A tragedy in black & white

Chicago Sun Times ^ | June 20, 2007 | Rick Telander

[KeyLargo]

A tragedy in black & white

(http://www.suntimes.com/sports/telander/435353,CST-SPT-rick20.article)

June 20, 2007

BY RICK TELANDER Sun-Times Columnist

We now know the three former Duke lacrosse players charged with rape a little over a year ago not only were innocent, but also falsely accused.

What might have gone down in the annals of jurisprudence as a certifiable mess now, after revelations of deceit and terrifying deviousness by the main servant of justice, can only be labeled a tragedy.

The prosecutor in the case, former Durham, N.C., district attorney Michael Nifong, has turned out to be as cruel, reckless, self-centered and ambitious as a petty and ruined character from Shakespeare.

Not only did Nifong not have any evidence that the three white players sexually assaulted a 28-year-old African-American stripper at a house party near the Duke campus (other than the stripper's wavering and booze-addled statements), he withheld facts and fanned the flames of anger and racism by calling the players ''hooligans'' and likening the purported attack to cross burnings.

For his efforts, and thanks to an independent investigation, Nifong now has been disbarred.

And he is sure to be criminally charged soon.

We Americans should feel comforted that Nifong at last has been stopped by our justice system.

But we should be chastened to learn that all the things that seemed so likely, so believable, so historically appropriate -- rich, privileged white sons of entitlement abusing a poor, defenseless black female again -- were false.

''Americans like to think that few innocent people are arrested, much less charged or convicted, and that rogue prosecutors are the stuff of fiction,'' USA Today said in an editorial on the case. ''Not so.''

But if we look back on this case, we can see how easy it is to rush to judgment, to find things that have the appearance of truth because they fit what we feel had to have happened.

Except they didn't happen.

And if anyone thinks the word tragedy is overkill here, consider that, as one of the young men's defense attorneys pointed out, without the lucky discovery of some DNA facts, the players easily could have been found guilty.

If you think 10 years or so in prison for being falsely convicted isn't tragedy, rethink your definition.

Politics play big role Once the unfortunate party occurred and the charges were made, one almost could see the inevitability of the ensuing fiasco.

That is, in the hands of a public servant such as Nifong.

With his first election as D.A. at hand, Nifong must have sensed that this racially charged, sexually loaded case was his clear ticket to success.

Once he personally played up the racial aspects, saying, with incredible boldness, ''I won't let Durham in the mind of the world be a bunch of Duke lacrosse players raping a black girl,'' he could not let facts stand in his way.

To drop the charges would be to commit political suicide in a community that is predominantly African-American.

And once Nifong made his inflammatory remarks, the Duke professorial community -- all too eager to believe any clubbish, rowdy, juvenile white male group must be punished for the sins of yore -- rallied against the lacrosse team as if it were a witches' coven in Salem.

The 2006 season was canceled, the head coach forced out.

Eighty-eight Duke faculty members signed a full-page ad in the student newspaper railing against the lacrosse team, under the headline ''WHAT DOES A SOCIAL DISASTER SOUND LIKE?''

The ad implied that the team was the embodiment of racial and sexual injustice. Everything bad about the Old South rolled into a bunch of kids with webbed sticks.

Again, it seemed to make sense, to be real. But there is a saying in court cases.

True, true, irrelevant.

That Nifong, liberal professors, angry black residents, even much of America thought this case could undo injustices from other days perhaps made sense.

But justice is about what happened, not what might have happened.

Saved by DNA Duke came within a goal of winning the national lacrosse championship this year.

You don't have to like the young men who played or Duke or even the sport to know that none of those things is relevant to fairness or inherent rights.

''To the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved incorrect, I apologize to the three students that were wrongly accused,'' Nifong said in a mealy-mouthed mea culpa in April.

Consider that if defense attorneys had not done unrelenting research and discovered that the DNA of four men -- none of them lacrosse players -- had been found in the accuser's underwear, Nifong never would have told them.

This truly was a game with no winners.

[KeyLargo]

"A tragedy (TRAVESTY) in black & white"

And Nifong's pals "JJ" & Al Sharp-tongue continue to fan the flames of their race baiting business.

