04 April 2006

Duke's Devils Rape the Truth

Does a Black college student working as an exotic dancer in North Carolina have human rights? Can her occupation or her race lead to the implicitly revokation those rights, make her a 'ho' (as fascist blowhard Rush Limbaugh has said), and validate whatever abuse and indignity Vanilla Sam arbitrarily chooses to impress upon her?

Can white students with a sordid history of obnoxious behavior on a lily-white university campus get away with forcing an innocent woman into their bathroom, vilifying her with racial epithets, gang raping her, and then stealing her money?

This question has profound relevance, since this precise scenario unfolded recently at Duke University.

In light of a significant paper trail, important questions now confront the Pigs and administrators who oversee public safety at Duke University. They must now determine whether Duke's lacrosse team will parlay their White Privilege into a blank check to rape a Black woman without consequence.

Rather than openly acknowledge the attack and suspend the lacrosse team immediately, the university stonewalled for nearly two weeks, reporting the news just days after their basketball team lost in the NCAA tournament.

Pure coincidence, of course.

Based on the administration's behavior, we can infer that they will respond by defending the rapists as long as they can. Still, neither the university nor the Pigs can ignore details or evidence in this case that remains largely unchallenged. In her complaint, the victim explained in grueling detail how the assault unfolded.
Two males, Adam and Matt pulled her into the bathroom. Someone closed the door to the bathroom where she was, and said, "sweetheart you can't leave." The victim stated she tried to leave and the three males (Adam, Bret, and Matt) forcefully held her legs and arms and sexually assaulted her anally, vaginally, and orally. The victim stated she was hit, kicked, and strangled during the assault and she attempted to defend herself but was overpowered.
The New York Times account adds some additional detail:
According to the application for a court order seeking DNA samples from the team, a nurse trained to treat rape victims and a physician who treated the woman said they witnessed symptoms consistent with sexual assault. The document also includes details of a search of the house where the woman said she was raped for about a half-hour.

"The victim's four red polished fingernails were recovered inside the residence consistent to her version of the attack," the police statement said. "She claimed she was clawing at one of the suspect's arms in an attempt to breathe while being strangled. During that time, the nails broke off."

The police officers who searched the house also recovered the woman's makeup bag, her cellphone and a stack of $20 bills consistent with the woman's statement that $400 in cash was taken from her purse after the attack, the police statement said.
As they customarily do in cases involving race and rape, the rapists' lawyers have begun their little shuck'n'jive routine, questioning the veracity of the victim's account and the 911 calls corroborating it, to shift blame from the rapists to the raped.

Given the historical nature of 'The Plantation,' the colloquial name given to Duke University, we should assume that the Pigs, Duke, and the judicial system in North Carolina will invoke White Privilege to protect the rapists. The only hope for justice in the face of withering racism that makes even an open-and-shut case complex, will come from intense, relentless pressure on the rapists and their enablers.