As I’ve watched things appear on Durham-in-Wonderland lately I’ve been thinking that KC Johnson must finally be running out of material. Tonight’s post seemed to be more of the same, another episode in his recent fixation with Wahneema Lubiano, apropos of nothing. But then he totally outdoes himself by tacking on an impressive bit of third-hand scurrilous gossip.
It comes by way of Bill Anderson, based on “a conversation with a prominent Duke faculty member the other day.” According to Anderson this source heard Karla Holloway express a continued belief in the guilt of the three indicted lacrosse players, and she supposedly followed the claim up with some nonsense about “guilt as a social construct.” A long time ago I wrote that criticism flowed in and out of DIW like gossip, but this is ridiculous.
[Update: I’ve just received an email from Karla Holloway. In it, she says that Anderson’s claim is “an absolute and patent falsehood,” that he’s “reporting a conversation that could never have taken place” and that it “misrepresents [her] views.”]
It isn’t the first time that Anderson has claimed to be privy to the inside scoop on Holloway, either. He floated a rumor a couple of years ago (more recently, I’m sorry to say, he slipped it into my blog, too) that she “fixed” a sexual assault charge against a colleague. The two rumors are quite a combo—they make Holloway out to be an ultra dogmatic leftist feminist who’s also an utter hypocrite. Stranger things have happened, so I won’t claim it’s impossible. I don’t find either the new or the old claim to be credible. Even if I did, I can’t imagine why anyone in their right mind would circulate such a story as hearsay.
I’ve had some long go-rounds with Bill Anderson. He can seem like a reasonably intelligent, thoughtful, and even gracious person at times. He’s also capable of passing wild judgments on the people he sees as ideological enemies, and of convincing himself that they’ve thought or said things that he’s in no position to know. The most jaw-dropping example I know of is a wild post on the Liestoppers forum last July, asserting, based on his understanding of the way those kind of people think, that local African American leaders had a supremely callous attitude towards the murder of Eve Carson.
Let us be honest here. There is a portion of Durham—and that includes Irving Joyner—that has an underlying approval for what was done to Eve Carson. I am not saying that Joyner approved of her murder, but he has said nothing that goes to the heart of the situation. He sees himself as a guardian of African-Americans in Durham, and I would not be surprised if he was hoping for an act of jury nullification so Atwater and Lovette could be set free.
Let us not forget that Joyner, McSurely, and the NAACP held that the biggest threat to Durham was the Duke lacrosse team. They desperately wanted these young men railroaded to prison, and in their minds, if Lovette and Atwater are acquitted despite the evidence against them, it will be a “fair trade” to the AA community for the lacrosse players not going to prison. Don’t kid yourself; this is how people like Joyner, Barber, and others think.
With respect to the latest claim about Holloway, Anderson assures us that his source “was not exaggerating, and he is an accomplished academic and not given to loose talk.” I don’t find that very reassuring.
ANOTHER UPDATE
There’s an update on KC Johnson’s post that registers the message I got from Karla Holloway. He also left a comment here, proving himself yet again to be a petty demogogue whose answer to any question or criticism is to point at someone else.
He starts the comment with a classic of sleazeball journalism à la O’Reilly—the “invitation” given out to someone whose been trashed, kindly allowing them to explain their side and get trashed some more. Then he takes up two questions I recently posed in a comment on the Duke Chronicle. True to form, he has no real answer to the first one except packages his denial with the non sequitur suggestion that the “Group of 88” did worse things. On the second question, he points to the other guy (formerly the “towering figure”)—it’s his fault.
Q: Did Johnson end our exchange of comments on DIW with a moderator’s veto? A: He doesn’t know He didn’t, “to the best of [his] knowledge,” but never mind that—the Group of 88 hasn’t defended anything they did, and Zimmerman is a public apologist for them.
Q: Why didn’t Johnson engage any critical reflection after Jim Coleman criticized him? A: It was up to Coleman, apparently, to translate the criticism into chapter and verse in DIW or UPI. Since he didn’t “corroborate his claims,” Johnson can do nothing but wonder why on earth would say such things.
Finally, he adds a paragraph about me, the messenger. In the lacrosse case, he says, the DA was trying to “railroad three innocent students at Prof. Zimmerman’s own institution. During the time those students were in harm’s way, Prof. Zimmerman… was silent about their fate, while 88 of his colleagues signed a public statement which… thanked protesters who had presumed the students’ guilt.” A year and a half ago I pointed out his habit of responding to challenges by pulling out that the formulaic indictment of the 88. He’s still at it. In this case it’s pure ad hominem—a lazy and cowardly response that discredits the messenger in order to deflect the message. And it’s especially effective with the thoughtless and bigoted.
Speaking of cowardly, his first order of business in the update on DIW is to pigeonhole me (“Group apologist Robert Zimmerman reports that he has received an email from Karla Holloway….”), but then he doesn’t have the guts to link to my post. It certainly calls for a link, and there’s even some bullshit in his comment here about public service I’m doing by revealing the (fictional) Group’s thinking. It won’t do them any good if they can’t find me.
The comment is down here. [Further comment/clarification from Johnson is here and here. My reply to the last of those sums up this incident of an uncleared comment, as I see it.]
{ 105 } Comments
I posted this on the Duke Chronicle, in the thread responding to an interview with KC Johnson.
Since my name has come up here, I think I’ll claim it before someone else decides to speak for me, though with luck this thread has petered out. I appreciate the plug from RoseMontague—it’s more an invitation than an endorsement, as it should be. As to the answer from nycliberal, anonymous talk is dirt cheap. If you’re going to say I’ve lied, let’s hear what the lies are (and I want to hear about real lies, not wishy-washy opinions about “avoiding the issues” and “lying by omission”). And then go ahead and sign your name to it. You’ll feel better.
I’m not aware of any requests for a debate, so fill me in on that, too. The one time Johnson and I came closest to a debate he used his moderator’s veto at the end. I took that as an invitation to not debate. The idea of him looking for debates strikes me as ironic. Since the beginning, DIW has been about warding off the possibility of meaningful debate—his framing and reading has been narrow and he’s quick to dismiss potential debaters as “Group of 88” apologists or race/class/gender ideologues or some such thing. And then there’s his non-response to the criticism from Jim Coleman and Prasad Kasibhatla, specifically their objection to “the continued drumbeat of destructive criticism” that portrayed “the faculty at Duke and at other universities [as] increasingly a bunch of ideologues who care less about their students and more about promoting their own extremist agendas.” This criticism, “on the basis of isolated and selective incidents that occur over the course of complex events and are taken out of context, is nothing more than a tragic rush to judgment.” So in addition to the narrowness and dismissiveness, he couldn’t even answer straightforward criticism from the man he singled out as the moral and legal beacon of Wonderland. Why would anyone in their right mind waste their time attempting a debate?
I tend to agree that it would have been nice if some more probing questions had been asked. It’s especially unfortunately because, as the relatively placid rhetoric of this interview shows, Johnson is at his best when he’s engaged with students. Near the end of the interview, he talked about an “almost complete unwillingness to engage in any critical self-reflection” at Duke and the broader academy (and in general I’m inclined to agree). A natural follow-up would be what, if any, critical self-reflection did he in light of Coleman’s criticism, and if none, why?
Another avenue that would have suited the Chronicle would have been questions about what kind of discussion and debate should have happened on the Duke campus in the immediate aftermath of the allegations and as the criminal process was ongoing, and what, if anything, he tried or hoped to do to make them happen. Did he think that the polarized portrayal of students and faculty in DIW and other blogs had any effect on the tone of discourse, and was it any concern of his either way? Did he think of himself as setting an example, and if so, what kind? And, most pointedly, why did he respond to the selective listening of the “listening” ad with his own program of selective listening—years if it? Why was it necessary to nullify the group of students (most obviously by describing them as “alleged students”) that the ad claimed to represent?
Jumping ahead to the most recent post that concerns the same general community of students, does he really believe that the lack of on-campus response to the Black Student Alliance’s innocuous invitation to “Swagger Like Us” is because of a belief that “some swaggerers are more equal than others”? People are making a racial judgment rather than a judgement about how the word is used? If so, then his dedication to wedge issues is truly extraordinary, and it’s turned him into a fool. And now he’s take up rumormongering.
Johnson is at his best when he’s pointing out the people who continue to insist that “something happened” or that Nifong was somehow treated unfairly. Those alone are worth subscribing to his RSS feed.
But when he gets deep into academia… eh, I rarely even bother reading those. One big things about blogs is that I like being able to verify what I read, and anything with “someone says” is probably not useful to me.
I am not sure what KC’s point is about Wahneema Lubiano’s lack of publications. She is well liked by her students and is admired and respected by her colleagues. Certainly, the fact that KC may have published more or less does in no way indicate which of them may be more or less correct in their interpretation of the listening ad. Nor does it have anything to do with the Duke Lacrosse case.
These continuous attacks on people that the Lacrosse fanatics deem to be the enemy are getting to the point of bickering and name calling. Floating third party rumors and stating in a book that Lubiano is “active in gay and lesbian causes” with no explanation or attempt to tie that in to her views about the case is being spiteful, in my opinion. Both seem to have no reasonable explanation in reference to the case other than to engender further ill feelings on the part of his readership towards that particular professor he wishes to demean in his latest post.
I certainly don’t see what being active in gay or lesbian causes has to do with any opinion any of us have regarding the case, and I am not certain that it is even a true statement on KC’s part. But then again, maybe these attacks are not about the truth, perhaps they are about revenge.
The productivity of tenured faculty, the line between scholarship and politics, and the impact of diversity efforts on scholarship (on what kind is done and its quality) are all real issues. There’s almost always at least a vestige of a real issue in Johnson’s criticism, though lately it seems like he’s on the verge of losing his grip entirely. I don’t think there’s any question that Lubiano’s political activism opens her up to criticism in political terms. Not all of the criticism on DIW is out of bounds, but there’s an awful lot of ranting and vilification for its own sake, too.
In the comments on the first KC Johnson post on Acephalous there’s a remarkable discusion of publications and tenure, in general and with respect to Lubiano. There’s a lot of arcane details, but you can get a very good sense of what’s at stake and how the system works.
Mr. Zimmerman, I think you are far too charitable in your assessment of Bill Anderson.
There are worse mistakes to make.
Five very clever one-liners from one place, signed with two different batcave names, but I’m guessing from a third batcave person. Gone now.
Thanks Robert,
I appreciate your reply. However the dislike with which the Lacrosse fanatics view the LGBT community continues. KC does not hesitate to capitalize on this attitude by casually mentioning Lubiano’s supposed connections. The latest rant in the Chronicle:
Yeah, this is a pretty ridiculous response, to imagine that the “LGBT community” has some collective accountability that needs to be addressed because they happen to be in the news. And I certainly agree that Johnson has played to the ignorants and bigots. I don’t think it’s a good idea to make a point of tying these kind of pot-shot comments that come up in the Chronicle back to DIW. A lot of people contributed to the environment that has people endlessly dwelling on the unrepentant “G88”—the protesters and professors who kicked things off and let some big issues fester, bloggers, columnists, law enforcement, etc., and no matter what the environment, people are responsible for their own comments.
Rumormongering is an age old tactic employed by Wall Street short-sellers.
Johnson’s wonderworld is an academic version of these corrupt and illegal boiler-room operations. What is their purpose? To spread fear in the market- place and then profit in a decline of prices.
Who profits by the fear and damage caused by the short-selling of Duke University?
Take a look at who is suing Duke University.
Boiler-room operators and short-sellers know exactly what they are doing.
Yes, only fools and those who carry short positions on Duke University would pay one whit of attention to a single word coming from wonderworld.
Is there an academic SEC available to investigate this illegal operation?
Or is it in the pocket of the criminals also?
Here’s another gem of lacrosse worshiping defamation from Bill Anderson (two comments in the same thread—Jul 26 2008, 03:09 PM and 09:52 PM):
Yes, Bill’s imaginary Wonderland is exceptionally vivid and remarkably untrue to life. I suspect that Soviet cold-war propaganda produced the same kind of funhouse-mirror reflections of the real world (I edited the comment slightly).
“The idea of sending a child to a place where the administration and faculty would regard him or her as garbage — unless that child fell into a PC ethnic category or was hard left in politics — just leaves me shaking.”
