OH GOD, YOU (BLUE) DEVIL!
Surely by now you've heard of the "scandal" that has "rocked" Duke University.
The Duke University lacrosse team, composed of 40 or some members (all but one of whom are lily white males, who mostly went to exclusive prep schools - I am not being redundant by the use of "exclusive" here - some prep schools claim they're exclusive, but believe me, the only thing exclusive about them is that you'd want to exclude them - from the universe; the other - forgive the pun or don't - is black) had I guess what it calls a party one night not too long ago - whether this party was before a game, after a game, to celebrate a victory, to wash away a defeat, I cannot say - partying is, after all, its own reason and reward.
As part of the preparations for this party, one or more of the members solicited the services of a black stripper (who is above the age of consent, as are all of the players). The stripper claims that several (if not more) of the players, while being boys, of course, systematically took turns raping and assaulting her.
The University, when these allegations were brought, didn't seem to care very much. After all, the University is white, elite, rich, and the town upon which the Duke campus is built - working-class Durham 9(which includes a large black population), is not white, elite and rich. Hence the two only feed off each other's hate, not largesse. The community felt outraged at the school's failing to take any action at all upon the stripper's allegation (finally, the president of Duke cancelled the rest of the lacrosse season, grimly pronouncing that to do so "was in everyone's best interest" - whatever that means). The Duke University police (remember, private campus police have all the powers of regular police, but never use them, and not public officers - meaning the public does not have the right to see the records generated by these men and women, who are deputized to carry firearms, make arrests, and perform other traditional police functions - lovely!) were slow to act on the allegations as well. That fact should make prospective students feel secure. The rich ones, anyway.
Once Durham county police got involved, a twist, as it were, developed: each member of the team (except the black member; the stripper claims the black member did not rape her; perhaps he was vomiting, perhaps because he consumed too much alcohol, perhaps not) volntarily submitted a DNA sample to the police. Guess what? The woman's body did not contain ANY of the players' DNA resiglue. Moreover, the players' lawyer, in dramatic fashion, has asserted that the stripper was already injured by the time she had arrived at the party (no one disputes she was at the party; what happened there is disputed. Think of it as Rashomon with broomsticks and assholes instead of swords and samurai).
Of course, the players could have been wearing condoms while raping the woman. Or, they could have penetrated her without ejaculating (you know what they say about too much working out... What? What do they say?) At any rate, the police, undeterred, are going forward with the prosecution.
One of the "shocking relevations" in this scandal was brought forth in the form of an email sent by one of the white players to his teammates. In the email, the player - whose name is a matter of public record, and who could rape someone with his nose - informs his teammantes of the intention to invite a stripper over (at a time when the actual stripper roughly arrived to whatever place of amusement the students had congregated at), to "kill and then scalp her." The statement seems to me to reflect a basic misunderstanding of Native American customs. A good scalping WILL kill someone - or, at least, will serve as an exquisite torture device. What good is it to kill someone and then scalp her only once she's dead? This is like threatening to poison someone, and instead of poisoning him, shooting him and THEN poisining him. Since the emailer did not propose the strange sequence of acts for any detectable reason (such as, say, so as to frustrate the police's ability to determine the actual cause of death), the education he supposedly received at Duke (while on an athletic scholarship, of course) must have been a real waste of money. Or would have been. If it were someone else. Someone who studied and who wasn't on the lacrosse team, maybe.
Once the existence of the email came to light, the school THEN sprung quickly into action, removing the student from campus, not for violating any school rule, regulation or code, but "for his own protection." Kind of like a witness protection program for non-witneses, I guess. The school also suspended his email account - meaning that it viewed his threat as a harmless joke, but really, really doesn't want ANYONE threatening to kill HIM over email. No, that would not be good.
I can make one prediction: it doesn't matter what happens at the trial, which, given the evidence to date, will obviously turn on credibility. The defense will try to attack the stripper's character by saying she's a stripper - the defense LAWYERS, that is, and will try to plant the seeds of doubt by showing alleged "time and date-stamped" evidence that she was injured earlier in the day (what the probative value of this evidence is, I cannot say, because I do not know where she claims she was injured). Meanwhile, the prosecution will, as much as it can, try to show that half the team has a history of multiple arrests and convictions (if it's OK for the lacrosse team to have this, then its's... NOT OK for you), will invoke North Carolina's rape shield law as best it can, and eventually, presumably, a verdict will be returned.
