The dry rot of victimhood politics!
The ever brilliant Thomas Sowell hits the nail on the head with his observations regarding last year's "rape" case against Duke University lacrosse players, and the as of yet unfinished business surrounding the entire spectacle:
There is not the slightest reason to believe that Nifong was deceived or mistaken. He was not some kid fresh out of law school. He had decades of experience as a prosecutor. He knew exactly what he was doing.Dry rot! What an absolutely perfect term for the race, class, and gender victimhood personalities that made up the lynch mob promoting this sham. The thing is about dry rot, you don't realize the extent of the damage until you start pushing back to expose the weaknesses it has caused. We all need to work to expose this affliction plaguing our national house, or the house is lost.Nor was the New York Times a naive ingenue in these matters. It had backed Al Sharpton's fraudulent accusations of rape in the Tawana Brawley case, which had the same politically correct elements of a black woman accusing white men of rape.
Nor were the 88 Duke faculty members who promoted a lynch mob atmosphere naive. Most were from departments promoting the "race, class, and gender" vision of victimhood.
This case served their purposes. That trumped any question about whether the charges were true or not.
Don't expect any of these people to recant or apologize. But be aware of how wide and how deep the moral dry rot goes.
Comments
Dr. Sowell is consistently great.
He has a genius for framing the argument in a memorable way.
To me, Nifong was the PRIMARY villain in this case, a man who took the charges of an emotionally disturbed woman involved in a monetary dispute, charges the police doubted, due to her various versions of events, and ran with those charges seeing a chance to exploit racial animus for personal gain.
Nifong deserves to be imprisoned.
The NY Times which has already said it feels it covered the story appropriately and the "Gang of 88" are both unchastened - idealogues rarely are.
The Duke Hoax reminds me a lot of the 2004 FDNY Bronx Firehouse Sexcapade, where another emotionally disturbed woman involved in a monetary dispute (apparently demanding cab far back to Staten Island from the Bronx, abt $40) first charged that she was raped in that firehouse.
The rape charge fell apart that very morning thanks to (1) a professional police force that got to the bottom of her story pronto and (2) the lack of an over-zealous prosecutor.
Of course, the faux rape charge DID bring to light the inappropriate actions and poor judgment of those three firefighters, all of whom were subsequently fired for numerous procedural violations, including violation of their "oath of office."
Ironically, they could have avoided that disaster by merely "bucking up" (about $10 a piece).
The Duke players also showed poor judgment BUT they were twenty year old College kids. Yes, they could've avoided the entire affair by also "bucking up," but unlike the firefighters in the Bronx, they hadn't done anything illegal and the women they hired did not fulfill their contractual obligations for the money they demanded.
I bet they wish they'd avoided this circus and I'm sure Duke University, which settled with each of the families for estimated seven figure sums, wishes it had never been involved in this ordeal.
At least Nifong seems to be finally getting some of what he deserves.
Posted by: JMK | June 22, 2007 12:03 PM