Double Standards in the Media
I’m sitting here reading this story about a Black female exotic dancer who was gang raped. Now this rape didn’t occur in some seedy motel by a bunch of clients she picked up on the street or something, it occurred at Duke University. No that wasn’t a typo, I said Duke University. This violent act was perpetrated by members of the Duke lacrosse team. To be exact, the incident occurred at a house right outside of the university grounds which is rented by the captains on the lacrosse team. But the actual location of the house shouldn’t matter here. Now these gentlemen (and I use that term very loosely) decided that wanted to have a little bit of fun one night about two weeks ago. They hired two ladies for some nighttime entertainment. The two ladies who arrived to show them a good time happened to be Black. They arrived at the house thinking that they were performing for 5 guys and all of a sudden mayhem breaks out where dozens of players were present. These ladies were accosted by these cowards. They were met with racial slurs and physically harmed.
One of the young ladies was held down, beaten, choked, raped and sodomized. The police reports say that in the house they found her fingernails, her make-up bag and her cellphone. This is certainly the customary items a woman leaves behind after entertaining a group of athletes right? It’s typical for a white guy to holler out "Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt" while getting a lapdance from a Black woman right? Of course it isn’t. Now it seems to me that this story should be all over the news. I mean, when a Black athlete gets caught speeding on the freeway on the way home from the club we hear about it first thing on ESPN right? Let’s see, I think we could talk about the small discretions of Black athletes that make the headlines or the front pages of the newspaper quite often. Let’s just imagine that this assault took place at a predominately Black university and the victims were white, this would’ve been front page national news. We’d be inundated with stories from Dateline, 60 Minutes or Primetime with exclusives as to how and when this incident occurred. They’d be interviewing the neighbors in the community talking about how outraged they are. It seems to me that this story has remained local to the North Carolina area. Their media is covering the story completely, but what about the rest of the nation. You can’t tell me that this isn’t newsworthy. It sure is newsworthy to African-Americans.
Okay, so this young lady was an exotic dancer, did she deserve to be raped? She is a student at North Carolina Central University, has two children and is trying to provide for them and pay for school. It may not what you consider the greatest way to pay the bills, but that’s not the issue here. I don’t know whether I’m more outraged about the incident itself or the lack of coverage in the media. This was a sick and disgusting act committed by members of Duke’s lacrosse team and it’s 5th page news. Seems kind of ironic that I go to the Duke University website and click the link for their lacrosse team -Duke Lacrosse Team and the roster and photos have been deleted. Coincidence??? I think not. The student athletes have not been cooperative with the police and the university punished them by forfeiting games. Hmmm… that sounds like a suitable punishment don’t you think? These guys should be arrested immediately for not stopping the brutal attack. Justice needs to be swift and severe in this case.
I've included links to the story from The News & Observer. This newspaper serves the cities of Raleigh, Durham, Cary & Chapel Hill in the state of North Carolina.
-Dancer gives details of ordeal
-Team's silence is sickening
-DNA tests ordered for Duke athletes
-Rally calls for action at Duke
-Lacrosse team forfeits games
-15 players had prior charges
posted by G. Mo at 3/28/2006 12:36:00 PM
11 Comments:
I think it's too early to judge the national media reaction. It was mentioned in the first 5 minutes of the 11 o'clock news last night in the Boston area, and it's the second story on radio news this morning. Check the network evening news this evening and see where it plays.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/ESPNSports/story?id=1770656&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
Here's the ABC News link dated two days before you wrote this blog post. ESPN had this story on SportsCenter a day before you wrote this blog post. And this story was in my local paper in MN the day you wrote this blog post. It's too bad Disney owned media companies don't broadcast in Chocolate City. Maybe you should think about getting satellite?