[rickdylan]

The justice system if fundamentally broken. The job of DA involves gargantuan powers and little or nothing resembling accountability and, hence, is a natural magnet to psychopaths like Nifong, Janet Reno, Ronnie Earle, or this clown Fitzgerald. Moreover, let one of these guys attain to a certain level of power, and pretty much no amount of disproof will ever undue one of their improper convictions. Frank Fuster is still rotting in a Flori-duh prison for one of Janet Reno's witchcraft cases for imaginary crimes.

[Chi-townChief]

Oddly enough, Telander sounds almost lucid here.

[TUX]

Gang of 88..Duke’s judge and jury.

Abe, Stan (Art, Art History, and Visual Studies)
Albers, Benjamin (University Writing Program)
Allison, Anne (Cultural Anthropology)
Aravamudan, Srinivas (English)
Baker, Houston (English and AAAS)
Baker, Lee (Cultural Anthropology)
Beckwith, Sarah (English)
Berliner, Paul (Music)
Christina Beaule (University Writing Program)
Blackmore, Connie (AAAS)
Jessica Boa (Religion & University Writing Program)
Boatwright, Mary T. (Classical Studies)
Boero, Silvia (Romance Studies)
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo (Sociology)
Brim, Matthew (University Writing Program)
Chafe, William (History)
Ching, Leo (Asian & African Languages and Literatures)
Coles, Rom (Political Science)
Cooke, Miriam (Asian & African Languages and Literatures)
Crichlow, Michaeline (AAAS)
Curtis, Kim (Political Science)
Damasceno, Leslie (Romance Studies)
Davidson, Cathy (English)
Deutsch, Sally (History)
Dorfman, Ariel (Literature & Latin American Stds.)
Edwards, Laura (History)
Farred, Grant (Literature)
Fellini, Luciana (Romance Studies)
Fulkerson, Mary McClintock (Divinity School)
Gabara, Esther (Romance Studies)
Gavins, Raymond (History)
Greer, Meg (Romance Studies)
Glymph, Thavolia (History)
Hardt, Michael (Literature)
Harris, Joseph (University Writing Program)
Holloway, Karla (English)
Holsey, Bayo (AAAS)
Hovsepian, Mary (Sociology)
James, Sherman (Public Policy)
Kaplan, Alice (Literature)
Khalsa, Keval Kaur (Dance Program)
Khanna, Ranjana (English)
King, Ashley (Romance Studies)
Koonz, Claudia (History)
Lasch, Peter (Art, Art History, and Visual Studies & Latino/a Studies)
Lee, Dan A. (Math)
Leighten, Pat (Art, Art History, and Visual Studies)
Lentricchia, Frank (Literature)
Light, Caroline (Inst. for Crit. U.S. Stds.)
Litle, Marcy (Comparative Area Studies)
Litzinger, Ralph (Cultural Anthropology)
Longino, Michele (Romance Studies)
Lubiano, Wahneema (AAAS and Literature)
Maffitt, Kenneth(History)
Mahn, Jason (University Writing Program)
Makhulu, Anne-Maria (AAAS)
Mason, Lisa (Surgical Unit-2100)
McClain, Paula (Political Science)
Meintjes, Louise (Music)
Mignolo, Walter (Literature and Romance Studies)
Moreiras, Alberto (Romance Studies)
Neal, Mark Anthony (AAAS)
Nelson, Diane (Cultural Anthropology)
Olcott, Jolie (History)
Parades, Liliana (Romance Studies)
Payne, Charles (AAAS and History)
Pierce-Baker, Charlotte (Women’s Studies)
Pebles-Wilkins, Wilma
Petters, Arlie (Math)
Plesser, Ronen (Physics)
Radway, Jan (Literature)
Rankin, Tom (Center for Documentary Studies)
Rego, Marcia (University Writing Program)
Reisinger, Deborah S. (Romance Studies)
Rosenberg, Alex (Philosophy)
Rudy, Kathy (Women’s Studies)
Schachter, Marc (English)
Shannon, Laurie (English)
Sigal, Pete (History)
Silverblatt, Irene (Cultural Anthropology)
Somerset, Fiona (English)
Stein, Rebecca (Cultural Anthropology)
Thorne, Susan (History)
Viego, Antonio (Literature)
Vilaros, Teresa (Romance Studies)
Wald, Priscilla (English)
Wallace, Maurice (English and AAAS)
Wong, David (Philosophy)

[Steely Tom]

This truly was a game with no winners.

