Posted on 01/20/2007 2:52:54 AM PST by abb
Tema Okun thinks the Duke players were acting naughty with their drinking at the party. She/he seems unphases by the fact that the false accuser was performing sex acts and dancing nude for money, also drinking and taking drugs. Did her activities make her any better? Like I said once before, Crystal Gail Mangum is far from being pure as the driven snow.
I am struck by the dangerous Groupthink that is so well exposed by this article. The left wing faculty of Colleges of Arts and Sciences across this country are hopelessly infected with it. The parallels with the Nazis are quite disturbing.
Right now, these are just the rantings and ravings of a group of societal losers. However, if they ever rise to power through the Democrat Party, we are all in very serious trouble. They are only a few botched elections away from achieving that goal.
Two or three times a year they call my home and a$k for donations. (I am, shameful to admit, an alumnus).
I wonder what I can say when they call again?
How about: "Put me on your do not call list"?
I am as likely to give money to Planned Parenthood or Hillary Clinton as I am Duke University.
GREAT SUMMATION OF EVENTS.
One of th best and most comprehensive stories I've read on this issue. Nifong's judgement was stunning the flawed from the outset. For a prosecutor he didn't exercise a single ounce of skepticism about his "victim's" story or even attempt to discern the facts before charging. He went straight to a malleable grand jury. His victim's story began changing almost immediately and that should have alerted Nifong to the problem.
"I hope the boy's families end up owning Duke and everything of value within the North Carolina border."
I didn't know John Edwards posted here.
Keeping hope alive.
Marxists are NEVER repentant. That is because the truth of any matter or the consequences of any of their positions are irrelevant; all issues are simply tools to be used in their attempt to gain power.
If classism doesn't work, then racism; if not racism, then sexism; if not sexism, then environmentalism; and on and on. Engender and exploit any differences between people that one can; try to separate society into groups and pit one group against another ("maximize the contradictions") in order to create conditions favorable for the Left to take control.
As with a vampire, to defeat them one must drive a stake through their very heart.
A lot of work went into this & she did a magnificent job of collating all the craziness over the last year & turning it into a coherent indictment of all the guilty participants in the mob-led 'salem witch trial' hysteria this disturbed woman's completely unfounded, wholly untrue & obviously completely concocted accusations generated. Allen's managed to nail just about everybody except possibly the utterly excrable Nancy Grace of CNN.
Allen's certainly correct in this: while a clearly crooked NC DA abused the power of his office to serve his own thoroughly corrupted political ambitions, he could never have committed this frightening miscarriage of justice and the deliberate oppression of those students' civil rights without the help of a lot of corrupt people elsewhere including many of the now thoroughly discredited legal analysts put forth as 'experts' by the US media, but more importantly, the (also now thoroughly discredited) members of Durham's faculty & administration whose own 'meta-narratives' have culminated in them being hoisted by their own tattered postmodern petards here.
Bravissima! Somebody give this girl a raise!
Use it as an opportunity to let them know that you will NOT be giving again until, they clean up their act.
Chat them up - even though it's just a phone-center collection guy, they will pass the message upstairs.
Wow. This is real dime store heaving breasts bodice buster stuff.
That's what I was thinking also. Some of these people have serious issues and maybe they should be seeking mental counseling and therapy. Maybe it would help if they get a job and work for a living.
Sorry but early early on Nifong knew what this was. He had enough skepticism about Mangum's story that he refused to hear exculpatory evidence thinking that would help him technically avoid violating one NC Bar cannon of ethics and then went to a Grand Jury so it was them not Nifong technically doing the charging. He knew what he had, a ticket to election. He was not going to let the facts get in the way of his election.
The sorry Duke farce should make it plain that leftist "thought" should be outlawed on campi across the country. Undoubtedly the great majority of leftist profs, that is most professors, in the U.S. agreed with the original charge and were salivating awaiting the certain conviction of the Duke lacrosse players. Imagine their disappointment at the final result. After this no one should take leftists seriously anymore. But we don't live in a sane society anymore. Those eightyeight profs who signed that statement should be severely punished for their part. But I'll bet nothing will happen to them.
I'd agree with you if he was willing to nolle prosequi this thing once the election was behind him. But he has hung in here with this case well beyond any political advantage and well into professional disaster. Nifong has gone nuts apparently. Much like the Boulder DA ( Who I can't believe still has a job.) If this were entirely motivated by poltics he would have polygraphed the accuser the day after the election and elicited the discrepancies in her story then and then chucked the case.
Frankly I don't think Nifong is a malicious as he'd stunningly stupid.