Seriously, did the Lacrosse case cause Bill Anderson to lose his mind? I mean really. The thought of an all black Durham Jury convicting the accused Lacrosse players must have seriously traumatized him? Somewhere along the way, Bill Anderson snapped. Why KC Johnson is not giving him the side eye is beyond me? Bill dreams up these whackedocious ideas about Duke & Durham and they become real to him. These over the top comments are much too much. The man needs to be heavily medicated and watched.
I think this is supposed to be ironic. Not entirely sure, though.
Mr. Zimmerman:
You write: “[Update: I’ve just received an email from Karla Holloway. In it, she says that Anderson’s claim is “an absolute and patent falsehood,” that he’s “reporting a conversation that could never have taken place” and that it “misrepresents [her] views.”]”
Since you are in touch with Ms Holloway, I would suggest that you encourage her to post at KC Johnson’s Blog in her own name so that none of us have to rely on Bill Anderson’s quotes from his source or your quoting e-mail from Holloway.
In this manner, Holloway can directly represent her views in public discussion, something that has been totally absent from any of the Group of 88.
Since I relayed Anderson’s hearsay it was appropriate to relay Holloway’s response as well. I wouldn’t encourage anyone interested in presenting their views for public discussion to do it on DIW.
“I think this is supposed to be ironic. Not entirely sure, though.”
I’m being sarcastic. But he really is looney tho. How else would one describe…
“There is a portion of Durham—and that includes Irving Joyner—that has an underlying approval for what was done to Eve Carson.”
Who in their right mind would say such a thing? Either the person is really crazy or very mean & filled with malice to spew those kind of hateful lies.
And This…
“He sees himself as a guardian of African-Americans in Durham, and I would not be surprised if he was hoping for an act of jury nullification so Atwater and Lovette could be set free”.
Guardian? If it wasn’t so sad & pitiful, I’d fall down laughing. He is likening Irving Joyner & African Americans in Durham as cold vicious animals who simply don’t care about the life of Eve Carson. That’s atrocious. The people who murdered her deserve the full punishment of the law. The color of their skin has nothing to do with it. To think otherwise is twisted.
OK, I catch your drift now. My reaction was pretty much the same.
I am pleased to see that Prof. Zimmerman reports that he has received an email from Karla Holloway that Anderson’s claim is “an absolute and patent falsehood,” that he’s “reporting a conversation that could never have taken place” and that it “misrepresents [her] views.” (I should note that Prof. Holloway does not respond to my emails, but I have posted Prof. Zimmerman’s item as an update on DIW.) And I would invite Prof. Holloway to submit to DIW her recollection of the conversations, and also what her “views” on the case currently are. I will post any response she supplies (my email is kcjohnson9@gmail.com, as she knows) in its entirety.
Two other points. Prof. Zimmerman claims that I used a “moderator’s veto” regarding his comments. It is not clear to me when I did so; I have regularly posted his comments at DIW. Indeed, I have publicly pointed out that, as the Group of 88 has consistently refused to defend their actions in and positions about the case, his stance as a public apologist for the Group is an important one, in that it allows neutral observers at least some insight into what might be the Group’s thinking.
Second, Prof. Zimmerman asks why I did not engage in “critical self-reflection” after a hostile Chronicle letter from Jim Coleman. While, as I noted at the time, I was curious why Prof. Coleman had chosen not to raise his rather harsh criticisms in any of the 21 personal exchanges (including a lengthy interview) I had with him before fall 2007, he and I had a lengthy email exchange following his letter. To the best of my knowledge, Prof. Coleman has never cited one specific item in either DIW or the book to corroborate his claims; he did not do so in the private email exchange, either. I should also note that he did not endorse my subsequent call for a Coleman Committee-style inquiry into how the faculty responded to the case.
Finally, a general point: this case featured a District Attorney violating myriad procedures in an attempt to railroad three innocent students at Prof. Zimmerman’s own institution. During the time those students were in harm’s way, Prof. Zimmerman, to the best of my knowledge, was silent about their fate, while 88 of his colleagues signed a public statement which (even in the peculiar claim of Charles Piot that it referred only to protesters at a March 27, 2006 campus gathering) thanked protesters who had presumed the students’ guilt. To the best of my knowledge, none of the signatories of this document have ever publicly apologized for its issuance; the two signatories who privately apologized subsequently retracted their apologies.
My link for the “moderators veto” was wrong. This is the right one.
A general point: Johnson employs a Hannity like strategy of giving you a new (middle name). Just like Bill Ayers is now Bill (unrepentant terrorist) Ayers, you will now be forever referred to as Robert (group apologist) Zimmerman. LOL.
Sign me,
Mark (guilty by association) Rougemont
Yes, Johnson likes epithets, which is what those are.
I have read the link posted by Prof. Zimmerman regarding his claim of a “moderator’s veto,” and reiterate my earlier point: “I have regularly posted his comments at DIW. Indeed, I have publicly pointed out that, as the Group of 88 has consistently refused to defend their actions in and positions about the case, his stance as a public apologist for the Group is an important one, in that it allows neutral observers at least some insight into what might be the Group’s thinking.”
To my knowledge, I have never failed to clear a comment from Prof. Zimmerman. It is important to expose as many people as possible to the Group’s thinking—even if, as in this case, it comes only from an apologist rather than from a Group member.
I would, similarly, clear any potential DIW comment from any Group member. Along these lines, my offer to Prof. Holloway still stands, although I have not yet heard from her.
Yes, it’s a tough job, public apologist, but someone has to do it. I should be on the blogroll of DIW, as a public service! Once this latest Crystal Mangum fiasco blows over, Johnson will need some fodder for the commentariat, and even harping on Lubiano must have its limits. What could be better than an exposé on the “Group’s thinking,” even if that thinking is transmitted by a mere apologist, not an Official Group Member™. I’m sure the real members will be thrilled that their potential comments are pre-cleared, though.
With respect to the moderator’s veto, that exchange was a long time ago, and I certainly wouldn’t expect Johnson to remember it at this point. It could have been a glitch or an accident, as I said at the time. Anyway, I was addressing a claim that I had “backed out” of debates, and it came from someone signed “nycliberal.” I don’t think Johnson ever made that claim.
“A general point: Johnson employs a Hannity like strategy of giving you a new (middle name). Just like Bill Ayers is now Bill (unrepentant terrorist) Ayers, you will now be forever referred to as Robert (group apologist) Zimmerman. LOL.”
Hey Mark,
KC (defense shill) Johnson fits him perfectly.
I dunno. At the risk of being pedantic, I think it sounds too much like name-calling (probably because it is).
MarkRougemont | April 23, 2009 at 11:15 am | Permalink
A general point: Johnson employs a Hannity like strategy of giving you a new (middle name). Just like Bill Ayers is now Bill (unrepentant terrorist) Ayers, you will now be forever referred to as Robert (group apologist) Zimmerman. LOL.
Sign me,
Mark (guilty by association) Rougemont
I anticipate KC will try to pigeon hole Robert as “a group apologist”. It will help him him side step any criticism from Zimmerman by conflating support for the G88 with criticism of KC Johnson. Most of Robert’s commenters don’t seem to be able to separate a criticism of KC from an endorsement of the G88.
But Zimmerman’s criticism shares a lot in common with Johnson. Kc gets held to a high standard but the G88 is viewed in the sunniest possible way. Kc plays to ignorants and bigots but Karl Holloway”s Bodies of Evidence simply is “pitched to the interests of the journal’s readers”. The castrate banner was a boon to KC who used it repeatedly, but wasn’t it the same for Zimmerman? I posed this question to Robert; are you concerned that your rhetoric and arguments resemble KC’s? He said he was concerned about that. I see a rough equivalence between the two.
It’s fun to watch but more than a little ironic that the only defenders of the G88 who can hold their own are not members of the G88. At this point KC’s invitation to respond to him on his blog are simply taunts.
C’mon wayne. If you want to make an argument like this, you’ll have to do some real work. “Bodies of Evidence” might make your skin crawl the way DIW sometimes makes my skin crawl, but that doesn’t mean that an objective analysis would treat them as equivalent. With some effort, you might be able to turn that point into something that sticks. The other point, though, about the “Castrate” banner, is ridiculous, dead on arrival. In what way was it a boon to me? Can you google up a bunch of references to Johnson as the vile demogogue who misused that banner and brought shame to academia? In fact, has my criticism of him on that point had any traction at all?
You’re right about the inability of people to “separate a criticism of KC from an endorsement of the G88.” And the thing is, Johnson encourages the confusion. I don’t think you’ll find me using an equivalent tactic—if you do, I’d be interested in hearing about it—and I don’t think that expecting him to have a better way of answering criticism than ad hominem diversions amounts to a high standard.
Johnson’s response was predictable. However this concept of a neutral observer is interesting. Is he admitting that he only presents one side of the issue, allowing no room for a more generous interpretation, and is just hoping someone will post an opposing view so that a “neutral observer” will get an idea of the counter opinion? I agree with him that seeing both sides of an issue is “important”, but I believe he is employing a bit of sarcasm, I don’t think he cares for your opinion at all.
I’m not sure there’s much to be read into that reference. I guess I read it as part of a spin that has him, the objective academic analyst, writing to inform “neutral observers” while I’m a specimen of the thing he’s writing about. I’m inclined to feel the same, with the roles reversed. Hopefully I’m more self-critical when it comes to translating that feeling into writing.
Just as a side note, the moderators veto button has evidently hit Joan Foster as well (based on her comments at Liestoppers). Perhaps it is just a glitch in the system. I am sure Johnson would not want to back off from a debate with her.
Yep, like me and RRH, it looks like joan foster has now experienced the moderator’s veto. I can sympathize with her feeling that her trenchant analysis of PC hypocrisy deserved more than the dose of sarcasm she got from Johnson. She is nothing if not dogged in pursuing her line of argument, though, and I can also sympathize with Johnson for apparently wanting to have the last word and put the beauty pageant thing behind him. But then he really ought to stop pretending that he’s living by his much lauded comment policy.
Mangum’s appearance on the UNC campus last week was an opportunity for him to reach past the true believers who will stick around for endless sniping at the same old faculty suspects and at random ads by minority student groups. Sensing the opportunity, I guess, he came up with some wooden fill-in-the-blanks satire and slapped it on a few easy targets from the left and the right. And all he’s getting for his trouble is grief. It reminds me of Frank Schaeffer’s comments about Rick Warren and the Church Ladies who “sniff[] around you to make sure you are ‘one of them.’”
I’m wondering if those students thought about what message they were sending to the everyday victims of sexual assault—the ones without notoriety and a book contract—when they invited Mangum to speak, and I wish they’d studied Jim Coleman’s reality-based editorial from a few weeks ago. And of course that’s just what the Group is thinking, too.
Ack! As I post this I see there’s been another iteration, and joan is invoking “Mr Reharmonizer” for his tolerance in posting comments. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. But don’t believe everything you read! I’m still stomping on Debrah’s free speech! I am! Every chance I get!
I’ve never seen any one use the “children’s table” the way you do. It works for me as a partial solution to what can boil down to fine distinctions about what constitutes an on topic or abusive comment.
Yeah, that did work fairly well. It was clear what I was doing, anyway. How well it would translate to a blog as big as DIW, I don’t know.
Incidentally, just watching this little drama play out, I don’t know why joan has concluded that she’s “banned in Wonderland.” It looks to me like it’s just the beauty pageant thread that was shut down.
Well, Well, It is drama in Wonderland. I’m guessing Joan is now feeling what it is like to be censored. Karma can be painful when it bites back.
Where was Joan’s voice when Liestoppers was banning/censoring anyone who had a different point of view than their little clique? But I just want Joan to know that giggling sound that she hears is not me.
This was originally two comments left not far apart in time. I don’t want to get too deep into the interpersonal history of Liestoppers.
Joan’s argument with KC, in regard to her alleged banning, would carry more weight if her “home board”, LieStoppers (LS), wasn’t guilty of the very same thing. LS has banned many people with opposing views. Case in point…one longtime member of LS, emmy954, was the only member to confront Bill’s ridiculous “underlying approval for what was done to Eve Carson” post. Emmy954 replied…
Emmy954 was banned for this reply to Bill’s groundless claim.
The hypocrisy on display at LieStoppers is quite amusing.
The bunker mentality on liestoppers makes it an easy target. I don’t follow the day-to-day action there, but as far as I can see from a little browsing, joan isn’t the one doing the actual banning. But if she hasn’t been fighting to keep the boards there more open then she doesn’t have much to complain about if she’s been cut off on DIW.