Regardkess if whether the verdict is "guilty," of whether there is an acquittal, or whether there is a mistrial, the practical result will be the same in each case: further inflammation of racial tensions, and those tensions that Republicans say don't exist - repeat after me - CLASS tensions. The University, regardless of the verdict, will continue to give the lacrosse team at Duke the right to play, even if the members have GPAs that would cause any other student to be expelled. The "Durham" community may not get over what happened, but the "Duke" community will, because as far as it is concerned, there is nothing to "get over": while over half of the student body, if not more, may find the lacrosse team, its members, and/or the existence of this team, to be insufferable, the Duke community, as a whole, will never do anything to intentionally inflict damage upon itself. Thus, the incident - and the guilt that may be found, or the perception of miscarried justice attendant to an acquittal - will simply become the MacArthurian equivalent of "scandals" - it will just "disappear." Those who arre genuinely outraged will be branded as not supporting the team - either the lacrosse team or the Duke team. Those who, regardless of what they think of the merits of the decision, find the fallout indicative of a serious social problem that is not being addressed, will be cut down from backstage, or by the mere passage of time. Why, every college I know of has "black only" fraternities/living centers, "white only" fraternities and living centers, and the degree of self-segregation is so high that one would almost be tempted to think that - gasp! - affirmative action really IS a failure (further sarcasm is not necessary here). Such self-selected isolation leads not just to racial animosity, but leads to self-selection within self-selection, resulting in a phenomenon that I would call "click (clique) or exit." Forgive the dreadful pun, but what I mean by this is that, if you haven't self-selected yourself twice, three, four times over, very early on in the college experience, the end result may not be that you are raped - but you definitely have been fucked. To the tune of over $100,000. And you didn't even get the services of a stripper in return. Bummer.
The Duke University lacrosse team, composed of 40 or some members (all but one of whom are lily white males, who mostly went to exclusive prep schools - I am not being redundant by the use of "exclusive" here - some prep schools claim they're exclusive, but believe me, the only thing exclusive about them is that you'd want to exclude them - from the universe; the other - forgive the pun or don't - is black) had I guess what it calls a party one night not too long ago - whether this party was before a game, after a game, to celebrate a victory, to wash away a defeat, I cannot say - partying is, after all, its own reason and reward.
As part of the preparations for this party, one or more of the members solicited the services of a black stripper (who is above the age of consent, as are all of the players). The stripper claims that several (if not more) of the players, while being boys, of course, systematically took turns raping and assaulting her.
The University, when these allegations were brought, didn't seem to care very much. After all, the University is white, elite, rich, and the town upon which the Duke campus is built - working-class Durham 9(which includes a large black population), is not white, elite and rich. Hence the two only feed off each other's hate, not largesse. The community felt outraged at the school's failing to take any action at all upon the stripper's allegation (finally, the president of Duke cancelled the rest of the lacrosse season, grimly pronouncing that to do so "was in everyone's best interest" - whatever that means). The Duke University police (remember, private campus police have all the powers of regular police, but never use them, and not public officers - meaning the public does not have the right to see the records generated by these men and women, who are deputized to carry firearms, make arrests, and perform other traditional police functions - lovely!) were slow to act on the allegations as well. That fact should make prospective students feel secure. The rich ones, anyway.
Once Durham county police got involved, a twist, as it were, developed: each member of the team (except the black member; the stripper claims the black member did not rape her; perhaps he was vomiting, perhaps because he consumed too much alcohol, perhaps not) volntarily submitted a DNA sample to the police. Guess what? The woman's body did not contain ANY of the players' DNA resiglue. Moreover, the players' lawyer, in dramatic fashion, has asserted that the stripper was already injured by the time she had arrived at the party (no one disputes she was at the party; what happened there is disputed. Think of it as Rashomon with broomsticks and assholes instead of swords and samurai).