Holloway's sweet boy of a son: http://www.doc.state.nc.us/NEWS/1999/99releases/odomesca.htm
I wonder if Bem Holloway's co-scum is any relation to Irving Joyner?
http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/534131.html
I was not surprised to see Tema Okun speak out about unequal justice. I looked up Ms. Okun months ago because she is an active member and organizer of the potbangers at UBUNTU.
http://iambecauseweare.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/we-wont-believe-the-hype-by-bryan-proffitt/
"This essay could not exist without survivors, fighters, and lovers. It was shaped and reworked and made infinitely better by the thoughtful support and critical editing of Nancy Wilson, Tema Okun, Aiden Graham, Serena Sebring, Bob Pleasants, Michelle Lanier, Precious-Jewel Zebriskie, and Manju Rajendran."
From the ground in Durham, NC–an essay on the ongoing struggle to end sexual violence. Please circulate.
Won’t Believe the Hype
by Bryan Proffitt
The following essay is about the ongoing struggle against sexual violence, especially in the context of the last year’s events in Durham, NC. Readers should know that it could trigger difficult emotional responses among survivors and those folks close to survivors.
It’s been a dizzying couple of weeks here in Durham. Rape charges dropped against the lacrosse players. Another survivor’s life poked and prodded by a public that has little interest in her health or happiness. District Attorney Nifong’s scandal. Finnerty and Seligmann invited back to Duke in “good standing.” Survivors of sexual violence re-traumatized by public attacks and re-assertions of one myth about rape after another.
Those of us living here, and those of us struggling to end violence: we’ve been busy. Many of us are survivors and supporters of survivors, and this has been the perfect recipe for a few weeks of nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, and despair. We’ve been working to heal ourselves and each other, and building strength and strategy for the fight ahead.
In the media frenzy of this case, the lack of instant response has led many to believe we’ve gone away. Not the case. Our timetable is different. Our work is not the work of headlines and sound bytes. We have not gone anywhere.
Be assured. We will continue to fight until the violence ends.
We know that there are people across the country looking for a grounds-eye perspective on this one. Others are better equipped to come with legal analysis and media strategy, but for those of us focused on the long-term struggle to end sexual violence, here’s some thoughts. Please share them with others and take action in your own communities.
1) Sexual violence happens every day. We knew this when the charges first became public; we know it today; we’ll know it until the day it stops. In building a survivor-centered response, this has been our emphasis from the start. We know that anywhere from 1 in 3 to 1 in 8 women will experience sexual assault in the U.S. in her lifetime. Countless men, children, and people who live outside the gender binary are subject to this same plague. It is vital to fight against ALL sexual violence until the day it no longer happens. A crucial part of this fight is believing those who bravely step forward, every single time. This is the first step.
2) It is more likely to happen to people who are more socially, politically, and economically vulnerable. It’s no accident that sexual violence occurs most commonly among women and children. It is a tool to control, humiliate, and batter the bodies and souls of those deemed less-than-human by our society. People of color, prisoners, transgender people, sex workers…anyone historically denied respect, less likely to find sustainable employment, less connected to institutions of power (schools, government, the military, corporations, etc.) is at a greater risk. Every day.
The fact that the survivor in this case is working class and Black has everything to do with the reality of how this case has unfolded. From the lacrosse team’s request for a Black dancer, to the racist attacks heaped on her as she left the party, to the police officer who assumed she was drunk rather than in need of help, her race mattered that night in March. It has mattered since. She has been disbelieved, denigrated, spoken for, spoken about, and stripped of her agency; all without the privileges of whiteness to shield her.
3) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is real. Imagine the survivor of a traumatic car accident being asked for a second-by-second detailed account of a crash in which she lost a leg and watched her child die. Would we expect that she would tell same exact story twice? Would we call her a liar when it inevitably changed, as certain details became clearer while others clouded?
Anyone who has experienced trauma is going to suffer long-term consequences. Add alcohol or drugs, a disorienting situation, the stress of your trauma’s publicity, threats against your family, and your life’s story splashed across every television in the country the way this survivor’s has; most of us who are close to, or are, survivors were not surprised when the story changes multiple times. We know that it is a reality of survival of any traumatic situation.
4) The judicial system is an unlikely source for justice in the case of sexual violence. In five minutes the other day, I counted in my head the names of over 20 people I know who have survived sexual violence and not reported it. This is the case for the strong majority of survivors. Factor in those who go to the police and are not believed, and those who are believed, have charges pressed, and see them beat or dismissed in a trial or investigation: now you have the typical story of almost all survivors. After all of that, it’s not hard to doubt the legal process.