I think, in fact, that if the folks at liestoppers weren’t obsessed about banning, this little episode wouldn’t be so melodramatic. I can certainly understand her feeling hurt and disappointed, and she’s obviously trying to maintain some perspective on Johnson—taking the bad with the good, or something like that. And she may feel it’s not worth the effort or risk to post any more comments on DIW, for the same general reasons that I wouldn’t try to carry out a debate over there—it’s his playing field and ultimately he’ll do whatever he wants, stated policies notwithstanding. But really, banned? I don’t think that’s what happened, but it’s the kind of mini-crisis that the folks at liestoppers seem to enjoy.
Wow, my first visit here in months and I see that I’m mentioned; it’s quite an honor to be remembered. And it’s ironic that my visit here is prompted by the censorship of one of my comments and by Joan Foster’s “banning” at DiW.
Those who are familiar with the Liestoppers blog may know that I have never commented - and rarely even visited — there. Nevertheless, Joan Foster, a regular at LS, is well-known even to people outside the LS community as a brilliant and effective writer. Ms. Foster has rarely commented at DiW, but she did recently to a blog posting in which KC Johnson compared Miss California to Crystal Mangum. KC, in responses to comments critical of this comparison, indicated that Miss California’s non-support for same-sex marriage justified the pageant judges’ decision to withhold the title from her. He said, “[T]here’s an expected answer to such questions — … pro-‘tolerance’.” When commenters pointed out that Miss California’s answer reflected the views of a majority of Americans, KC carved a demographic majority for his view — whites under-30 — as if, as a subsequent commenter said, the lady was supposed to be a candidate for “Miss American Whites Under-30”. Ms. Foster countered KC’s argument not only effectively but with great respect for him. He replied with sarcastic retorts, such as, “Yes, Joan, you’re absolutely correct. To perform my penance, I’m going to start up a blog as soon as the civil case is over exposing the pernicious efforts of beauty contests suppressing anti-gay opinions.”
To be fair to KC, before closing the thread, he did publish Ms. Foster’s final comment, which was far more biting in tone than any of her previous ones. There she indicated that she felt “banned from DiW” and said
About the same time she was penning her last comment, I was penning my first on the subject. Anyone who is familiar with my comments knows that I lack Ms. Foster’s grace and flair. In fact, I even began my comment by noting that my view was the “unsweetened version” of Ms. Foster’s. I then wrote that, in essence, KC was being intolerantly myopic about his view of same-sex marriage - that opposition to it was itself a mark of a beyond-the-pale “intolerance”. I compared the actions of the pageant judges in denying Miss California the crown to Kim Curtis’ (alleged) flunking of Kyle Dowd because of his being a lacrosse player, and I said that pageant judge “Perez Hilton’s” video tirade against Miss California contained obscene references to her so vile that Houston Baker would be ashamed to whisper them in his own bathroom, much less scream them on the internet. I also said that in my experience, homosexuals - once a discussion of non-traditional marriage rights went past same-sex marriage, to, just for example, plural marriage - were as narrow-minded and spluttering-bigots as any Baptist seminarian. At any rate, if KC thought Ms. Foster’s criticisms were too much, it is no surprise that he chose not to publish mine.
Finally, in KC’s defense, he has a record of publishing many comments, including mine, that were searingly critical of his views. There are even times that I feel that he moderates “with too light a touch”, as when recently two commenters began a mutual barrage of personal attacks on one another. Nevertheless, I have to admit that if Joan Foster feels “banned” at DiW, it’s harder for me to feel welcome.
Like other members of the DiW commentariat, I want to give kudos to Reharmonizer for being generous with giving space to opposing viewpoints - always more generous than other defenders of the 88 and now, perhaps, even more generous than KC.
RRH
Joan’s conviction that she was being slapped down for “PC non-compliance” is telling. It’s become a habitual explanation, to the point that alternatives are ignored—kind of like “banning” (see the previous comment). There’s poetic justice in it, for sure, since Johnson has cultured the habit, but I don’t see his response in this case as being driven by intolerance of contrary opinions on same-sex marriage. He seems to be dismissive if not contemptuous of the beauty pageant business, and of Miss C in particular. I can’t find him making any claims that her response on the marriage question “justified the pageant judges’ decision.” I don’t think he cares enough about the pageant to critique it at that level. What he does care deeply about is judgments about the significance of the lacrosse case. What he was intolerant of, I think, was the trivializing of his sacred cow.
No we dare not scratch the surface.
Given where the discussion has ended up, this is a chance for me to acknowledge my own moderator’s veto. I believe the commenter is referring to a “hard question” I’ve rejected that relates to the plausibility of Mangum’s allegations. It’s an issue this person obviously cares deeply about and it’s frustrating to them that no one will take it up, but from my perspective it’s just baiting an angry debate that’s way off topic. I will sometimes put feedback into a comment like this and leave it in my queue so the person who left it knows what I’m doing, and why. I think a cookie is set when you make a comment, and your uncleared comments are visible to you (perhaps with text I’ve added) as long as you access the page from the same browser, with the cookie still set.
Anyway, this commenter-with-many-names seems to be stuck on free-floating provocation and invective, and until that changes I won’t be clearing any more of his/her comments.
Well, that was certainly fun to witness… “Joan Foster’s” little melodrama playing out on multiple websites, I mean.
Will the hypocrisy never end, “Joan”?
I for one am glad that it’s all over with now.
Speak for yourself.
Something else will come along. It always does.
I am delighted to see, at comment 14, that Prof. Zimmermann has backed off his claim that his viewpoint was excluded at DIW because of a “moderator’s veto.”
As I have noted in (now, several) comments, I always have been willing to engage Prof. Zimmermann’s arguments, when he has offered them, at DIW; and I do feel his position as a Group apologist is important given the Group’s unwillingness to publicly justify or explain their actions. To the best of my knowledge, I have cleared every comment that Prof. Zimmermann has submitted at DIW.
As a followup to my original comment, I should also note that several days have passed since I extended my offer to Prof. Holloway to submit, for unedited publication, her version of the “conversations” mentioned in the post, and her version of what her “views” on the case currently are. I have received no reply, but will repeat my offer that I will post any comment from her, unedited and in its entirety.
The man sure isn’t shy about repeating the same ponderous bullshit, is he? Three comments in this thread, and every one reiterates the importance of my role as “Group apologist.” The “Group” is his creation, so I guess he’s uniquely qualified to define people in relation to it, and the line makes him sound like he knows something, though he backs it up with exactly nothing.
His most specific claim, in his first comment (back when I had only one n in my name), is that what I write “allows neutral observers at least some insight into what might be the Group’s thinking.” But it’s of no consequence when I say that it’s ludicrous to pronounce the lacrosse players guilty because “guilt is a social construct,” and just as ludicrous to believe that Karla Holloway made such a claim to a random colleague who apparently despises her. It seems that’s not the area of the “Group’s thinking” that I offer insight into, and my guess is that the only insights I offer are the inadvertent ones that support Johnson’s feeble caricatures of his so-called Group’s “members.”
As far as the “moderator’s veto” goes, here’s the deal. I believe I’ve left 7 comments on DIW, the first 5 in one thread. The 5th one never appeared online, and all I’ve acknowledged is that I don’t know why it didn’t, and I don’t expect Johnson to account for it a year after it went missing. What I take from that experience and similar examples is that Johnson’s comment moderation is opaque and probably self-serving. A year ago I wrote about the “tactics of evasion and denial” that he’s brought to our debate-like exchanges. The funny thing is that the first paragraph of my uncleared comment applies just as well to this thread as it did to that one:
Finally, if Johnson is going to continue to make a disingenuous show of “inviting” Holloway to explain herself, the least he could do is say who she had this alleged conversation with and when it supposedly happened.
KC’s latest is encouraging his loyal following to start a letter writing campaign against DA Tracey Cline. He gives several examples in his post and implies that Cline is unethical based on flimsy and unsupported innuendo. It seems to me the purpose of this campaign is to convince the State to require Cline to prove her innocence. He wants the State to investigate her “spending habits” because some of the folks on his enemy list got a raise and two people that somehow managed to avoid his axis of evil roster got a reduction in pay. He implies that Cline is unethical because she was recently on the witness stand despite the fact that Roy Cooper supported her stance and the judge also ruled in her favor. The State is not going to investigate Cline because she invited Nifong to her swearing-in, even though it appears that is the thing that has most of them so upset. The possibility that these people who had a reduction in salary may not want the reasons for that dragged out in the public domain does not seem to occur to him, and he makes no mention of any contact with these two, nor does he indicate he even tried to contact them. Cline’s response to KC was appropriate yet it is made to seem that she is hiding behind confidentiality rules regarding personnel decisions.
I am delighted that Karla Holloway has responded to my post on DIW. Now, this is the same Karla Holloway who wrote “Bodies of Evidence” in which she declared that “white innocence means black guilt,” and the same Karla Holloway who resigned in anger when Richard Brodhead permitted Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty to re-enroll at Duke.
As for my claims, I stand by my story and I stand by my source. This person knows Holloway and she told this person that “guilt is a social construct” and she applied it to the LAX case. Karla Holloway has not made one public statement through writings or anything else since Roy Cooper’s announcement of “innocent” two years ago that even would begin to show agreement that (1) there was no rape, and (2) that the young men who were indicted were not involved.
For that matter, Holloway still insists that Tawana Brawley was raped, even though there is a huge body of evidence that shows otherwise. Tell me, has she ever told you, Prof. Zimmerman, that Crystal’s charges were a lie and that Nifong falsely charged Reade Seligmann, David Evans, and Collin Finnerty? I would doubt it.
I never have claimed that Holloway “fixed” the sexual assault charges against a former Duke faculty member who was one of the loudest voices against the lacrosse players (even appearing on the Nancy Grace Show to make untrue and wild claims against the players). What I have claimed is that she was involved in that whole affair, and we know that the charges quietly went away, and things were kept quiet ever that. Holloway (1) was involved in that case and (2) the charges were dropped, but nothing was made public. I am not making up that point.
If Karla Holloway is willing to publicly admit that the charges were a lie and that those three Duke students were wrongfully charged and wrongfully demonized at Duke, then I think I will be proven wrong. However, she has not done that, and I suspect she never will.
Let us look at the Eve Carson affair. First, and most important, the “racial” discussion that followed afterward was based upon the belief by some that the press gave too much coverage to Carson’s murder and not enough to a female student at NCCU who was allegedly murdered by a minister. The inference was that racism was involved. For that matter, there was less coverage given to the murder of Abhijit Mahato, even though his alleged murderer also allegedly murdered Carson. Was that due to racial or ethnic reasons, or was it due to something else?
Second, the alleged murderers were supposed to be in jail, but had slipped through the cracks in Durham’s “probation” system. When Reade, Collin, and David had to post $400K bond, but real-live murderers and rapists (Jermaine Burch) are permitted to run free in Durham or have a small bond to post, then I have to wonder about the state of justice in that city.
Third, the coverage given Carson was dwarfed by the coverage given to the lacrosse players. They not only had to endure the local coverage, which was bad enough, but also having their mugs put on the cover of Newsweek as “rapists.” Yet, it was evident at the start that the information was not adding up, and any investigator who cared even a whit for the truth could see that this whole thing was a sham. At least there was a real-live murder in the Carson and Mahato cases, yet Prof. Zimmerman and much of the Duke faculty chose to emphasize a “crime” that never occurred.
As for the “ridiculous” claim that Reade, Collin, and David would have likely faced very hard times in prison, are you insinuating that there are no prison gangs that mete out their kind of “justice”? You know very well that these young men would have had to face real-live assaults or even worse by inmates who would have targeted them. That is just application of logic, not a conspiracy theory.
I will say this. You have claimed that I make wild statements that are untrue, and I have been attacked many times on this board. That is OK, as my comments are public and I am fair game. However, I do find it interesting that my detractors have been unable to find any energy to condemn any statements made by Mike Nifong, none of which were true. Prof. Zimmerman also has been unable to utter any statement about just how morally — yes, morally — wrong the “We’re Listening” ad really was. As one who is in possession of the emails sent by the organizers of the ad, I can say that their claims that the ad was “not about the lacrosse” case are false. The purpose was to infer guilt, and the applause that they gave to Houston Baker’s inflammatory letter to the provost provide even more proof of their intentions.
Again, I will say that I stand by my story and the contents of the conversation I had with the person from Duke.
Anderson is quick to make inferences, and then not very clear about the limited facts that make their way to him and the conclusions he’s drawn. And an awful lot of the reasoning, if you can call it that, is based on his sense that he knows what kind of people he’s dealing with and thus knows just what they’d do and think.