Not true. Those who want ammo to show that liberalism is a corrosive and degenerate philosophy in which grievance and stereotype are treated as analytical tools won big.

[ken5050]

There is only one thing yet left to do in this whole saga..to complete the cycle..someone, somewhere has to call the accuser a "nappy headed ho.."

[IrishBrigade]

someone, somewhere has to call the accuser a “nappy headed ho..”...

...where’s Imus when you need him...

[Flintlock]

“Historicaly appropriate”??? Ya gotta be kidding!
The ratio of interracial rape black/white vs. white/black is ONE THOUSAND TO ONE.
(NY 2004)

[bannie]

Add to the new verb, "nifong,"

"88'd."

[riverrunner]

“But we should be chastened to learn that all the things that seemed so likely, so believable, so historically appropriate — rich, privileged white sons of entitlement abusing a poor, defenseless black female again — were false.”

That is because the left has championed the rewriting of history into a gross caricature of America, full of evil white people, and poor, innocent everyone else, who never did a wrong. They compare America to some non-existant utopia, and never to the other real cultures in the world, which do not hold a candle to America’s record of good deeds.

[randita]

Those who want ammo to show that liberalism is a corrosive and degenerate philosophy in which grievance and stereotype are treated as analytical tools won big.

Next time a race baiting, power hungry DA or other public figure seeks to crucify a bunch of innocent white men in a similar case, he or she will be looked at with skepticism and scorn. That is a shame because the next time there might actually be justification in the charges. Nifong and other race baiters have put one more nail in their own coffins and further undermined the public's trust in an impartial justice system.

[dblshot]

Mignolo, Walter (Literature and Romance Studies)

Now there’s some irony ;-)

[Arrowhead1952]

See that list and the reply by rickdylan ...

The job of DA involves gargantuan powers and little or nothing resembling accountability and, hence, is a natural magnet to psychopaths like Nifong, Janet Reno, Ronnie Earle, or this clown Fitzgerald.

... I did a copy and paste onto a word document. I used word count and there are743 words and not one mention that Nifong was a democrat. Word search did not find a match for democrat. All those on that list of professors and the DA's and el Reno are RATs.

[Wallace T.]

Only three of the 88 professors have a math or a hard science background; the rest are involved in some area of the liberal arts, including some areas where Marxist loons tend to hang out like women's and Latino studies and sociology. One (Fulkerson, Mary McClintock) is a priestess of some sort teaching at the "divinity" school (the liberal Protestant equivalent of a seminary).

While Duke is a private university, only a fool or a brain-dead liberal would send his child and $80-100K to such an institution. At least at the state universities, you can have your teenager become a nihilistic pervert for a far lower cost.

[Freeport]

So when do they sue the faculty & Sarpton & Co.? Get out your knives boys & cut off a nice hefty slab of meet.

- Make them all publicly apologies
- Force the MSM to carry the apology
- Force the MSM to apologies too.

Thank them all for a few 100 million dollars (Being that’s what they probably made off of fanning the hate)...

Buy a small country & retire... Have a nice day.

[wai-ming]

What might have gone down in the annals of jurisprudence as a certifiable mess now, after revelations of deceit and terrifying deviousness by the main servant of justice, can only be labeled a tragedy.

No, it can also be labeled a fiasco, a scandal, an abuse of power, a miscarriage of justice, a travesty, a colossal hypocrisy, a crime! Call it what it is!

[CodeToad]

Those 88 faculty face a major lawsuit for that attack ad.

[Savage Beast]

Okay. Nifong was hoisted with his own pitar. But there is nothing epically heroic about him.

[Suzy Quzy]

All this Destruction just to win an Election!!! Imagine what Hillary will do....she will ruin anyone and everyone in her way......she would destroy Laura Bush if she got in her way.

[70times7]

I notice that with the exception of one physics professor and two math professors, these 88 idiots are liberal arts professors. Go figure!

At least part of any settlement from Duke should have come out of their pay. They also should have been forced to take out a prominent full page add of apology to those they smeared in the original add.