Further, once a case goes to trial, as we have seen, a person’s life becomes public property. Names, reputations, and lives are dragged through the mud as the defense works for a not-guilty charge, whether or not their client is innocent.
It is hard to believe that someone would make up a story, subject themselves to such scrutiny, only to face tiny odds of legal “success.” I can’t think of a single decision I’ve regretted enough to go through all of that for. For every hyper-publicized account of a false story, there are millions of survivors who never see justice in the courts. Success in a court will never guide my decision to believe.
5) The judicial system is an unlikely source for justice part II. The court systems in this country were created to serve the interests of wealthy white men. They have proven this time and again by denying American Indian land rights, disproportionately sentencing Black men to prison, and claiming that women cannot withdraw consent once it has already been given (see the recent case of Baby v Maryland), among other daily atrocities. The lacrosse players posted bail over $300,000, hired superpower attorneys, and relied on this system to do what it does best, protect their interests. I don’t believe that this is because of malicious bigotry, just a 200-plus-year-old system doing what it is supposed to do.
Most of us never expected that the court case would go far, and we won’t be surprised if ALL the charges are dropped. For us, the successful prosecution of rape charges and a rape actually occurring are two phenomena so different, they’re hardly on the same planet. When a Black woman is involved, historical precedence says that they’re not in the same universe. For centuries, Black women were considered “un-rape-able.” Same system, different case.
6) The judicial system is an unlikely source for justice part III. What justice can the court do here? If imprisoned, these men are at a greater risk of violence at the hands of guards and/or other prisoners than that of women on the outside. For those of us who want sexual violence to end, this is not the answer. Prisons are not around to keep crime from happening, nor “reform” those who have committed it. They are another way for us to legitimize violence and pretend that our problems are solved, when they have merely been relocated.
We must begin to imagine alternatives for real accountability. Throughout the world, survivors are leading community responses that challenge instances of sexual violence, hold people who commit violence accountable, and work to prevent it from ever happening; all without resorting to the violence of prisons.
7) Sex workers are human beings. I’ll say that again: sex workers are human beings. They are not any number of the dehumanizing names I’ve heard tossed about since last March. They are people who have responded to the wretched lack of options that capitalism presents them by taking advantage of one of the few avenues that may allow them survival, material gain, or happiness. One’s means of making a living, regardless of its social “legitimacy,” ought to have little to do with whether or not one is safe from sexual assault.
Many people who disbelieved this survivor’s story from the start did so because of her occupation. It meant, to them, that “she deserved it,” or that “she was asking for it.” No one makes similar comments when a construction worker is hurt in an accident or a police officer is shot on the beat. Sex workers, like Black women and other women of color, are often considered “un-rape-able.” A Black sex worker has a double burden here.
Similarly, many who believed her story did so despite her occupation. They pitied her and prayed for her. They still missed the point. There isn’t anything that a person could do, including taking off her clothes and dancing for people, operating a phone sex hotline, or actually exchanging money for intercourse, that would justify violence or any sexual act against her will.
By denigrating and denying the humanity of sex workers, we simply open the door for more violence.
Men find solidarity in violence. The day after the charge was dropped, I was listening to the radio. The DJ asked for women to call the show because all of the men “know what’s going on. She’s lying, lying, lying.” It could have been Bill O’Reilly or Bill Bellamy: across racial lines men have a perception that we are under attack by vicious rape-charging women. In close to 100 workshops I’ve run with men as an activist/organizer against sexual violence over the last 5 years, I don’t think I’ve ever facilitated one and not been confronted with this myth. Over and over again, we are willing to deny the reality of every fourth woman we know and take the side of a man we’ve never met.
Maybe we don’t want anyone to know what we, and our friends, have participated in.
9) White people find solidarity in violence. At the beginning, we heard, “they couldn’t have done it,” as though good-looking, well-educated, well-mannered white men haven’t been responsible for some of the most monstrous acts of inhumanity ever perpetrated. Then it was the “Innocent” wristbands around town, and the Duke Lacrosse shirts in the store at the airport. Now it’s, “look, the legal system is going to work this one out. We’ll find out the truth, and you all should apologize if you were wrong.”
Few of these people actually know these young men. Even fewer were in the house on the night in question. I’m quite certain these assumptions of innocence and/or faith in the court system to serve justice have at least a little bit to do with the guys that we’re dealing with here. These are our sons here, the all-Americans.
The history of white men’s sexual violence against Black women in the U.S. is well-documented. I’m not prepared to assume innocence because of these men’s whiteness.
10) These men’s lives are not ruined. I don’t envy them, whatever the results are. There will be rough times, prejudicial treatment, and a lost opportunity here and there. If they are, in fact, innocent, this is a travesty.