With respect to the old rumor, this is what he wrote in a comment on this site last year. The claim is much more specific than just “she was involved.”
Anderson seems to think that the injustices in Durham are so big that he’s under no obligation to watch his words. I disagree. His sloppiness does a disservice to the causes he’s so passionate about.
I noticed today that Prof. Zimmermann responded to my previous comments by eliminating his allegation against me from his post, without indicating that he has altered his post—an . . . unusual . . . approach to blogging. In place of the insinuation against my ethics, he has inserted: “Q: Did Johnson end our exchange of comments on DIW with a moderator’s veto? A: He doesn’t know, but the Group of 88 hasn’t defended anything they did, and Zimmerman is a public apologist for them.”
There are five explanations for the scenario that Prof. Zimmermann described in his now-deleted section of the post: (1) I exercised a “moderator’s veto” against his comment, presumably because I did not want to any longer debate him; (2) I accidentally rejected his comment; (3) His comment was accepted, but a glitch in blogger prevented it from appearing; (4) He accidentally made an error in submitting the comment; or (5) He never wrote the comment, and is now presenting himself as the victim.
I never said that I didn’t “know” whether I had exercised a “moderator’s veto”—I repeatedly stated that I did not do so. It is not clear how Prof. Zimmermann translated a denial into a statement that I didn’t “know” whether I had exercised a moderator’s veto.
It is also unclear to me why Prof. Zimmermann altered his original post—removing his allegation against me—without indicating anywhere in the post that he had done so.
Prof. Zimmermann also suggests that I unfairly expected Prof. Coleman “to translate the criticism into chapter and verse in DIW or UPI.” Again, I never said such a thing in the comment thread—just one specific criticism would have sufficed. Prof. Coleman didn’t supply it in any of the 21 conversations or e-mail exchanges I had with him before Sept. 2007, and he didn’t supply it in the e-mail exchange with him at the time.
As I have noted, I did respond to the Coleman attack—by urging a Coleman Committee-like inquiry into the response to the case of the Duke faculty. Prof. Coleman elected not to endorse my suggestion. (To my knowledge, Prof. Zimmermann hasn’t done so, either.) Such an inquiry, of course, could have proven that I was totally wrong in my portrayal of the Duke faculty’s response to the case. The urging of an impartial investigation—an approach used, for instance, after serious allegations of classroom misconduct emerged at Columbia—doesn’t strike me as the response of someone unwilling to engage in “critical self-reflection.”
(Prof. Zimmermann’s charge came in response to my having pointed out that no public evidence exists that even one member of the Group of 88 has engaged in critical self-reflection regarding their behavior in the case. Prof. Zimmermann didn’t deny the point.)
Finally, Prof. Zimmermann’s new material in the post faults me for engaging in ad hominem attacks against him and the Group of 88, by writing that the DA was trying to “railroad three innocent students at Prof. Zimmerman’s own institution. During the time those students were in harm’s way, Prof. Zimmerman… was silent about their fate, while 88 of his colleagues signed a public statement which… thanked protesters who had presumed the students’ guilt.”
I note that Prof. Zimmermann—while labeling my statement “lazy and cowardly,” an approach that “is especially effective with the thoughtless and bigoted,” part of an approach of writing “bullshit” (some people might consider that an ad hominem attack!)—doesn’t in any way challenge the factual accuracy of what I said: that while a rogue DA railroaded three innocent students at Prof. Zimmerman’s own institution, Prof. Zimmerman was silent about their fate, while 88 of his colleagues signed a public statement which thanked protesters who had presumed the students’ guilt.
Somehow, Prof. Zimmermann’s disinclination to challenge that assertion doesn’t surprise me.
Professor Zimmerman,
Do you believe the Duke Lacrosse players are innocent of the charges that were leveled against them?
Thank you,
Richard L. King
I do.
Let us not forget that Karla Holloway was the source of that false quote that appeared in the Wilmington Journal that came by way of fifth-hand sources. It was quite obvious that the quote was bogus, but the timing was such that it appeared just before Cooper made his announcement.
So, let us stop this silliness of claiming that poor Karla Holloway is a victim. She is not. She was a major force in the false charges against these young men, and she did not do one thing that even hinted that perhaps, just perhaps, the entire set of charges was a lie.
And I stand by my earlier story. And the administration did “fix” things for that faculty member, and Holloway was part of that team.
You’re confused as usual, Bill. My main point is that it’s irresponsible and foolish of Johnson to spread rumors like the one you passed to him. A secondary point is that I don’t believe the story. There’s nothing about how Holloway is a victim.
Well, Professor Zimmerman, do you think the “Listening Statement” was appropriate? And do you think it was appropriate for those Duke faculty members who signed it to refuse to acknowledge that their rush to judgement was ill-conceived? If so, then I guess you are an apologist.
With regard to Justice58’s comparison of Professor Johnson to Sean Hannity vis a vis “name calling,” I would point out that Keith Olbermann of MSNBC does the same thing. Mr. Hannity, however, is a buffoon and a coward. Professor Johnson is at least willing to take on his critics and defend his points of view.
As for Ms. Holloway, if her thinking is as muddled and impenetrable as her prose, I don’t wonder she is afraid to take on Professor Johnson. Whether you agree with him or not, he does seem to be able to get his point across.
If you want to know what I think about the “listening” statement, you can read this, this, and this.
Can I get a Group Apologist action figure?
GAp man, or something like that. Bound to be a big seller.
K.C. Johnson’s crazy housewife Joan is commenting on Liestoppers.
Last summer I decided to post on the Reharmonizer’s blog in defense of KC (not that anyone needs the defense of a “crazy housewife.”) But my admiration for KC was and is sincere….so I decided to wade in. I really had no other reason to go there. You can read some of those exchanges here.
http://reharmonized.an-earful.com/2008/08/too-much-bullshit/
I stopped posting there about the time Crystal’s book was announced. During that time I had some private exchanges with Professor Zimmerman that convinced me that he has great empathy for the three accused and their families. Although I’m sure some of his visitors had the usual insulting comments to make about me…never was there anything approved of a truly vicious nature. Anything I wrote there, no matter how “vehement” or (from his viewpoint) obnoxious ..was posted.
I understand he and KC have their differences. I hestitate to post this because of the incident last Sunday…but if you read the comment threads at Reharmonizer’s blog..you will see an attempt at objectivity that is undeniable. I also feel that I have written a great deal about The Big Sleep of the Duke faculty…the propensity of friends or admirers to stay quiet and be collegial at all costs. So do I just be collegial and sit this out?
I am no apologist for the 88. I agree with almost all of KC’s positions, but I do not agree about Professor Zimmerman …and I feel if I am to have any integrity I have to speak up and say so….as I wished ardently others at Duke would have done in 2006.
I’m not sure why this is signed as “Bob,” but I guess the source is clear enough and I should go ahead and pass it on. I appreciate the sentiment.
K.C. Johnson did not spread a rumor. He permitted me to post the contents of a direct conversation I had with someone who had spoken with Karla Holloway and who told me that Holloway said that the players were “guilty” as “guilty in the eyes of the law” because “guilt is a social construct.” That would be in line with her “Bodies of Evidence” article that appeared in a feminist journal in 2006.
If you want to differentiate between that and passing a rumor, then why are you not willing to deal with the rumor that Holloway passed on to Cash Michaels in 2007 just before Roy Cooper made his announcement? John Burness had told Holloway about a quote that supposedly the police had heard come from someone else that the lacrosse players allegedly had made when the strippers arrived. Now, there was nothing in any of the police reports about the alleged quote, and no one who was interviewed had said it.
Yet, we have this very questionable quote passed from the police to Burness to Holloway to Michaels and finally published in the Wilmington Journal as gospel truth and “proof” that those mean, nasty lacrosse players had raped Crystal Mangum. So, who is engaging in passing rumors here?
There is a difference between passing rumors and passing on a quote in a direct conversation. The only thing I have not done is to name the person who gave the quote to me, and that I will not do. Holloway is free to deny she said it, and she is free to do that, but I don’t consider her as someone who is trustworthy, given her slippery comments and actions earlier in the lacrosse case. Anyone who still insists that Tawana Brawley was telling the truth in her claims that a New York prosecutor raped her is not a credible person, in my book. You are free to believe her if you like and to say that I am making up the contents of the conversation I had with the faculty member, and that, too, is your privilege.
By the way, in your slam against Harvey Silverglate in another blog post you linked, you attack one of the most honorable people in this country, an attorney who truly has represented people who have been marginalized and railroaded by the law. Silverglate is a true hero, a man who has defended people, black and white, who have been wrongly charged by prosecutors and who have been railroaded in the courts.
We need more people like Silverglate who are decent, honorable, and who care deeply about the same people you claim to care about. The difference between Silverglate and Holloway (both of whom teach courses in law schools) is like the difference between cheese and chalk. But, then, Silverglate cares about people being wrongly charged, and does not declare that “guilt is a social construct.”
The scenario here is that C published a claim from B about what he heard from A, who must remain anonymous. Unless C did some serious verification and corroboration, that’s spreading a rumor. If Holloway was part of a similar chain in 2007, then shame on her. If it was wrong for her to do it, it’s wrong for you and Johnson to do it. That’s not an advanced concept.
And my goodness, I once said some mean things about Harvey Silverglate. By all means, let’s get the relevant information on the table here! If he’s the kind of man you say he is, he’d wince at the suggestion that the mere fact I’d criticized him is somehow a black mark against me.
Moderator’s Veto
Presumptions about the motives behind comments being deleted or not appearing have been the spark that set off a number of nasty blog spats.
The intellectually correct approach is to first explore explanations such as “[the] comment was accepted, but a glitch in blogger prevented it from appearing” and “[the commenter] accidentally made an error in submitting the comment” before moving on to explanations that involve dishonest behavior. This is more not less important when there is preexisting ill will between the parties to the (potential) dispute.
I am one of the DIW readers who repeatedly urged KC Johnson to enact comment moderation at the height of the Hoax/Frame controversy. A number of people were submitting large numbers of fact-challenged comments seething with animosity, in aid of Johnson’s position. The sincerity of some of that support could be questioned. Still, any tool that’s right for the job—a number of the Hoax/Frame enablers seized on DIW’s viler comments to conflate Johnsons opinions and those of his most rabid supporters (“supporters”).
I thought, and think, that johnson’s open-comment policy was motivated by his committment to “free speech.” This was misguided; IMO; speech isn’t restricted by any policy as long as Blogger et al. offers free and uncensored accounts. The failure of “censorship” can be seen by reading the eloquent comments submitted to DIW by Joan Foster that Johnson failed to pass, here (“Although he has called me out by name, sadly my comments no longer survive KC’s “lightest of touches.”).
The flip side to moderation is that conflicts such as this one will arise. The right thing for the blogger to do is address controversies when they arise. Johnson did this, denying the vetoing of any Zimmerman comments at Reharmonizer and at DIW. Zimmerman describes this disagreement with this Update Q&A —
“Q: Did Johnson end our exchange of comments on DIW with a moderator’s veto? A: He doesn’t know…” [Emphasis added.]
In my opinion, this characterization is not presented in good faith.
[Cross-posted at The Group Apologist, In Action].
Johnson’s first comment about the “moderator’s veto” was “It is not clear to me when I did so,” which I took to mean “I don’t know.” He became clearer after I fixed a link, and I should probably have changed my characterization sooner (I did just now).
Might as well note here that I can’t deal with comments and issues in any detail this weekend. I’m hitting the high points and clearing comments out of order.
On the matter of Group Apologist Robert Zimmerman
Johnson has the often-unwelcome habit of attaching labels to people he doesn’t like. Sometimes this shorthand usefully focuses attention, when applied to the dramatis personae of the case. The best example may be “The Group of 88” itself — a Johnson invention. The label highlights the action of the eighty-eight Duke-affiliated people, the majority faculty, who signed the Listening Statement. This advertisement had the effect and—most people believe—the intention of furthering the rush to judgement being orchestrated by DA Nifong and being cheered by Durham city government employees, the Herald-Standard, the N&O, and the potbangers.
One charming hallmark of the LS signers has been their arrogant failure to engage in any public reflection of the damage done by their public rush to judgment in the case. That arrogance has of course been amply justified by the events of the intervening years—neither the instigators nor the signers have been held to account for their actions, least of all by their employer.
