’s a really terrible joke. Not a threat.
It’s plenty reason enough to leave the party. It’s not enough of a reason to call them all racists, rapists, and thugs.
How can you stand behind every criticism you’ve every made when you paint 46 guys with a brush that ought to be reserved for 1, QGrrrl?
This comment was written by LostFaith.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:27 am
“How can you stand behind every criticism you’ve every made when you paint 46 guys with a brush that ought to be reserved for 1, QGrrrl? ”
Because all 46 of those guys *bought* a woman for their sexual gratification.
I suppose you could say that my attitude just goes with the territory. Don’t want to be accused of rape? Don’t buy women then.
(FTR, the accuser’s “credibility” is no less tarnished then the lacrosse players — please see above, where I’m sure I’ve related my first hand experiences with the team)
Further, on the off chance this woman is lying, I would imagine that we all might get a better idea of how our current rape culture affects everyone and how rape is used to shape the course of many people’s lives.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:45 am
Q Grrl,
‘Because all 46 of those guys *bought* a woman for their sexual gratification’ - Why did she of all women get bought? Would you get *bought* by a man or lets say 100 men for their sexual gratification? I dont see her having any problems with being *bought* or selling herself for that matter.
Just like you said - “Don’t want to be accused of rape? Don’t buy women then.”
How about a reversal of sexes - “Dont want to get raped, dont sell yourself to men for sexual gratification”. See it turns out heinous, thats why chill out and give it a thought, tone down the rhetoric. Infact all you are doing is stomping on credibility of strippers or prostitutes who may be raped in future.
BTW, what ‘rape culture’ do you live in? what part of the world? I would like to visit it. It must be legal and honorable to rape women in that culture, otherwise why would you make such an insinuation.
This comment was written by Curious.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 10:51 am
Oh, Curious! Go read some feminist theory, please. Then come back.
Or read the news. Or do a Google search on Rape Culture.
Yes, these men bought a woman. Cashola. Dinero. Dolla Dolla bill. They paid her for her body.
I have a few problems with their morality, ethics, and credibility because of that. ‘kay?
How is this a reversal of anything? It’s what the majority of people have been saying all along.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Are you honestly unaware that there’s a feminist term called “rape culture,” and that the term does not refer to a society in which rape is legal? Or are you just the sort of person who thinks that lame punning is a substitute for reasonable argumentation?
I’m not saying that you can’t post here and disagree with the feminist idea of rape culture. I am saying that for you to be worth reading, you have to show that you have a reasonable understanding of what “rape culture” means to the feminists who use the term, and your critique has to amount to more than saying “oh what a stupid concept!,” which is in essence all you’ve said so far.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Amp, a lot of people have read little to no feminist writings. I’d hazard a guess that in fact, I could say “most” and be accurate. Hell, I couldn’t define the term myself and I hang out here! It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that a random person stumbling in here wouldn’t recognize that term out of context.
Q Grrl, I do want to think about this “they paid for her body” idea some. They surely paid to look at her body. But saying “they bought a woman” implies that they bought the right to do to her whatever they wanted to. To say “Don’t want to be accused of rape? Don’t buy women then.” seems to lead down the path that having hired a stripper justifiably invites rape accusations. Since I don’t like to put words in someone’s mouth, I ask if that’s what you mean? It also limits the rights of the woman who decided to sell her services as a stripper.
If I buy a set of services from someone, does that mean I bought them? If I hired a plumber, I didn’t “buy a man/woman”. Stripping services are different from plumbing services, but are they that different that it justifies that usage?
I’m aware that some guys don’t understand that such transactions are limited to the original and stated terms. Hell, there’s still guys who figure that if they take a woman on a date and spend a lot of money, they’re entitled to more than good conversation in return. So I can imagine that in a bunch of drunk yahoos, one or two of them might decide to try to get more than they bargained for. But it shouldn’t be regarded that people who stick to the original agreement should be open to accusations of something they didn’t do.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Did slavemasters buy the slave? Even though what they wanted was the slave labour?
These men bought a woman for their sexual gratification. I don’t see how that isn’t screamingly apparent. Unless we all want to continue to delude ourselves about what men *do* when they exchange money for sexual gratification/titillation.
But why shouldn’t it? What is so sacrosanct about male sexual release that this *isn’t* the norm? Why are men so confident that they will get precisely the “service” they paid for and no grief for doing so? Could it be the latent threat of rape? That women who strip or prostitute themselves *know*, inherently, that if the man/men are not pleased, no one is going to believe the women if they get raped in retalliation.
