Now for something more serious...

I'm really not happy with my Alma Mater right now. Not a proud Blue Devil. This is the reason:
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/423471.html

For those who don't want to read the link, it is the story of an exotic dancer who was sexually assulted at an off-campus party at the home of Duke Lacrosse players.

This took place a couple of blocks from the house where I lived Junior and Senior years at Duke. I participated in Take Back the Night rallies at Duke, but I can't imagine how tense this year's rally was after this with this going on!

When I attended Duke, over ten years ago (gosh, has it already been that long?), things were pretty much the same as they are now -- strained relationships with the town of Durham and its residents. Though my friends and I lived off campus and were much more involved in town life than most of our on-campus classmates, we were still part of the "Gothic Wonderland," a world closed off to the poorer residents of Durham.

The fact that the athletes accused of this heinous crime are white, rich, priveledged Dukies will do nothing to improve Duke/Durham relations, unfortunately. And while many at Duke are claiming they're not racist, sexist pigs, unfortunately this situation does not back up their claims.


My friend pointed out an article in the New York Times the other day about the Duke Women's Basketball team. The article said it was a shame these women were not commenting on the lacrosse team rape. Though, as my friend pointed out, the women on the basketball team had probably never met the men's lacrosse team players and were trying to focus on their tournament -- they played the National Championship game Tuesday night. Why should these women, who have worked so hard for this, have to concern themselves with the horrible actions of the lacrosse team?

As I've taken over a day to write this post, some new issues have come up.

One: Another friend from Duke emailed about Duke's President Brodhead claiming a few days ago that this was the result of off-campus partying/drinking. As my friend said, "If you're a good person, you are not going to rape a woman when you're drunk. " I can see that to some extent. But obviously in this case, drinking didn't help the situation.

Two: This is just disgusting! The latest:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-Duke-Lacrosse-Investigation.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0405061duke9.html

Sick, sick, sick!

What's worse is the lawyer talk from two of the lawyers representing lacrosse team players:

''While the language of the e-mail is vile, the e-mail itself is perfectly consistent with the boys' unequivocal assertion that no sexual assault took place that evening,'' said attorney Robert Ekstrand. The e-mail ''demonstrates that its writer is completely unaware that any act or event remotely similar to what has been alleged ever occurred.''

and

"This e-mail, while the wording of it is, at best, unfortunate, if you read this e-mail and you also are aware of other e-mails that exist contemporaneous with these events, it's quite clear that no rape happened in that house," Cheshire said. "These boys were frustrated because they, as is already been reported, they thought these women had come and taken a bunch of money and started dancing and just decided to leave."

Oh, so since he's writing about skinning strippers alive and finding this sexually gratifying, that means that an assult couldn't have already happened. Yeah, sure. He and his teammates seem like standup members of the community. Those poor boys. They didn't get a full show because they were threatening to assault the women they paid to dance. Blech. I'm off to vomit now.