“The Group of 88” is a fair label for this collection of individuals, useful shorthand for those who know the facts of the case. It’s arguably helpful to those unfamiliar with the Hoax/Frame as well. The question “what was this ‘group’ and what did they do?” is an easy entry into the aspects of the case as it relates to the Culture of the University.
Ironically, one of the essential places for such an inquiry to lead is Zimmerman’s blog. Because the actions of the Listening Statement signers were so opportunistic and tainted with groupthink, it’s very hard for most observers to gain insight into their states of mind. These weren’t cardboard Bad Guys, but actual people with actual ideas—intellectuals, in fact. Zimmerman paints a portrait of the G88 that is often sympathetic, and sometimes negative. Given Johnson’s (and my) lack of empathy for the signers, the points raised by Zimmerman (and by SEK’s at Acephalous) are well worth reflecting on. Even if one ends up rejecting the balance implied by this “on the one hand/on the other hand” approach.
“Group apologist” is a groupthink-friendly rally-the-troops catcall that ought to be beneath Johnson’s dignity. Johnson’s disdain for Zimmerman’s person and positions comes through quite clearly, and vice versa. No need for the simplistic and unfair moniker.
[Cross-posted at The Group Apologist, In Action.]
To characterize William Anderson’s comments re: Karla Holloway as sloppy and irresponsible is a major understatement. He has publicly accused her of utterances that could very well place her in some legal jeopardy. Holloway should engage legal counsel to pursue this matter. I would love to see Anderson under oath on this one. Several of his posts have been illogical and lacking in sophistication, but he seems to have crossed the line on this one.
To answer Mr. Mason, I have my doubts that Karla Holloway is going to want to enter into any legal case over this whole affair. First, and most important, one of the stipulations of the settlement that Duke made with the three indicted individuals was that they not sue DUMC (and Tara Levicy) and any of the faculty members who signed the infamous “ad.” That would include Karla Holloway, so if she wants to engage in legal action against me or anyone else tied with this case, the fallout could not be contained just to her.
Second, Holloway has written that guilt is a “social construct,” and the gist of the conversation that I reported was consistent with her words that have appeared in print. Holloway teaches “legal ethics” at Duke’s law school, and this is where her views run into a huge problem.
The courts are supposed to deal with individual acts against others. In the lacrosse case, the questions were as follows: (1) Was Crystal Mangum raped? (2) If so, who did it? and (3) Were the three accused young men the ones who did it?
The legal case rose and fell on those questions, as do most legal cases (at least in state courts, as federal charges tend to be much more murky). The evidence pretty well stated that Crystal was not raped, and her claims against these young men had no merit, given the results of DNA testing, the electronically-supported alibi evidence (especially in Reade’s case) and other facts gleaned along the way. There were huge irregularities in what Tara Levicy allegedy did and what she reported, and there were huge irregularities in the legal process in Durham itself. Given those things, it should not be surprising that Roy Cooper and the special prosecutors believed the case to be a fraud.
Unfortunately, people like Holloway and others chose to make this a case based upon “white athletes and their alleged culture of entitlement.” She wrote throughout her “Bodies of Evidence” article that guilt had to be seen in a larger social context. Furthermore, as is demonstrated in the following paragraph (I don’t know how to set it off in a block, so I will put it in italics), she clearly gives the impression that she believed that the indicted players were guilty, and that the alleged “lacrosse culture” was responsible:
At the conclusion of spring semester the lacrosse team, minus three indicted (and one suspended) member, gathered to celebrate their reinstatement on Duke’s campus. Their reinstatement was accompanied by a code of conduct they inexplicably wrote for themselves. At this gathering, their interim coach (who had been, just three years prior, their former team member) vigorously professed his blanket judgment that those who stood indicted for the rape of a student from North Carolina Central University were innocent. As the day drew to a close, every indication was that the remaining team members’ athletic careers would continue nearly uninterrupted except for the scrutiny of the administration and their self-authored code.
What happened in Durham — and Chan Hall’s statement at the April 12 rally is only part of that whole thing — was that people were engaging in the following chain of logic:
Furthermore, even if they had not touched her, they were guilty of being white, being “privileged,” and coming from zip codes where affluent people lived, which meant that they deserved what they got. The same people who insisted on our concentrating on the humanity of Crystal Mangum did not do the same for the families of the people accused. I have read comments on Sydney Harr’s blog that “those families did not suffer anything” and the like. That, of course, is a lie, and if any reader has been falsely accused of a crime by the authorities, perhaps that person has an insight into just how bad things can be.
Some readers of this blog who cheered on Nifong might want to speak to Kathy Seligmann, Rae Evans, and Mary Ellen Finnerty and ask them what it was like to have their sons falsely accused of rape, and facing decades in prison. Granted, I suspect most readers really don’t care, as they don’t see these families as consisting of real human beings, just zip codes.
Holloway always assumed guilt, as her writings demonstrate, and her “evidence” was the race and socio-economic background of the various people involved. Because she teaches legal ethics, I believe she has to account for the fact that she was willing to overlook real evidence that should have mattered and to then claim — and I think the paragraph above reveals her intentions — that the players were guilty, and her “evidence” was their race and address.
That is the “justice” of Jim Crow. Why is that any different than what we have seen in the courts during the Jim Crow era (and even today)? When people base their judgments in legal cases upon things other than facts at hand, there is going to be injustice.
Karla Holloway, being a prominent faculty member and a law professor, could have had a very positive impact when this case was in play. She could have insisted on due process; she could have done like Jim Coleman and pointed out the perniciousness of Nifong’s April 4 “lineup” and what that meant to due process. Instead, she and Irving Joyner decided that they would examine the case from a “social context” and then permit the evidence either to be manipulated or ignored altogether.
I contend that such actions not only were wrong, but that they were immoral. Holloway and Joyner are law professors, and they have a special burden to present themselves and their legal arguments in the context of fairness and due process of law. They chose to go down another path, and in so doing, they demonstrated that their view of law is that the social context of a case trumps the real-live facts.
For months on end, Bill Anderson has been allowed to post outrageous comments about whomever he wishes to hurt without anyone reigning him in. Not one decent person has stopped him or called him out save Emmy954 of Liestoppers and she was banned for doing so. Bill Anderson accused Cash Michaels of doing the same exact thing in reporting second-hand information and bashed him daily for doing so. Liestoppers and DIW posters ridiculed him and KC Johnson knew about it because comments were posted on his blog. But now it is alright for Bill Anderson to report such things because Bill A. is credible?
I am so angry at Bill Anderson until I can’t see straight about this comment. But what is really heartbreaking is using the horrific death of an innocent young girl and LIE that a portion of Durham approved of this monstrous crime.
The post is one of many in which Bill A. has accused decent people in Durham of attempted murder and wanting to burn down Duke University in connection with the Duke Lacrosse case. Bill A’s comments are outrageous, spiteful & “beyond over the top”.
When will the madness end? How long before decent people like Emmy 954 step it up and say no more?
Yes, Anderson feels quite free to make wild, derogatory claims based on the crude caricatures he’s constructed of people and groups. All indications are that he’s going to continue in the same vein no matter what, so the best we can do is to present alternatives that are better informed and more constructive.
Let me see. Irving Joyner makes inflammatory statements, defends an illegal “lineup,” and then praises Nifong for completely changing the story, and I am the racist for pointing out this fact? Furthermore, Justice58 (or whatever her real name is, since she does not use it) claimed on Sydney Harr’s blog that none of the families of the indicted young men suffered anything. Those were her words.
[snip]… Yeah, Prof. Zimmerman, those families did not suffer at all. Right.
For the past three years, we have heard lie after lie come from Durham, and Justice58 still claims that there is all sorts of “secret” evidence being hidden that “proves” Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans raped Crystal Mangum, yet Prof. Zimmerman treats her as being credible. Just what is that “evidence” that you know about, Justice58?
Tricia Dowd attended the April 12 meeting at NCCU and said afterward that she never had experienced “so much hatred” in one place. We saw the entire “justice” apparatus of Durham County and the City of Durham attempt to frame three young men for a rape that never happened, yet I am supposed to infer NOTHING from this? The voters of Durham County elected Michael Nifong, even after Ed Bradley exposed his case on “60 Minutes,” yet I am supposed to believe that nothing was out of kilter?
I made my comments after Ruth Sheehan received numerous complaints that the coverage given to the murder of Eve Carson was “racist” because a murdered NCCU student was not given the same amount of publicity. Also, given the many public comments that residents of Durham made about the
Now, I find it interesting that Prof. Zimmerman presents Justice58 as better informed, since he has publicly stated that the charges were a hoax. Have you changed your mind, Prof. Zimmerman? If Justice58 is “better informed,” are you now saying that maybe the charges were true after all? Justice58 has written many times that the charges were true and Nifong was correct.
And let us be honest. Whatever “caricatures” I have created are not nearly as “crude” as the caricatures that Durham and Duke University made of the lacrosse players and their families. For that matter, the Seligmanns and the Finnertys had to endure their sons having their mug shots on the cover of Newsweek as accused rapists. Yeah, no caricature there.
And many supporters of Prof. Zimmerman, including Justice58 have made up their own crude caricatures of the families, of Joan Foster, and many of the other people who have defended the lacrosse players and their families.
By the way, Justice58 and Prof. Zimmerman, how is my comment about the way that African-Americans handled the lacrosse situation in Durham any different than what we saw in the worst of Mississippi and Alabama during the Jim Crow era? True, Reade, David, and Collin still are alive, but that is about all.
These young men had to endure false charges, made worse by one false story after another that came from Durham, the Wilmington News, and other papers. We saw Irving Joyner defend the April 4 “lineup,” which was a fraud. We saw the attorney for the NAACP, Al McSurely, refuse to meet with Kirk Osborn when Osborn offered to go over the entire case file.
By the way, which “decent” person in Durham did I accuse of attempted murder? I believe that had those young men been convicted and sent to prison, gangs would have murdered them, and there would have been support for that, and everyone reading this statement knows it.
So, while my comments are unpleasant, I stand by them. Call me what you want, but at least I have my name out there and don’t hide behind a fake name.
Professor Zimmerman,
Chan Hall NEVER spoke at the April 12th NCCU Rally. This has been pointed out to Bill Anderson by several people including myself, Cash Michaels and Inmyhumbleopinion on the EZDuke Discussion board. But yet Bill Anderson continues to post lies about this young man. Bill Anderson has been peddling this lie for 3 years now and it looks as if he is not interested in the truth.
NCCU student Shawn Cunningham spoke at the rally and he was the person who said ” She(CGM) walks in campus every day going to class, trying to provide for her family. You have reduced my sister to a stripper, you don’t identify her as a mother, you don’t identify her as a student”. It was after saying those words that there was applause.
Chan Hall was a NCCU student interviewed by a Newsweek reporter at the beginning of the case & quoted these words.
Across town, at NCCU, the mostly black college where the alleged victim is enrolled, students seemed bitterly resigned to the players’ beating the rap. “This is a race issue,” said Candice Shaw, 20. “People at Duke have a lot of money on their side.” Chan Hall, 22, said, “It’s the same old story. Duke up, Central down.” Hall said he wanted to see the Duke students prosecuted “whether it happened or not. It would be justice for things that happened in the past.”
KC Johnson and Bill Anderson have “used” the statement of Chan Hall to persuade their readers into believing how the entire community of Durham was feeling based on the words of one student, whose words were stupid and idiotic.
Here is where KC Johnson is intimating Chan Hall speaking at the NCCU Forum.
It has been pointed out to KC Johnson & Bill Anderson by Cash Michaels that the statement is a lie and it is dishonest to tie what Chan Hall quoted to a reporter from Newsweek and link it to how an entire community was feeling. I expect KC Johnson to report the facts especially once it has been pointed out to him and not mislead his readers with distortions of the truth.
OK, here’s the Newsweek story, and here’s a Duke Chronicle story about the April 12 forum at NCCU, and it’s quite clear that the quote from Chan Hall about “justice for things that happened in the past” wasn’t made at the forum. Johnson’s line, in the quote above and another post from March 2007, is that “Hall’s comments reflected the general sentiment in the auditorium that day.” Looking at the Chronicle story, it does seem to be a pretty fair reflection of the general sentiment, but that’s not the same as imagining that they’d all endorse that particular logic and follow it to the bitter end. It’s incredibly facile to imagine that angry people holding forth at a public forum are a good representation of the range of community sentiment.
Anyway, it’s ridiculous to insist that Chan Hall’s statement was made at the NCCU forum, so anyone who’s doing that should knock it off.
Rumour mill?