She’s just a whore afterall; willing to sell herself to men for degradation and the messiness of illicit male sexuality.
I mean, if men *aren’t* buying the women, and just buying the act, then why do women who strip or prostitute themselves get reviled, put down, socially stigmatized? Wouldn’t it be the opposite? That the men should be reviled, put down, socially stigmatized for the sexual weakness and perversion? But that doesn’t happen. Why?
Because the men are buying the women. Not the sex act.
If they were buying the sex act, they’d have to own up to their malformed and antisocial sexuality.
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Yes they did. Slavemasters bought slaves. But there’s a lot of differences. Slaves are (present tense, there’s a lot of slaves in the world yet) property; the money handed over by the slavemaster goes to the slave’s previous owner, not to the slave. A slave is no party to the negotiation. The slave must provide whatever services the slavemaster wants and has no recourse, legal or otherwise, if the slavemaster wants to make changes. The slave gets whatever compensation the slaveowner cares to provide. And the arrangement was permanent, not temporary.
A stripper has a choice whether or not to be a stripper. He or she negotiates what the terms are, is only obligated to provide what services were negotiated, is paid, and is then free to go somewhere else to perform for someone else - or not, as they choose. They are not owned, as a slave is. Their freely-negotiated services are purchased for a fixed time and place.
Do you see anyone disputing this?
Nothing’s sacrosanct about male sexual release. Or female sexual release. My wife has gone to more strip clubs than I have, to watch guys take their clothes off for money. Should she then be subject to rape accusations?
It’s got nothing to do with sexual release being sacrosanct. What’s sacrosanct is the contract or agreement. If a group of guys or women agree to exchange money for a strip show, and that’s what happens, why shouldn’t they be confident that they would get precisely the service they paid for and no grief for doing so? Just like any other agreement?
From what I’m seeing on the blogs and in the news, there’s a whole lot of people who believe this woman. I don’t believe or disbelieve her; I’m waiting until dependable information comes out.
Hm. So every man or woman who hires a stripper figures that the stripper is a whore and wants to degrade him or her? And how illicit is it if you can go down the newspaper ads and use your credit card to hire one every night if you’ve got the cash? Hiring a stripper is malformed and antisocial sexuality? Dang.
And I really don’t follow the logic here. What you seem to be saying is that men are not reviled for hiring a stripper because instead of having engaged in buying a selected service, they’ve really engaged in slavery. Which, apparently, is more honorable. No, I just don’t see any logical structure in the last part of your statements at all. If I misrepresent your statement, it’s because I don’t understand it. I don’t see any logic in “since men are not reviled for hiring a stripper, it means that they haven’t bought a sex act, they’ve bought a woman.”
BTW, does that mean that when a group of local suburban women hire a male stripper for their bachelorette party, or go to the “Sugar Shack” to watch the boys dance, they’re figuring that all the men are whores, that the men better satisfy the women or they’ll assault them, that these women have actually bought those men, and that they should be reviled and stigmatized for it?
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:29 pm
With all due respect, if you as a reasonable person are going to call any culture some thing as vile sounding as a ‘rape culture’, you ought to be able to point and prove that it deserves that kind of name. I am aware of the term being thrown around on feminist blogs, just that it does not make sense to me (like ‘jihad’ used by islamic extremists), cause there is nothing, anything close to what the insinuation claims.
“Are you honestly unaware that there’s a feminist term called “rape culture,” and that the term does not refer to a society in which rape is legal? Or are you just the sort of person who thinks that lame punning is a substitute for reasonable argumentation?”
Why insult any culture by calling it a ‘rape culture’? Is there anything in a feminist dictionary like a ‘whore culture’ or are the insulting terms limited to point at the entire male sex, irrespective of crime and innocence?
Why be so brash with language is what I want to know, unless you really believe in using hate language to get attention to you and your issues (pun not intended). As far as your ‘guilty of rape because they hired strippers’, is the same argument that goes on the lines of ‘hookers/whores/strippers cannot be raped’. Please restrain the hatred, it is injurious to society.
BTW, you ought to talk to the stripper friends and offer them some jobs and help them out of the ’slavery’ they are enduring. Please let us all know what they told you when you do make those offers.
This comment was written by Curious.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Curious, we’re talking here about a theory that most if not all the feminists know of and understand. This is a pro-feminist blog, if you want to seriously discuss the issues here you may want to understand the terminology used.
