Point/Counterpoint: A gross overreaction
Brad DeFlumeri. He is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at bdeflume@student.umass.edu.
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Editorial / Opinion
Imagine this scenario for a second: three upper-class black college students are falsely accused of a heinous crime. Despite an overwhelming preponderance of evidence indicating their innocence, local prosecutors make no effort to see the facts in the case. Instead, they simply treat the case as closed and the pending imprisonment of the alleged perpetrators as inevitable and necessary. Media outlets and public opinion uniformly condemn the alleged assailants without affording them due process of law or a trial by jury; the alleged criminals, heretofore without criminal records, are left with their reputations in irredeemable pieces and are made national pariahs well before the judicial process has run its course.
However, when the truth is finally revealed, and the testimony of the three young black men is vindicated by the evidentiary facts and by the renunciation of the accuser's own accusations, there is still no outrage over the pervasive injustices that had just occurred. There is no legal defense fund established in the name of the falsely accused black men, and they are not portrayed as national heroes, cultural martyrs, or symbols of a racial divide.
On the contrary, they are still looked at with contempt and scorn because of their upper-class standing and privileged upbringing, and their accuser, far-from being labeled the liar and fraud that she was revealed to be, is coddled by the press and not prosecuted for systematically lying in an attempt to extort money from those she falsely accused.
So, does this scenario sound at all familiar? Probably not, because the three Duke Lacrosse players who were vilified last spring while being falsely accused of rape by a stripper were white, and not black. As a result, there was no national outrage over a purported miscarriage of justice, activist college students did not rally in the name of the "Duke 3," and, thankfully, those selfless champions of civil rights Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton - the dumb and dumber of the black victimhood movement - did not make the case their raison d'etre. There is not a direct parallel between the facts and the circumstances of the Duke Rape Case and the Jena 6 ordeal that this campus cares so much about, but what laborious examination of the two cases reveals is the ever-widening racially motivated double standard with which the liberal media and, in turn, society at-large view victims of institutional injustice.
However, when the truth is finally revealed, and the testimony of the three young black men is vindicated by the evidentiary facts and by the renunciation of the accuser's own accusations, there is still no outrage over the pervasive injustices that had just occurred. There is no legal defense fund established in the name of the falsely accused black men, and they are not portrayed as national heroes, cultural martyrs, or symbols of a racial divide.
On the contrary, they are still looked at with contempt and scorn because of their upper-class standing and privileged upbringing, and their accuser, far-from being labeled the liar and fraud that she was revealed to be, is coddled by the press and not prosecuted for systematically lying in an attempt to extort money from those she falsely accused.
So, does this scenario sound at all familiar? Probably not, because the three Duke Lacrosse players who were vilified last spring while being falsely accused of rape by a stripper were white, and not black. As a result, there was no national outrage over a purported miscarriage of justice, activist college students did not rally in the name of the "Duke 3," and, thankfully, those selfless champions of civil rights Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton - the dumb and dumber of the black victimhood movement - did not make the case their raison d'etre. There is not a direct parallel between the facts and the circumstances of the Duke Rape Case and the Jena 6 ordeal that this campus cares so much about, but what laborious examination of the two cases reveals is the ever-widening racially motivated double standard with which the liberal media and, in turn, society at-large view victims of institutional injustice.
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bsintempe@aol.com
posted 10/06/07 @ 12:39 PM EST
You really do make a good point. The upper class in this country are treated badly. Perhaps a new Civil Rights movement for the rich is in order. (sarcasm present in case you can't tell)
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