Aren’t some of Mr Zimmerman’s feminist colleagues claiming that gossip is a valid and reliable form of communication?
Maybe that’s only for women.
Presumably men, as usual, are held to a far higher standard.
It’s hard to believe someone who is suppose to be so well educated and a professor can rant like a mad hatter. I’m almost afraid to ask who this Bill Anderson really is, and what his agenda could possibly be.
Maybe the simple answer is he is obsessed to a degree which is extremely unhealthy mentally. This could make an interesting study of watching someone descend into the depths madness while remaining relatively normal acting to the public in general.
After making the comments to Newsweek, Chan Hall was elected as a NCCU student body vice president. I never did read anyone rebutting his statements to Newsweek, and that includes Cash. All Cash did was to say he did not speak in front of the whole crowd; Cash never publicly said that Hall was wrong.
To be honest, I would rather be the punching bag on this blog than Joan Foster or the lacrosse families, so if you wish to say those things, fine. At least I have my name out there and don’t hide behind fake pictures and false names.
Now, I must admit that this is the first time that someone has engaged in psychoanalyzing me, and if I do descend into the depths of madness, why I hope the blogger named “Sharon” is there to record the moment.
If you were to read the articles I have written over the years, you would see that I am consistent in my views toward justice and wrongful convictions. Often, I will defend people who are unpopular, like Barry Bonds, who was targeted by federal prosecutors, and now face prison or who have gone to prison.
The reason I got involved in the Duke case was that some young men were being falsely accused of a terrible crime… [snip]
As I told one of the parents, this was a case in which the truth was not enough. It is obvious from reading this blog that the truth never will be enough. In reading the material that has come from Duke and Durham, including the claim that the police were “looking for exculpatory evidence” and that Nifong (according to Sydney Harr) had a case with merit, I have concluded that a lot of people from Durham simply don’t want to bother with the truth, and that is why I am convinced that a Durham jury would have convicted those three young men.
When I read Sydney Harr claiming that the Seligmanns paid off Moez Elmostafa, and then see people like Justice58 comment on that particular post approvingly, you have to understand that I am not going to have a charitable attitude toward someone who approves of fabrications. Likewise, when Prof. Zimmerman gives her credibility, as he has done, I probably will react against that, too.
So, go after me if you will. After seeing the way that people in Durham went after the lacrosse players and their families, and after seeing the educational and political apparati in that city engage in gross misconduct, I will continue to doubt the integrity and honesty of people in leadership positions in that city. If this be a rant, and if this be madness, then let us make the most of it.
I will add an apology to Prof. Zimmerman if I have wrongly accused him of having attitudes that he, in fact, does not have. After having observed Durham and much of Duke University demanding race-based injustice, I had believed that Prof. Zimmerman was supporting those people.
Since he says unequivocally that he does not support the view that Cooper wrongfully dismissed the charges, I will apologize and leave it at that. If I am going to complain about wrongful accusations, then I don’t have the right to make them, either.
When I look closely at the Duke case and see the evidence that clearly exonerated the lacrosse players, I have to wonder why some people (including some on this blog) still insist that there was a rape. I know something about the science of forensics and the basic reasons why the DNA mattered, yet there are a lot of people who insist that the evidence must be ignored. (Somehow, I doubt they would want such evidence ignored in other cases.)
Thus, I only can conclude that the powers that be in Durham really are not interested in evidence or the truth. They wanted a certain outcome based on race, and they were going to get it one way or another. When I read what Harris Johnson said after the November 2006 election, that confirmed my viewpoint. Johnson was not just another guy off the street; he was a major political player in Durham and in North Carolina, and he made it clear that he wanted a race-based outcome in this case.
So, when the leadership of Durham openly declares it wants race-based outcomes on justice, I will respond in kind. Again, if that is madness, then so be it.
OK, I appreciate the correction. If you like to rant, I guess that’s fine, but if you want to move anything forward in the real world I think it would help to tone down the scorched-earth rhetoric and cut back on the indiscriminate accusations.
Sharon | May 5, 2009 at 12:28 pm
~~~~~
Would you care to share some of my popcorn, Sharon?
I do not believe KC Johnson is “insist[ing] that Chan Hall’s statement was made at the NCCU forum” at all. Only a careless reader would conclude that.
In the posting that KC Johnson made and that “Justice 58” copied (carelessly excluding the hyperlink) above, Johnson provided a hyperlink (now outdated) that pointed to the Newsweek report where Hall’s statement was made. Careful reading, following and reading the link would dispel any notion that Johnson was insisting that the statement was made at the forum.
What Johnson was insisting was that Hall’s earlier comment reflected the sentiment at the forum, and that is absolutely correct; even you agree with that reflection, above.
And, bottom line: Regardless of when Hall made that statement, the statement, and that it clearly reflected the “sentiment” at NCCU is not only “chilling,” it is deeply troubling.
That “sentiment” is redolent of the Jim Crow days in the south, with the races and classes reversed: Throw them in jail just because of who they are!
For sure the burning question about the quote from Hall isn’t whether or not he said it at the NCCU forum. I assume it has taken on special significance because it’s a straightforward matter of record, an easy point to raise. It shouldn’t be any skin off Anderson’s teeth, or Johnson’s, to acknowledge that Hall wasn’t at the forum and then proceed to a more important point. And yet you can see Anderson’s response, above.
It looks like just about everyone here is bothered by Hall’s idea of “justice for things that happened in the past,” including me and Justice58, and it’s an easy idea to criticize. The significance of it with respect to the general sentiment at NCCU and in Durham is a much harder thing to pin down. In fact, it can only be a matter of speculation, and when it’s informed, mostly, by the statements of angry people talking into microphones, the speculation tends to be idle and self-serving.
Has it still not gotten tiresome to invoke Jim Crow? I don’t deny the irony, but after plowing through the hyperbole that Anderson and others have churned out, it’s lost its charm. “Throw them in jail just because of who they are” is sentiment with a very long history, and variations of it have been stirred up by every imaginable distinction that can be made between groups of people. I think it’s quite fair to look at the NCCU forum as an example of cold-blooded, hypocritical tribalism. But the fact that it was an African American community doesn’t make it better or worse, or more or less dangerous or surprising or inexcusable.
Since you have put me in a category with William Chafe, I need to explain why I have made the statements I have with regards to the NAACP. I first begin with Irving Joyner of NCCU, who was the designated “observer” for the NC NAACP, and so he spoke with the NAACP’s authority.
[Snip]…
I cannot applaud, however, efforts that completely undo the good that the NAACP was able to achieve, and then to see the NAACP itself being the engine to undo its own good works. Does anyone really think that had Nifong gotten away with this fraud of a prosecution, that the damage could have been contained just to three young men who apparently are of the wrong class and race to satisfy the political elite of Durham?
[Snip]…
This one is easy. My comparison between Anderson and William Chafe had nothing to do with the NAACP. The full comment is on LieStoppers, and that’s a fine place to read it and respond to it. The only thing I want to point out is the scaremongering, which goes hand in hand very nicely with the hypothetical about the convicted lacrosse players being killed in jail.
An entire blog devoted, essentially, to trying to intellectualize away a staggeringly huge mistake? Wrap it in all the big words you want, bunky.
You effed up. Admit it and move on.
Perhaps you should call your blog, “But What We Really Meant To Say Was…”
Why is it so difficult to think these young men might have been murdered in prison? These things happen in those hellholes a lot and there was a lot a racial animosity toward Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans. Just read Justice58’s comments alone on Sydney Harr’s blog and you will see hatred expressed toward these people and their families in full bloom.
It is not farfetched to think that these young men would have been set up. Prisons, and especially maximum-security state prisons (where they would have been sent) are dominated by violent gangs, and these three people would have been logical targets.
That is not scaremongering. Talk to the people in the Little Rascals Hoax who went to prison. They faced regular beatings and other such things, and they were wrongfully convicted. Given the real animosity that was expressed at the April 12 NCCU meeting and toward Reade Seligmann by the locals at his hearing, I don’t find it farfetched at all to think that there would have been trouble.
Also, why do you so doubt that a Durham jury would have convicted these young men? Irving Joyner himself said more than once that he believed that Nifong had a good chance of winning a conviction, and he is a close observer of things in Durham. So, judging from your comment above, I suppose you would have an issue with Joyner on that subject.
I think it’s fine to be clear and even graphic about what it would have meant to send those three young men to prison (and not just them). Anyone inclined to toy with an idea like “justice for things that happened in the past” should have to confront what that “justice” would entail.
Scaremongering is blowing the scary possibilities out of proportion, it doesn’t require making them up. In this case, we know the most likely outcome—Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans won’t go to jail. I think you’ll have to agree that’s a very solid data point, perhaps even firmer than your intimate understanding of Durham juries. So I think any hypothetical scenarios that have them going to trial AND being convicted AND losing their appeal AND being murdered are very low probability. And yet it’s the one that seems most real and relevant to you.
Bill Anderson~ With all due respect, you’re lying about Cash Michaels. Cash is not here to defend himself but I will defend him because I am a witness to his writings. Cash Michaels did write publicly what he thought about the words of Chan Hall.
Bill, making things up as you go has become a seemingly habitual pattern for you. You have accused Cash Michaels of openly stating that he didn’t care whether a rape happened or not, and that he wanted a trial and conviction. That is a lie.
Cash Michaels confronted you at TalkLeft Forum about it and he wrote about it on April 7th, 2007 at EZDuke Discussion board. After Cash Michaels pointed out the facts to you because he had a videotape of the rally, you admitted that you were wrong. But yet you continue to peddle not only the lie about Chan Hall but you continue to lie about Cash Michaels. This is what Cash Michaels wrote about your discussions at TalkLeft.
Bill, you continue to push fear & lies about the sentiment of an entire community because it fits your narrative. Your lies hurt people and it needs to stop.
That whole TalkLeft thread is pretty interesting, though it’s kind of depressing to see how much we’re just retracing well-worn ground. It includes the comment of Anderson’s that Michaels is quoting. There is also a link to a video of the NCCU forum somewhere in there.
One Spook said: “I do not believe KC Johnson is “insist[ing] that Chan Hall’s statement was made at the NCCU forum” at all. Only a careless reader would conclude that.”
In a way, I agree with you on this one. I believe the statement is worded so most casual (not careless) readers would assume that he made the statement at the forum but still give KC an out to back away from that claim. I believe he uses this type of strategy quite often when writing about other aspects of the case and some of the people involved in it. It makes the forum look worse than it really was. I think that is exactly what KC wanted to do.
One Spook, it is all too apparent that Bill Anderson was one of those “careless readers.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson149.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson176.html
Here are two posts Anderson made on the old LieStoppers board before it “imploded.” ;>)
In this last post Anderson is not claiming “Chan Hall’s comments received loud and enthusiastic applause.” I added it just for laughs.
The exploitation of Chan Hall’s comment by KC Johnson and Bill Anderson is well documented at the dreaded Bat Cave.
KC Johnson and Chan Hall
Bill Anderson and Chan Hall
Cash Michaels on Chan Hall
Professor Zimmerman, I don’t think you can swing the pendulum all the way over to “low probability” here for the same reasons you use to criticize Bill’s argument: you’re just guessing. Right now, as an academic afterthought, guessing does not carry the onerous weight of 30-40 years of young men’s lives, indicted with an allegation and never any evidence.
If your doctor, examining you… a family man with children to raise… said he “guessed” the tumor was benign…just kick back, and see what happens…could you? Would you not research, read, gather information, and prepare for the worst case scenario as the best case scenario for extending your life?
Bill’s trial scenario is based on the confluence of rage we observed in Durham, stoked to fever pitch by Nifong, the media, the NCNAACP case description, and the never abating stream of vitrol that seethed from the Duke faculty. To get all the way over to your “low probability” assessment, we must accept that Durham, its Black community, its leftist community, its activist community, its unhappy-townies-who-dislike-the-gownies community, and the tribalists in Trinity Park…all had emotionally returned to a neutral point.
I would ask you what “signs” indicated to you that neutralizing had taken place? Certainly not the extremely high percentage of vote Nifong received in Durham’s Black community? Certainly not that the NCNAACP retained that infamous “case description” on its website long after vindication? Certainly not the Sounds of Silence from the Duke faculty after Nifong’s egregious behavior was clearly well known. (you promised to write about that one day) Certainly not the later NON-rush of those in Durham to demand investigations and accountability?
I am willing to consider that you saw evidence of a great shift that the rest of us missed, that convinced you that vindication before a Durham jury…was the “most likely outcome.” Please explain?