Not to be insulting but what you’re asking here is like going into, say, an open source forum and asking what a creative commons license is and then when told how to find out, refuse to go look but come back and insist they tell you.
So basically Ampersand, not to put words into his mouth of course, said here’s a term that’s understood by most here, why don’t you go read up on it and then come back if you have more questions.
I second that motion.
This comment was written by Erika Gillian.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2006 at 11:10 am
Erika, the thing is, a creative commons license exists and can be proven.
I found this in my short research on rape culture - “Rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture”. This comes from a feminist researcher. I will provide you with the link if you want, but you probably know that already.
Please confirm your belief in that statement, if you do believe so.
This comment was written by Curious.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
I agree with that statement (which was made by Mary Koss). I’m confused why you find it so offensive.
If I said that murder represents an extreme but one that’s on the same spectrum as other aggressive acts, would you find that objectionable, too?
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
For the record, I think of “rape culture” - which is derived from “rape supportive culture,” a term used by Susan Brownmiller - as referring to the aspects of a culture which foster beliefs and attitudes that make rape more likely than it would otherwise be.
Why do you think that the term “rape culture” insults all men? I’ve seen people refer to a “culture of violence” - do you think that if someone uses the phrase “culture of violence,” they’re insulting all men, or all people?
“Rape culture” is indeed a harsh term. But rape is a serious matter that deserves a harsh term.
Why are you so focused on language rather than substance?
Why should we use a less harsh term to mean “a culture that fosters attitudes and beliefs that make rape more common than it has to be”? What would be accomplished if we called that “the fuzzy bunny culture” instead of “rape culture”?
Please retrain your lies about what other posters have said. They are injurious to the discussion here.
I know I never said anything like “guilty of rape because they hired strippers.” Neither has Q Grrl. Please either directly quote someone in this thread saying that anyone is “guilty of rape because they hired strippers”; or withdraw your claim. If you don’t address this matter, you will no longer be permitted to post on “Alas.”
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Well, you just spanked me in the global warming argument on CD, so maybe I should be reluctant to wade in here, but…
I may be misinterpreting Koss, and if I am please correct me. But while her statement doesn’t appear offensive, it does appear to be problematically wrong in its focus.
The key phrase is “on a continuum with normal male behavior within the culture”. I think the problem is the “within the culture” part. I’m not aware of any cultures where normal male behavior is radically different than normal male behavior in our own culture. It seems to me that Koss should have said “Rape represents an extreme behavior but one that is on a continuum with normal male behavior”. That would be unobjectionable.
By attempting to tie the behavior to one specific culture, the universality of rape is ignored.
To use your counterexample, what if I said “Murder represents an extreme, but one that’s on the same spectrum as other aggressive acts in the culture of Portland, Oregon.” Portland, Oregon doesn’t have much to do with the larger question. Now, maybe there are some things about Portland that are uniquely relevant to the question of violence and murder, and maybe its totally valid to analyze those things - but nobody can seriously contend that murder and Portland have some special relationship. Murder happens everywhere. A Portland-specific viewpoint on murder may have some (very narrow) application, but will be a terrible framework from which to study the big picture; any analysis starting from the premise of a unique Portland connection is likely to be nutty.
There are elements of Western culture, and elements of any culture that relies on patriarchal models, that are undoubtedly connected to the phenomenon of rape. Those connections are worthy studying - and in that sense, talking about “rape culture” makes sense and is a useful construct. What Curious is advancing, I think (its hard to tell for sure) is the idea that its questionable to take that limited legitimacy and try to universalize it. Rape as an extension of normal male sexual aggressiveness doesn’t seem to be a primarily cultural phenomenon.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
I think it’s likely that Koss would agree with the modified statement you suggest.
However, Koss’ original statement was made within the context of a peer-reviewed journal, interpreting the results of a study of sexual behavior among college-aged Americans. In that context, I think it’s obviously justifiable (and possibly obligatory) for her to have limited her statement in the way she did.
Also, I think Curious was saying that the statement was anti-male, not anti-American.
Finally, although it’s hard to measure, it appears to be true that although rape exists in all cultures, rape is less prevalent in some cultures and subcultures than in others. So the idea that there are cultural and/or local differences in “rape culture” is not outlandish.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
June 24th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
So the idea that there are cultural and/or local differences in “rape culture” is not outlandish.