I have a 'spin-off' blog "Justice4TwoSisters" http://justice4twosisters.blogspot.com that I created to serve as a watchdog on this case to ensure justice is served to these two sisters. Appreciate a link if you can spare the space in your template....my personal blog where I started posting about this is http://underthedryer.blogspot.com
Peace, song4assata
It's admittedly not everyone, but my blog has posted not only the names but also the pictures and names of the parents of all of the Long Island players (15 members of the total team, 2 of whom are team captains). You can see it here http://www.through-a-glass-darkly.blog-city.com/wake_up_parents_our_kids_are_twisted_and_sick_and_our_money_.htm.
I included a new post today about how this has turned into the "perfect storm" of a scandal which you can find here http://www.through-a-glass-darkly.blog-city.com/duke_lacrosse_players_creating_perfect_storm_scandal_david_w.htm.
I can't wait to see what my cousin (Wilbon) has to say about this.
As a former reporter for a weekly and a daily I am disgusted by the veil of secrecy.
This is a systemic problem, as I have illustrated with the NAACP, whom I have personally challenged to get in there and get their hands dirty, actually stand up instead of selling out, as they so often do:
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2006/03/king-warns-naacp-investigate-duke-rape.html
http://christopher-king.blogspot.com/2006/03/naacps-timmons-and-american-towers.html
No Justice, No Peace.
Thanks for posting on this - spreading the word.
I was very disturbed to hear that a few residents of the black community felt like the women put herself in that position. Which tells me a lot about how we view each other nowadays. In no way possible is being raped O-K. I wouldn't care if the girl was a street walker, dancer, stripper, baby-sitter, etc...No one deserves to be sexually assaulted against their will. Also if the situation was in reverse and the women happened to be "white" and the athletes "black"...There would be non-stop 24 hour coverage of this. Plus they would ALL be in some holding cell getting interrogated immensely until someone confessed. This issue has made the public aware of the elitism, racism, and privilege (men athletes) that go on at almost all elite universities in the country. I hope this at least raises an awareness to help eliminate this from happening again. But for some reason I know it will…happen AGAIN!
To Outspoken Matrix:
If the victim was white, those same black people would be having all sorts of sympathy and sorrow for the victim! They are probably the same people who think booty shaking and coochie poppin in the videos is A-OK! They probably think it's cute when the little girls in their family drop it like it's hot at the family BBQ! Ignore those fools!
Thanks for your comments, I certainly agree with them. While I most definatly dont go around making racial accusations, anybody with a brain can see that this is a clear hate crime. The victims and numerous witnesses reported racial slurs. I just want to say that the victim (as with anyone who is a victim of a crime) is very couragous and I hope that she doesnt let the racist or the media attention deter her from seeking justice. As for the morons who feel that her job caused her to get raped, GET REAL. Noone and I mean NOONE deserves to be violated in such a vile and horrible way. The victim seems like a respectable citizen who was just trying to make it in this world just like everyone else. It is time for Black America to WAKE UP and to stop these horrible exploitation of our beautiful black sisters. It has been going on for such a long time and it has to stop. The vile and disgusting rap videos, the way we talk to our beautiful black sisters, the way (some) black men just disrepect themselves and their race by dating white women while looking down upon Black women. Mainstream White America has treated our precious black jewels horrible for so long and we continue to do it to ourselves. WAKE UP BLACK AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh yeah, this jewel was the victim of a hate crime, right. Sounds like she had a great time before she even got to the Duke lacrosse team bash. She had enough semen in her to float a boat and from half a dozen different guys!
And what would any normal woman do that was just tramatized by being raped??? She'd go out and get pregnant, right?
Just curious what people here think of their precious jewel now that Crystal Gail Mangum has been exposed as an ex-con and a liar of the worst type. Her actions were unconsionable. I have been in the feminist movement for over 25 years and, I'm sorry, being female is not a free ticket to put forth false allegations of a criminal nature and then then mount a defense that she couldn't help herself because she was that most helpless of creatures, "just a woman." She's a grown woman and should be held accountable.
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