I know you do not wish the families to be invoked, but again, I disagree. I believe empathy to be key to holding off the tyranny of “tribalism” you well articulated and we all observed in this case, and empathy to be the anecdote to so much inherent ugliness in the human condition. When we allow ourselves to subtract out the suffering in any situation, we become more susceptible to repeat it. (yes…this includes the tragic figures stricken from LS and doomed to roam the Internet searching for new comrades)
If this were your child, what signs were there that could help you sleep at night, convinced of the “low probability” of a Durham jury conviction? We see in just these past months..that Mangum has been given a forum in the popular Know bookstore, by Black sororities and fraternities at UNC, and in a classroom by a Black professor at a community college. We see a website proclaiming Nifong a martyr to his own “integrity.” We read the comments of those who will never let go…both at Duke and in Durham. Did Readers Digest Man of the Year Elmo…ever get any recognition locally?
I’m pretty confident of my low-probability argument (and I realize now that I didn’t even factor in the possibility of a change of venue) and even more confident that you won’t talk me out of it, and yet more confident that in a debate between you or Bill and me, none of us would really know what we were talking about. There are people — attorneys and reporters and others — with the experience to make an educated guess. We are not in that class. But one thing I have on you is 10 years in Durham. Plus your sense of the probabilities is based on an extremely biased sample and simplistic assumptions about the way people behave. Serving on a jury is not the same as voting and it’s not the same as commenting on a web site or to a reporter — talk is cheap, rendering a verdict after sitting in court for weeks is not.
Of the constituencies you list, the black community is the really sizeable one. It’s not monolithic, though, and its not like the New Black Pathers were going to be empaneled. The place that I really come in contact with a cross section of Durham is my daughters’ school, and I’m confident that a jury of my fellow parents would have had no trouble acquitting the Duke three. I could be wrong, since I don’t read minds, but I know it’s a better measure than any you have of what was likely to happen if the case was tried.
And you really have to put some perspective around Mangum’s recent appearance at UNC and the Justice4nifong site. They are not, in even the remotest sense, the reflection of a mainstream view.
My big problem with Bill is not that he comes up with different probabilies than me, it’s that he’s using his sense of what might have happened in order to denounce and defame people. That, I promise you, is not the way to engender empathy. What it invites is anger and scorn.
I’m really glad you dropped in to say your piece. Oh, and I did actually take a stab at answering that other question.
Hold yourself to the same standard you are asking of Bill: if you had known one of the families, what would have been your basis for this comforting scenario of “low probability” of conviction AT THE TIME?” This is asked with a (somewhat) open mind, no sarcasm, and very real respectful interest.
(those are my last two sentences…from the first post.
)
I wouldn’t have tried to offer any comforting scenarios at the time (while the players were indicted, I assume you mean). I know they had far more authoritative opinions to draw on.
Good Professor -
Please explain to us once again why you sat silently in the face of Nifong’s many transgressions.
Was there no level of civil liberties abuse that would have caused you to speak out.
Please… tell us again.
Prof. Zimmerman writes: Has it still not gotten tiresome to invoke Jim Crow? I don’t deny the irony, but after plowing through the hyperbole that Anderson and others have churned out, it’s lost its charm.
[snip]
I think it’s quite fair to look at the NCCU forum as an example of cold-blooded, hypocritical tribalism. But the fact that it was an African American community doesn’t make it better or worse, or more or less dangerous or surprising or inexcusable.
It would be “tiresome” to continue to invoke Jim Crow behavior if the bad actors in this episode understood, recognized, and were sanctioned for their very craven behavior, Mr. Zimmerman.
But that is not the situation, and so the civil suits continue.
I suspect that if you were directing a musical group that continued to ignore the key signature in the score, you would continue to mention it until the matter was recognized and corrected.
And, I agree with you that “cold-blooded, hypocritical tribalism” by any group is unacceptable, and “the fact that it was an African American community doesn’t make it better or worse, or more or less dangerous or surprising or inexcusable.”
We could quibble forever on style, but Prof. Johnson has raised some extremely important questions and issues during this episode that have not even begun to be adequately addressed or answered.
I’m away from home through the weekend and comment moderation may be even more sporadic than usual.
Then I think we can agree to disagree. I think that with the NAACP and certainly a lot of black ministers being firmly on Nifong’s side, that there would have been a lot of pressure on African-American jurors to vote guilty no matter what.
This was a case in which evidence did not matter. After the DNA tests came back negative, Nifong quoted a student from NCCU who declared, “It is not that it did not happen. It is just that they left nothing behind.” When Nifong repeated that quote, he received a large round of applause.
This was not an audience full of the New Black Panthers; it was a cross-section of Durham’s African-American community, which had bought fully into this story. People don’t like to be shown to be wrong, and I believe that the pressure not to back down was very, very strong.
Yes, if a person were able to vote in a jury room totally free of peer pressure and expectations of friends, relatives, and others in the community, maybe it would have been easy to see through Crystal’s story. Certainly, the expert witnesses the defense planned to use, such as Dr. Ann Burgess, the very “founder” of the SANE program, who was to testify against Tara Levicy, would have convinced a lot of people that Levicy was wrong.
But, the “evidence” we saw did not convince Irving Joyner, Al McSurely, William Barber, Harris Johnson, and others who are tied with the African-American leadership in Durham. To the end and beyond, they insisted that Crystal’s stories, while mutually-exclusive, all were true. In the heat of the moment, with all of the emotions taking place, and with the very sad realities of racial history providing the backdrop, I can very well see a guilty verdict.
You are right regarding your friends and neighbors. As individuals, they are decent, friendly, and kind. But that was not the Durham I saw during that sad year. Instead, I saw a district attorney elected precisely because he sought and received indictments of people who did not commit the crime for which they were charged.
I saw the breakdown of the very standards of law that are supposed to protect people from this kind of injustice. I saw a law professor who is supposed to stand up for the rights of the accused advocating what Jim Coleman called “mooning of the system.”
People are capable of anything. Indeed, there was a reference to the execution-style murders of two African-American couples in Monroe, Georgia, in 1946, for which no one ever came to justice. Yet, convicting Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans of a rape that did not occur would not bring those murdered people back to life or bring justice to Monroe. That will have to occur at a later time and before a Greater Judge.
I also will say that I am very capable of the kind of behavior that I have condemned, and I think all of us, whether or not we want to admit as such, need to remember our own failings.
Yes, I think it’s crystal clear that our positions aren’t going to converge.
I see that the ever informative Deborah has found not very well hidden comments from you on Popehat from early in 2008. Debbie offers these quotes as ‘evidence’ of your very obvious delusions. The thing I find amusing is that the few quotes of yours that Debruh picked manage to pin down a fair characterization of reality over at the Wonderland.
Thank heavens there is still love in the Diva(h)World.
I noticed that she’d unearthed that exchange. She doesn’t miss a thing, does she? Well, except sfor this part, the comment from Patrick that got the ball rolling: “Love the blog and have from the day it hit my radar. I hate the audience and have from the day I delved into its comments.”
Now that I’ve seen some of the video and read more transcripts (like CNN and Rita Crosby Live) and Cash Michaels’ first-hand impressions, I’m less impressed with the idea that Chan Hall’s remark represents even the general sentiment of that NCCU rally. It should, in any case, be possible to capture the general sentiment with something that was actually said at the event. I haven’t had a chance to watch it all the way through, but from what I’ve seen I’d vote for this comment from a student named Toloupe Omokaiye:
Whether or not that’s the most representative sentiment, it was a common one, and Nifong addressed it explicitly. The most benign or defensible way of putting it would be as a question something like this: If the evidence is as good you say it is, Mr. District Attorney, why aren’t those boys in jail? Because if it was one of us, we’d be in jail. This invokes “things that happened in the past,” but the concern is even-handedness, not retribution. It’s quite possible to say what Omokaiye said and either believe in evidence and due process or be indifferent to them, as Hall seems to have been.
It’s jarring, for sure, that so many people were talking about the “victim” and the crime as if there was no doubt in their mind. I doubt if the event stands out, in that respect, from countless other public gatherings where people held forth about an outrageous but unproven crime. Most people have the mental flexibility to talk like that in some contexts and in other contexts remember that they don’t really know what happened. It seems like the event was designed to bring out that kind of thing, and I’m inclined to fault Nifong and the event’s organizers more than the students who spoke.
It’s typical of this controversy that Omokaiye’s constuct is turned on it’s head by the other side. A favorite way to highlight PC hypocrisy is to ask the rhetorical question, what would they do in situation X if it was a gay person, or a woman, or an African American, instead of a heterosexual white male? Everyone knows the answer to that, don’t they?
In the DIW post that declared war on the race/class/gender extremists at Duke, KC Johnson wrote that Hall’s idea of prosecution as payback “carried the Duke 88’s thinking to its logical, if absurd, extreme.” It’s one of those lines that Johnson wants to make the most he can of, so I suspect its not careless elision but purposeful misrepresentation behind the impression given by DIW that Hall spoke his lines at the forum. He does the same kind of thing with a forum at Duke that was supposedly “designed to combat the ‘culture of crassness’ on campus,” except that it wasn’t. Some historian!
If anyone else wants to vote for the quote from the NCCU forum that best represents the general sentiment, be my guest.
It’s one of those lines that Johnson wants to make the most he can of, so I suspect its not careless elision but purposeful misrepresentation behind the impression given by DIW that Hall spoke his lines at the forum.
If you follow the link into the cave you’ll see the vast majority of instances Johnson mentions Chan Hall he doesn’t attempt to tie him to the forum. Johnson often repeats themes with nearly identical wording. He’s used some form of “I have said, repeatedly, that I am pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, and a registered Democrat who is supporting Barack Obama for president” so frequently that it comes off as a Pavlovian response similar to “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”
I don’t see how two instances, one basically a regurgitation of the other, represents the “impression given by DIW”. Johnson returned to the April 11th forum many other times without mention of Chan Hall. I don’t see any indication you gave any weight to that when you were forming your suspicions.
Once again, Wayne, you’ve caught me not saying quite what I mean. What I should have said is “…the impression that the line (‘…justice for things that happened in the past’) was uttered at the forum.” The important thing isn’t Chan Hall, it’s the thing he said. Placing it at the NCCU forum helps Johnson to pin it on the broad community that the forum drew from.
Were you at the NCCU forum? I was.
While I do not have a “quote” to provide to you (there were relatively few recorded) the general sentiment was hostile to Nifong, so long as he was cautious in statements regarding indictments, but turned enthusiastically positive (as any good politician, seeking election, would desire) as soon as he assured the crowd that the case would not go away (evidence be damned!).
If you were seeking a good proxy on the sentiment at NCCU, you could look to the fact that the Durham NAACP continued to carry guilt-presuming materials (84 Torts… etc.) on its website long after the DNA evidence had come back negative, and Nifong had removed himself from the case, and Cooper had declared that his independent investigation had found no evidence that any assualt had been commited. Long after.
“General sentiments”, being based on observation and interpretation, are a hard thing to nail down. But the fact that the Durham NAACP continued to carry on its website its guilt presuming material, long after sufficient evidence existed to justify a skepticism regarding Nifong’s claims, and to support a presumption of innocence toward the accused, is deplorable.
But from my observation at the NCCU forum, the stance of the Durham NAACP was an accurate reflection of the guilt-presuming sentiment at the NCCU forum.
It’s not at all true that there are “relatively few” quotes. The video of the whole thing is available, as are transcripts of a few parts — links are in comment #64. What the NC NAACP did and said is indicative of broader sentiment, I’m sure, but I don’t see why we need any proxy when we have the thing itself.
As far as I know, no one at the forum proposed a prosecution “whether it happened or not.” An idea that did crop up several times is that it didn’t seem that the lacrosse players were treated the same as a poor African American would be. Whatever validity that complaint had was ultimately undercut by the “guilt-presuming sentiment,” and I agree that sentiment seems to have been nearly universal and it reflects very poorly on the speakers and organizers.
Someone left a comment and tried to pawn it off as the words of someone else. Both are regulars of the “cave.” The first part of this person’s actual screen name is a synonym for ‘jerk.’ The comment is a fine example of the sentiment at the NCCU meeting being turned on its head. It’s about the Feb. 2007 rape of a Duke student at a frat party — Michael Burch recently pleaded guilty to the crime. Here’s the bulk of it:
This commenter proves himself to be as obsessed by race as any of the characters in Durham that he despises, and his interest in the “actual rape” apparently starts and ends with it’s usefulness as an excuse to take ignorant potshots at them.