No argument from me.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 7:01 am
For example, the attitudes towards the acceptablility of forced intercourse and the penalties for it are a whole lot different in numerous Middle Eastern/Islamic countries than here in the U.S.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
This is my first time commenting here (or I believe it is, don’t remember posting here) . . . and I will admit . . . I have not read all of your details . . . but what I find sooo facinating . . . . is that this is continuing - despite various evidence and scientific facts.
First thing . . . was this rape . . . I don’t . . . possibly, but when the supposed victim was examine, doctors found no evidence of rape . . . plus no DNA evidence of the people she was accusing of rape on, in, or anywhere on her person. Were the doctor’s Duke Alum? Don’t know.
Second thing . . . the person that was with her performing . . . originally denied that the other girl was raped . . . but later changed her testimony. Why would she change her testi . . . unless she was pressured or paid?
Third thing . . . one of the key people she is accusing . . . one of the primary ones - whom she stated done several acts on her was only there for nine minutes (approx.). And during that time, the other girl was there. And during the middle of it . . . he stopped the whole thing in order to call a cab from the same room it was happening in. Then during all that . . . commit several acts and get himself cleaned up and walk down a couple of blocks where he was picked up by the cab. All in nine minutes . . . very unlikely. Even if he was a 30 second man . . . for a person his age . . . after the first full climax . . . it would take a couple of minutes to be ready again for the next act . . . not to mention that . . . he was supposedly taking turns with all of his buddies.
Plus . . . why did they rape her and not her partner she was working with. Is it race . . . I don’t think so . . . I think she agreed to it . . . and got stiffed in the end (I am talking about money . . . to those with a sick mind). And because she was paid, what they agreed to . . . she accused them of rape. Sounds like another Kobe Bryant case . . . but instead of a white girl and a black man . . . it was a black girl and several white men. The girl in the Kobe case got paid . . . why not her. Who cares she destroys their lives and careers . . .
Thing is . . . I used to live and work in that industry . . . as an entertainer. Believe me . . . guys and girls are willing to go the extra step . . . for some serious extra cash. And with my past association with the industry . . . and familiarity in what usually happens. With the guys . . . they usually ignore it . . . because we are men . . . and we like having sex. Women . . . if they don’t receive their money . . . or the full amount . . . 7 out of 10 (approx.)press charges (mainly assualt - occasionally rape), then they drop the charges after a few months of embarassment of the other person . . . and negotiate a settlement in civil court. Or at least, that how it used to happen approx. 20 years ago. But, don’t get me wrong . . . not all entertainers do this . . . but some do.
Whether this has happened or not . . . I don’t know . . . I wasn’t there. If she was raped . . . then they should go to jail . . . no doubt. But I find it hard to believe when the accuser also has a record, (or at least I heard . . . no proof).
As for living in a rape cultured society, which finds rape acceptable . . . I don’t believe it . . . because if it was . . . there would be no laws to prevent rape. Plus, some people who have fetishes like that usually participate in S&M and B&D groups.
Plus, if I had to compare Male and Female clients . . . (for entertainers) . . . women are vastly more aggressive . . . while men are passive. Experience.
This comment was written by Tagahanga.Report this comment to the moderators
June 26th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
between social race - which is a social construct - and anthropological race, which appears to be a valid, albeit disputed, scientific theory. You might be a white supremacist if. There’s a very interesting discussion in the comments. Edit: In this post on Alas, Barry gives two subtly different definitions of the term “rape culture”. The first is defensible, the second less so. Unfortunately it is his second definition which in practice is how feminists use the term. He compares the concept with a
This comment was written by Creative Destruction.Report this comment to the moderators
June 27th, 2006 at 7:17 am
…snerk…
It’s a good thing you know so much about the case…
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
June 30th, 2006 at 8:49 am
Well, this is stunning:
http://www.wral.com/news/9450634/detail.html
What part, exactly, was misinterpreted about his email? What part is funny? What part a joke?
He explicitly said he wanted to masturbate to the skinning and murder of hired female strippers.
Where, where is the humor?
[I wonder if I can file a sexual harrassment suit if this guy comes back to Duke. Seems like a hostile work environment to me]
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
August 16th, 2006 at 5:56 am
Has anybody heard anything about this story past June? I’m trying to search for updates and have found absolutely nothing on this case. If somebody could post a link to a site who is actively following the case I’d appreciate it.
This comment was written by Jim K.Report this comment to the moderators