Duke Is An Exception

12:17 am EST September 21st, 2007 | News | 6 Comments

I was trying to think about why I’ve been bothered by the constant focus, especially among some conservatives, on the Duke rape case and its aftermath. There’s no doubt that Mike Nifong is an idiot of the highest order who screwed up those student’s lives considerably and he should be strongly punished. But isn’t the whole reason why Duke is notable the fact that it’s an outlier? We don’t have a very long tradition of middle to upper class white males being victimized by the justice system. When it does come to light it does so largely because of its rarity.

But on the other hand, prosecutorial misconduct versus minorities, especially black men, is not out of the ordinary. Certainly there have been vast improvements in the last 50 years, but we still live in a nation where all too often black men are attacked like the Duke lacrosse players were, but they usually don’t have the resources to fight the injustice (not to mention those of us who have never gotten so much as a traffic ticket but are constantly viewed with suspicion simply due to skin color).

I’m sure somebody will take this the wrong way and somehow say that I was arguing against the Duke team, but I specifically didn’t write much about it because the case smelled bad from a week or so in. My only objection at the time was to the media calling the accused “boys” when I don’t think they would have done it for a group of young men who were black.

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6 Responses to “Duke Is An Exception”

  1. jerry says:
    September 21, 2007 at 12:54 am

    The “boys” bothered me as well. The taser jackass shouldn’t have been tasered, but I am also bothered by people calling him “kid.” Kids are either under 16, look like a goat, or are Robert Redford.

    While we We don’t have a very long tradition of middle to upper class white males being victimized by the justice system., I do think we have a 30 year tradition, if not longer, of victimizing males regardless of race by the justice system, especially when it comes to child custody, domestic violence, false allegations of rape, and sexual harassment.

    Various feminist and other so called liberal bloggers (Amanda Marcotte, and I believe even Scott Lemieux) long claimed that Duke was an exception to push their agenda that in actuality what Duke shows was that false allegations are rare, that men can get away with rape and even that these students lives were not ruined by what they went through.

    I think what Duke shows is how corrupt prosecutors can be for all sorts of reasons. Nifong did this because he wanted to get elected because he wanted a pension. The media did this because they had a hot story. The Duke 88 did this because it fit into their agendas and stereotypes.

    I would never claim that African Americans and other American minorities don’t face a lot of systemic biases on a day to day basis.

    But I don’t think that Duke was such an exception that it means we can treat it as an outlier and ignore it.

    It is indeed sad that it took Duke and the resources of these students and possibly even their skin color to finally break through to some people to show how many prosecutors game the system.

  2. SaveFarris says:
    September 21, 2007 at 9:04 am

    The “boys” bothered me as well.

    I couldn’t agree more.

  3. Potato Salad !!!! says:
    September 21, 2007 at 11:01 am

    You’re ability to contort and compartmentalize you mind, logic, and “thinking” is highly entertaining. Start with the world view and conclusion and back into the argument – a lot like Nifong, actually.

  4. NickT says:
    September 21, 2007 at 11:48 am

    Dude

    Comparing Mychal Bell, a 17 year old thug who after three or four convictions of assault gets tried as an adult to the Duke LaCross team?

    We can argue if Mychal Bell needs to be locked up for 20 years or if we can find a better way to straiten the kid out. The guy had 4 previous strikes. The young man needs to figure out better ways to deal with life than beating on people. He had 4 chances to figure this out, he screwed up why give him 5, because he beat on a white kid?

  5. Quaker in a Basement says:
    September 21, 2007 at 12:54 pm

    Comparing Mychal Bell, a 17 year old thug who after three or four convictions of assault gets tried as an adult to the Duke LaCross team?

    What? Where? Are you seeing some secret version of this post that the rest of us don’t?

  6. Oliver Willis says:
    September 21, 2007 at 7:49 pm

    Needs special glasses. Idiocy-inducing, stupid glasses.