Yesterday, I read the front page story on USA Today on the phenomenon known as “Stop Snitching” which of course, rather stridently urges witnesses to crime to keep their mouths shut. Let me be the first to say that I’m repulsed by this. I understand the disgust at police informants who give to police information (or what the police want to hear) while they can get away with whatever it is that they want, I have no sympathy for the fools that prey on folks in the community. Save your sob story.
Having said that, however, what’s new here, other than the T-shirt and matching cap? It’s not new to neither the mafia nor the police …
…and it’s most certainly NOT a new concept to the Duke University Lacrosse Team.
And isn’t it funny that their likenesses aren’t splashed on the covers of major newspapers?!
The details of this savagery are almost too much for me to type, so I include a link here for a timeline–particularly for those who may not yet be able to handle the details. I honestly feel physically repulsed just by reading them myself.
While I don’t believe the entire team was involved (and in an ironic twist, the lone Black team member is not a suspect), it is clear that a) more than a few of them know what happened and b) they are punks of the lowest order for hiding it.
Now usually, our culture usually loves a story like this. It’s like a good horror movie: we are repulsed by the evil perpetrator who preys on (usually) women who will slip on a tree branch and fall and who face certain gruesome death; then we cheer on the good guys who will slay the evildoer and live happily ever after. This story here, however, is a good bit different. The suspects are white and presumably upper class (the race/class of folks whose morality we are not fixated on…you know, our “betters”). This “damsel in distress” (hey, I hate that term too, but stay with me) is not blonde but rather, African-American and was working as an exotic dancer (you know, the race/gender of folks whose morality we ARE fixated on…you know, who we are superior to). Finally, there were the racial epithets. Don’t ya just HATE those times when you can’t pretend that racism doesn’t exist! Damn!
Outside of ABC, which of course, owns ESPN and therefore finds this too big a story to ignore (who said corporate consolidation wasn’t a good thing?!) this story hasn’t received the saturation coverage of other stories of this type. I wonder why…
So of course, here are all my dumb points and questions–and hell yeah, they are dumb because folks pretend to not know the answer to them, and we all do.
First–and this has always vexed me–what is this pernicious double standard of enjoying an exotic dancer’s work and then cursing her? Curse your own goddamned self. No means no–all the goddamned time. If you hate you, take your violence out on yourself, no one else.
Second–since the thugs in question are white, all of a sudden, everyone starts remembering the Constitution. Isn’t it just funny how when we sympathize with the criminals, everyone starts talking about their rights? Oh, they have rights. They are presumed innocent. Let’s not rush to judgement. And my personal favorite? Oh my gawd, it’s a mob mentality going on down there!, which of course is just too rich, given our lynch-crazy history. While it’s true that they do have legal protections, I don’t hear a mumbling word about not “rushing to judgement” when criminal suspects happen to be African-American. Of course, the rights of the Duke Lacrosse team are sacred because we don’t give a hot damn about the victim who was so viciously brutalized. And why is that?
But hey, these are just “boys”, just “college kids” and we should cut them a break? No. They are criminals and should be treated as such.
So. I want to see justice, and the first step down to this path is to stop acting like this story doesn’t exist. It does. Violence against women and racism is abhorrent and needs to be dealt with. Severely. Stop the BS.
Oh yeah–and the next time I hear someone sniffing about reparations by saying, That was a long time ago–it has nothing to do with the present. I’ll remind them of the comment made that night, “Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt.”
From that telling throwaway line to that awful, savage act, this country’s slavery legacy is not so far in the past, now is it?
There a very good site called Justice 4 Two Sisters which is following the story. I would encourage everyone to link to them.
(Cross-posted at Liberal Street Fighter)
I know we’ve recently shared stories of abuse, but this is really important to talk about. But I have tried not to publish the details and rather provided links for details–just in case it triggers memories, etc. The details weren’t particularly graphic but were physically gut-wrenching for me to read.
I live in Raleigh and it has been all over the news here. The underlying story is that there has always been tension between Duke University and the city of Durham, which has a large black and disadvantaged population.
The News and Observer as well as the news stories all frame it as “exotic dancer claims she was assaulted” which really pisses me off. As if she is an exotic dancer first and foremost and forget the fact that she’s a scared 22 year old young black woman in a room full of drunken white frat boys.
This young woman is a student at NC Central University, an historically black university located near Duke. This incident, and specifically the team’s silence and refusal to cooperate, has magnified racial tensions between the two schools, and between Duke and Durham.
I’m familiar with Durham and NC Central, as I have relatives there. What’s funny to me is that I had no idea how close Duke was to NC Central.
But yeah, I’m absolutely miffed that there isn’t more coverage, and I’m pissed at myself for even including the “exotic” dancer part. She’s a woman and dammit, this was savage.
We have a local story that does not include the race issue – but some other parallels. Do you remember that some Vikings football players had a little “fun” with some women recently on a boat? Well, in court they have all banded together in silence and in this case, none of the women involved are coming forward – they were “paid” for their “favors.” The story broke because some of the boat’s crew members were horrified and talked. But it seems the case is going nowhere because the crew members are having trouble identifying who was involved.
But what really galled me is that, as the court case began, a headline in our local newspaper read something like, “We forgive you as long as you win.” This is ONE of the reasons why, after years of being a most ardent fan, I’ve had to remove myself from participating in the kind of hero worship that leads to this kind of abuse.
I was switching channels and unfortunately settled on Scarborough for a few minutes; long enough to hear defense lawyers for some of the Duke players speculating on a “rape hoax” and assume that’s going to be the new (old) strategy.
This jock culture has long disgusted me. The privilege, the code of honor, the manly guffawing over sexual aggression. I’ve heard the Duke players called “boys” so many times I want to puke.
Or “college kids.”
If they were anyone else, they’d be referred to as perpetrators, suspects, thugs.
But not them. They are boys fer cryin’ out loud and you know–they know not what they do.
Lapse in judgment.
Nothing to see here.
Barf.
This is ONE of the reasons why, after years of being a most ardent fan, I’ve had to remove myself from participating in the kind of hero worship that leads to this kind of abuse.
You know? I mean, they’re just moving a ball down a field, court, around a diamond, etc. At the end of the day, no big deal.
But that, coupled with the Madonna/Whore privilege thing (women are either “good” or “bad” but you get to screw both and “take” what you want from the “bad” girls) is just maddening.
I’d even venture to say that there would be a reticence to cover this story even if the victim was a white sorority woman–because white and presumably upper class boys trumps everything.
We know the wall-to-wall coverage this story would garner if the victim was white (of any class) and the perpetrators black (of any class).
But outside of race or class distinctions is the fact that these asshats committed a brutal act, and they were absolutely brazen about it…which makes me wonder what else they’ve done and gotten away with.
…for Photoshop!
Find the “Stop Snitching” t-shirt and put over those lovely Duke jerseys. Perfect.
But alas, it is beyond my ken.
If someone else here knows how to do that, then please, be my guest!
The defense argument is essentially the “fratboy” defense of “when I was young and foolish, I was young and foolish”. Now when have we heard that one before?
I don’t know about elsewhere, but this is being taken very seriously by the population in Durham.
And what is it about sports teams? A couple of years ago the football players at Methodist College in Fayetteville raped (involuntarialy sodomized) a freshman player with a magic marker. They never faced any criminal offense, but were suspended from school.
The truth of the matter is that these frat boy deserve the same maximum extent of the law penalty that rapists from a different socio-economic group routinely get.
And what is it about sports teams?
If you’re asking seriously rather than rhetorically, you might be interested in a book called The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports by Mariah Burton Nelson. It comes highly recommended by several of the sociologists I know.