Of course, the players could have been wearing condoms while raping the woman. Or, they could have penetrated her without ejaculating (you know what they say about too much working out... What? What do they say?) At any rate, the police, undeterred, are going forward with the prosecution.
One of the "shocking relevations" in this scandal was brought forth in the form of an email sent by one of the white players to his teammates. In the email, the player - whose name is a matter of public record, and who could rape someone with his nose - informs his teammantes of the intention to invite a stripper over (at a time when the actual stripper roughly arrived to whatever place of amusement the students had congregated at), to "kill and then scalp her." The statement seems to me to reflect a basic misunderstanding of Native American customs. A good scalping WILL kill someone - or, at least, will serve as an exquisite torture device. What good is it to kill someone and then scalp her only once she's dead? This is like threatening to poison someone, and instead of poisoning him, shooting him and THEN poisining him. Since the emailer did not propose the strange sequence of acts for any detectable reason (such as, say, so as to frustrate the police's ability to determine the actual cause of death), the education he supposedly received at Duke (while on an athletic scholarship, of course) must have been a real waste of money. Or would have been. If it were someone else. Someone who studied and who wasn't on the lacrosse team, maybe.
Once the existence of the email came to light, the school THEN sprung quickly into action, removing the student from campus, not for violating any school rule, regulation or code, but "for his own protection." Kind of like a witness protection program for non-witneses, I guess. The school also suspended his email account - meaning that it viewed his threat as a harmless joke, but really, really doesn't want ANYONE threatening to kill HIM over email. No, that would not be good.
I can make one prediction: it doesn't matter what happens at the trial, which, given the evidence to date, will obviously turn on credibility. The defense will try to attack the stripper's character by saying she's a stripper - the defense LAWYERS, that is, and will try to plant the seeds of doubt by showing alleged "time and date-stamped" evidence that she was injured earlier in the day (what the probative value of this evidence is, I cannot say, because I do not know where she claims she was injured). Meanwhile, the prosecution will, as much as it can, try to show that half the team has a history of multiple arrests and convictions (if it's OK for the lacrosse team to have this, then its's... NOT OK for you), will invoke North Carolina's rape shield law as best it can, and eventually, presumably, a verdict will be returned.
Regardkess if whether the verdict is "guilty," of whether there is an acquittal, or whether there is a mistrial, the practical result will be the same in each case: further inflammation of racial tensions, and those tensions that Republicans say don't exist - repeat after me - CLASS tensions. The University, regardless of the verdict, will continue to give the lacrosse team at Duke the right to play, even if the members have GPAs that would cause any other student to be expelled. The "Durham" community may not get over what happened, but the "Duke" community will, because as far as it is concerned, there is nothing to "get over": while over half of the student body, if not more, may find the lacrosse team, its members, and/or the existence of this team, to be insufferable, the Duke community, as a whole, will never do anything to intentionally inflict damage upon itself. Thus, the incident - and the guilt that may be found, or the perception of miscarried justice attendant to an acquittal - will simply become the MacArthurian equivalent of "scandals" - it will just "disappear." Those who arre genuinely outraged will be branded as not supporting the team - either the lacrosse team or the Duke team. Those who, regardless of what they think of the merits of the decision, find the fallout indicative of a serious social problem that is not being addressed, will be cut down from backstage, or by the mere passage of time. Why, every college I know of has "black only" fraternities/living centers, "white only" fraternities and living centers, and the degree of self-segregation is so high that one would almost be tempted to think that - gasp! - affirmative action really IS a failure (further sarcasm is not necessary here). Such self-selected isolation leads not just to racial animosity, but leads to self-selection within self-selection, resulting in a phenomenon that I would call "click (clique) or exit." Forgive the dreadful pun, but what I mean by this is that, if you haven't self-selected yourself twice, three, four times over, very early on in the college experience, the end result may not be that you are raped - but you definitely have been fucked. To the tune of over $100,000. And you didn't even get the services of a stripper in return. Bummer.
posted by EnterCenter at 5:14 PM
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