Forum To Address Issues On May 24
UPDATED: 1:43 pm EDT May 4, 2006
DURHAM, N.C. -- Community leaders are helping Durham residents come together as the Duke lacrosse rape investigation continues.
A woman alleges she was raped by three members of the Duke University lacrosse team at an off-campus party in March. Leaders say the investigation can be a good thing for the community because the allegations are forcing people to talk about things that they have been ignoring for years.
The Rev. William Barber of the NAACP said the first step is to learn from the issues of racism, class and domestic violence that the Duke investigation is forcing people to talk about.
"To face a destructive and dehumanizing reality of these issues and what must be done to prophetically address them and consciously produce change," Barber said.
Leaders said the group will have to face realities that they say have historic roots in pain.
"We can't pretend to be asleep anymore. The issue is in our face front and center," said the Rev. Joe Harvard of First Presbyterian Church.
Leaders said a critical topic in the discussion is the role of the media in the investigation. They claim the media has portrayed the alleged victim as an object instead of a woman and that the community's thirst for a scandal has dehumanized the culture.
"Here is a chance to use that power to try and make this a more wholesome and finer community a better place, because of what you can do and what you can report," said Rabbi John Fredman of the Jewish Forum.
A forum will be held on May 24. Members of the NAACP said this will be the first of many forums to be held both locally and nationally in the next few months. For more information about the forum, you can call (866) 630-3796.
Translation: "We want to use white guilt to cash in".
Once again I recomend
"White Guilt : How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era"
by Shelby Steele
showing how "white guilt" in the 1960s froze blacks into the role of "angry victims"; and how the relationship between the races based on these two roles("angry victims" vs. "guilty oppressors"), has proven disastrous for the black community.