Their lives, however, are not ruined. Their position in society is allowing them the best defense money can buy. Duke has issued them an invitation for readmission in “good standing.” They will graduate from one of the top schools in the country (Duke or another) and immediately access the network of power and privilege that has brought them safely to this point. Given what’s been said about them in the media, they are likely to be held up as martyrs; heroes who nobly and stoically suffered a horrible injustice.
Having one’s life ruined looks a bit more like perpetual anxiety, nightmares and an inability to sleep; a disconnection from healthy sexuality; a lifetime of therapy, medical bills, and drugs to avoid mental hospitals; stays in mental hospitals; physical wounds that never heal; depression, alcoholism and drug abuse; eating disorders; suicide. Or simply having your life’s plans and daily activities controlled by the constant threat of the reoccurrence of violence. These are the realities of survivors that I have known.
Know that we haven’t gone anywhere. We aren’t going away because these charges have been dropped. We are healing ourselves and each other, and steeling ourselves for the fight ahead. We recognize that alliances will come and go and those responding to the bright lights of controversy will fade when the lights do; but we’ll be here. We will believe. We will struggle until sexual violence no longer exists. We will create a new world.
Bryan Proffitt is a Hip-Hop generation white man who belongs to Men Against Rape Culture (MARC), a Durham, NC-based organization committed to building the struggle to end sexual violence, and Ubuntu, a women of color and survivor led coalition committed to ending sexual violence. He can be reached at bproffitt33@yahoo.com. This essay could not exist without survivors, fighters, and lovers. It was shaped and reworked and made infinitely better by the thoughtful support and critical editing of Nancy Wilson, Tema Okun, Aiden Graham, Serena Sebring, Bob Pleasants, Michelle Lanier, Precious-Jewel Zebriskie, and Manju Rajendran.
http://www.masada2000.org/list-NOP.html
Okun, Tema (Tom Stern's "roomie")
Tema Okun (no "t" at the end of "Okun") teaches at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina in their Justice and Policy Studies Department. She is also one of the organizers and speaker for Jews for a Just Peace-North Carolina. She is also a member of the National Lawyers Guild which embraces every anti-America, anti-capitalist, anti-war, pro-Arab, anti-Israel, and so-called "anti-imperialist" cause in vogue among the far left. It has organized junkets to Israel/"Palestine" as a show of solidarity with Arabs. The National Lawyers Guild, not content to merely express "solidarity" with terrorists abroad, works to make the U.S. a safer place for terrorists. The Guild uniformly opposes anti-terrorism measures and laws, yet supports those who have engaged in terrorist or anti-law enforcement acts, including cop-killer Mumia Abu-JamalIt has also been at the forefront of American organizations that have denounced Israel's supposed repression of the Palestinian people.
Okun recently signed a one-sided petition for "U.S. Jewish Solidarity with Muslim and Arab Peoples of the Middle East"... which was nothing less than a full-fledged "mugging" of Israel!
http://www.pubpol.duke.edu/centers/hlp/about/faculty/okun-tema/index.html (photo at this link)
Tema Okun
Duke University, Hart Leadership Program, Faculty/Staff
Visiting Lecturer, Public Policy Studies
Tema Okun has worked with community-based non-profits for over 20 years. Her work as a staffer for the Rural Advancement Fund, the Carolina Community Project, Grassroots Leadership, and the Institute for Southern Studies has formed the core of her organizational experience, where she has served in such varied roles as development director, training director, and interim executive director.
Tema has worked with literally hundreds of organizations on organizational development issues including fundraising, long-range strategic planning, member and board development, issue and organizing campaigns. She has extensive development experience helping non-profits establish successful donor campaigns. She served on the fundraising staff for Harvey Gantt’s 1990 Senate campaign against long-time incumbent Jesse Helms, where she was responsible for coordinating major donor efforts. With James Williams, she helped to develop Grassroots Leadership’s Barriers and Bridges program, which worked with organizations over a three-year period to address race, class, gender, sexual identity and other issues impeding effectiveness.
For the past 12 years, Tema has partnered with Kenneth Jones and other skilled trainers at ChangeWork, a not for profit training collaborative, to facilitate a Dismantling Racism process designed to help organizations and communities effectively address racism and other oppression issues.
Tema has a B.A. from Oberlin College, Ohio (1975) and an M.S. in Adult Education from N.C. State University (1997). She also teaches at Guilford College in Greensboro in their Justice and Policy Studies Department.
Yawn, here we go again.
Psst: these people think they are working for a living. Certainly they comprehend they put in orts for a paycheck.
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