He ends, though, with a plausible response to the NCCU student I quoted a few comments ago:
The final questions were asked by an older gentleman:
His comment certainly dovetails with the one I chose. The problem with it is that the speaker seems to be as credulous as he is irate. By every indication I can find, the story about the young woman who climbed out the window is nothing more than a rumor. Enough drunken partying goes on that something like that must happen now and then, somewhere or other. But when I google for it in connection with the lacrosse team, all I find are comments that have been left here and there. I can’t find any mention of it in, for instance, this article in the Duke Chronicle about the rowdy behavior of the lacrosse team. If they got a slap on the wrist, there should be some record of the incident in Duke’s files, but it’s not mentioned in the Coleman report. I find it very hard to believe that the speaker has the inside scoop on an incident that’s otherwise almost entirely off the public record.
So the thread has gotten back to rumors. Both this one and Bill Anderson’s hearsay about Karla Holloway seem to be efforts to make the villains truly villainous, whether they come from the Group of 47 or the Group of 88.
I’m sorry about the drama of clearing this comment and then unclearing most of it. I was in the middle of family travel chaos when an issue was raised and it seemed like the best temporary solution. Ultimately, though, I think it’s better to take a close look at these sorts of stories instead of trying to suppress them.
The closest documented thing I have seen related to this is from Gottlieb’s case “notes”, where if I recall he reports a tip from Addison via CrimeStoppers of a mother reporting that her daughter was raped at a party hosted by Lacrosse members a few years prior to the CGM accusation. I don’t recall this lead being developed or if there was ever any verification that an actual record existed of this Crime Stoppers report. I believe the mother indicated the daughter did not report an assault at the time and was traumatized by the incident. Of course Crime Stoppers “tips” are in a lot of cases complete rubbish anyway and if there was some factual basis to this particular “tip” I would suspect it would have received a bunch of attention.
So I guess the question is does the discussion of a rumor already out there amount to spreading rumors? My opinion is that the more light you can shine on a rumor the better chance you have of determining if there is any fact behind it.
I think that’s right, that if a rumor is already in circulation it’s probably better to shine a light on it, if that’s possible.
A larger collection of references to the naked-girl-out-the-window incident has been assembled at the cave. It’s looks like a story you’d want to verify and investigate if you were putting together an account of what happened in and around the infamous house. Without that step, it can’t be treated as anything more than colorful neighborhood lore. And it’s a pretty good representation of the frustration of neighbors who, I’m sure, really do know things about what went on around there. It seems to me that what they know is one of many details that were obliterated when the case turned into a war between potbangers and anti-potbangers. My impression is that some folks in the neighborhood bear some responsibility for that. What we’ve ended up with is the storytelling of KC Johnson, who knows very little and cares even less about real life in Durham. He’s had the luxury of picking and choosing the impressions he wants from second- and third-hand sources, and the result is sanitized and self-serving.
At this point I think I should be clear about the hoaxing commenter with a ‘jerk’ in his name. I have gotten, from a computer that once left a comment under “yankenstein,” comments attributed to cave denizens WoodyOfWoodside, 2braids, and sscratches. Also Hugues de Payens, Godfrey Saint-Omer, and ChickyboomChickyboom, but as far as I know those aren’t anyone else’s name. All are from the same IP
cpe-76-184-36-50.tx.res.rr.com (76.184.36.50)
I also received an email from that IP claiming to be from justice58 (yahoo email address reneox@yahoo.com).
Hi Joan/A reader,
Let’s talk about Durham. Déjà vu, huh? There you go again with the “sweeping generalizations” of the people of Durham. How many times have we been over this? I’m beginning to believe that you’re just ignoring examples that refute your assumptions. I, personally, have given you many examples “of a great shift” which suggested that “vindication before a Durham jury…was the ‘most likely outcome.’” Of course, like you, I’m just guessing. However, unlike you, I’m basing my opinion on experience, having lived in Durham my whole life (30 years). You’re basing your opinion on what you read/see in the media.
As you know, I have closely followed this case since its inception. In April 2006, I suspected that the Duke lacrosse team were victims of a wrongful accusation and since then every single piece of evidence known to date has affirmed my position. You and I agree on the innocence of Reade, Collin, and Dave…however I strongly disagree with you that, had this case gone to trial, a Durham jury would have returned a guilty verdict. You’re assuming a Durham jury would have found RCD guilty of rape regardless of the fact that there is no evidence that Crystal was raped by anyone, let alone a member of the Duke lacrosse team. I don’t think that’s fair.
You seem to think that Chan Hall speaks for Durham’s black community. Would it be fair to say that every member of LieStoppers “can’t wait” for another terrorist attack on American citizens so that they can blame in on President Obama?
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/single/?p=162242&t=1508194
Even though no member of LS objected to this poster’s comment, I don’t think it’s fair to say that every member of LS agrees with this poster. Perhaps I’m wrong. Are you hoping for another terrorist attack, Joan?
Well said!
Hi KrdDurham,
Yours is an excellent post and I’m going to try to give a fair answer.
Actually the two divergent points you made kind of merge for me…so let me start with the “terror attack” in my reply.
No, this Liestopper does not hope for another terror attack. My youngest daughter was evacuated from her workplace on 34th St that morning (they thought there might be a plane headed for the Empire State Building) and she lived on 13th..below the area cordoned off by the National Guard. I am an pretty emotional person on a good day. Those days…soon followed by rumors of subway bombs, rumors of attacks on the tunnels, and real Anthrax attacks…made me lose faith in every deterrent, every sense of security, every entity I trusted …but with a fear I could not show…not to her anyway. To me, NYC had descended into chaos and my daughter was in the middle of it.
Likewise, I don’t think my “feelings” about a Durham conviction are based on Chan Hall or what he said where. I think my feelings were and are based on a pervasive fear…and loss of faith…that grew and doubled and rebounded over those early months …when you and I were both posting and writing in support of the Team. I had such naïve faith in the system at first…(yes you may mock me), in the decency and fairness of people, in individual policemen, in nurses, in my kids professors, in the NCNAACP. One by one, that trust was betrayed. Over time, I came to believe Durham descended into chaos and Collin, Reade and Dave were in the middle of it.
So many times, as evidence was released I felt…”This is it. This will end now.”I’d have these little relaspes of dumb hope. I recently listened again to Reade’s testimony at Nifong’s Bar trial. He said the same thing. Over and over he had faith that reason, and justice, and just plain decency would end it…but over and over the Hoax pushed on. The people of Durham allowed it to push on. There was no uproar to end it. Instead there was an uproar to energize it! Re-invent it! Prop it up!
Antipathy or apathy, I don’t know…but there were no Durham action figures for justice in this Frame. Did you see them or hear them?
I will yield the point that you and our Host know Durham better than I do. Good people live there I’m sure. But for a few…they were silent. Why were they silent? Why didn’t they get behind Beth Brewer? Why didn’t they march with the Moms? Vote against Nifong? Step up and make noise? I only know what I saw and read…and did NOT see and READ. The absence of voices is stronger to me than the cacophony of potbangers and agenda pushers.
It’s hard to trust a young man’s lifetime to a community that did not register any discernable outrage as outrageous prosecutorial abuse played out to A NATIONAL AUDIENCE…under their noses for months. Cocktail party chatter or tut-tutting’ at the Town bowling alley…really does not count. You told me once some were afraid (for jobs or whatever) to say much. Maybe they would be equally afraid to vote for acquittal. Think what that says about the pressures abounding to convict!
From city hall to campus… to the ADA’s in Nifong’s office to the good police officers in the DPD…from the Black churches to the “Case description” on the NCNAACP website…. to the voices and op-eds emanating from Duke…. how many in Durham took a public stand against Nifong and tried to stop this? Where were they? Why did this go on and on and on? Tell me how all the community leaders of Durham who watched as Nifong conducted this case in a manner so egregious that he would be disbarred and spend a night in jail…could allow this to drag on for months and not speak out?
Were they just waiting to bankrupt the Seligmanns and then surprise them with an acquittal at trial? (“You silly gooses..we were with you all along! Hug! Hug!”)
I see a similarity with the New Yorkers who wrote scathing letters to the NYT after Kitty Genovese was knifed to death…screaming as her attacker followed her for blocks…as neighbors watched from windows and refused to “get involved.” “This city is safe!” they wrote, “My neighbors look out for each other.” They were insulted and incensed that suburbanites would suggest differently.
Well, tell that to Kitty Genovese and her family. Maybe they felt good. She was kind of dead.
A lot of folks in Durham just looked out their windows too. It was pretty much THEIR justice system staggering, screaming, yelling and bleeding down the streets of their neighborhood.It’s hard to rely on that kind of apathy for an innocent verdict.
Here’s a challenge. Watch this video…and then explain how you would assure Reade Seligmann that the Durham of 2006 would never convict him. Tell me how you would convince Kathy Seligmann she could entrust her innocent son to that community that either embraced Mangum’s story…or seemed unwilling or uninterested to “get involved” to stop Nifong.
Tell them of all the comforting signs you saw and heard in Durham, the affection, the support, the real empathy and community embrace…that they must have missed.
But watch Reade first.
Try to see the Durham that he experienced. Then convince him and me why he had nothing at all to fear. Because it’s our fear that stands in the way of accepting in good faith … your admittedly…more qualified opinion.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/1503575/
Thanks for answering, Joan. I’m going to resist the urge to commentate, except to say that the link is to Reade Seligmann’s testimony at Mike Nifong’s State Bar trial.
It is only natural that people would fear the worst when facing charges. I understand that. Bill’s statement goes far out of bounds for me first because he implies that they wanted the players to be killed in prison so they would not have to face an appeal. And then he accuses them of attempted murder. Here is the quote:
To say that Bill overstates his case here is an understatement, in my opinion. We can argue probabilities until we are blue in the face but it will not change the fact that Bill should retract this one rather than defend it, in my opinion. I also agree with krddurham on the general fairness of juries in Durham. I was called for jury duty several times when I lived in Durham County and had the honor of serving once while I lived in Durham and once when I lived in Greensboro. I never met anyone on those cases that I felt was out to get someone because of race or class or gender.
It is an honor to serve on a jury but unfortunately not all feel that way. I will leave you with this written excuse that made the news yesterday. Here is the link:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0430091jury1.html
Ah ha, so that’s the bald claim behind the references to attempted murder. Retract or defend, a claim like that is so far beyond the pale that I’m not sure it matters. I expanded the quote a little, just to be clear about who “these people” are — hope you don’t mind.
Thanks for the personal testimony, though, and that excuse is quite a piece of work!
I’ve revisited the topic a bit and would like to add this: I am not clinging to my opinion out of any sense of “rightness” or superior knowledge or any logical premise. It is just the sum of my stunned experiences as someone who became involved in the minutiae of this case from those first Spring months of 2006. I cannot deny you know your city and neighbors better than I do. I am not trying to insult you or them, but let’s use this example.
Suppose I told Prof. Zimmerman that I needed a knee replacement. Suppose he assured me DUMC was one of the best places for that surgery in the world. (I believe that is correct) Suppose I make my appointment and head down to Durham. As I’m checking in, security is breached and a scuffle breaks out and gun shots are exchanged. Stunned… I make it to the elevator, but spend the next hour between floors due to a maintenance issue. Finally assigned a bed, the nurse dispenses me the wrong medicine which causes a delay. I wake up the morning of the surgery with my head shaved because someone read the chart wrong.
I think, at that point, no matter my respect and belief in Prof Zimmerman or all the glowing reviews from KrdDurham or satisfied patients…nothing could make me let them proceed. Does that mean DUMC is not everything Prof Zimmerman says. Not necessarily. But it’s hard to trust after what I personally experienced.
Something happened In Durham in 2006. It was not just Nifong. It was not just one person, or one thing. The egregious behavior may… individually… have been aberrant…but taken as a whole…it was stunning…and frightening. And there was no discernable counter push back for a long, long time. Almost all the voices we heard were singing for Mangum, or against RCD…there was no part of the choir singing loud and strong FOR RCD, was there? Except a few bloggers. Even after Nifong was disbarred, there was no push for reform. Crystal STILL is invited here and there to make her case for rape; Nifong has a support website. My fear says a lot is still simmering under the surface.
Factual proof…no. But I don’t think you can FAIRLY say…unjustifiable fear either.
I don’t think our Host could have denied, in my analogy, my decision to get out of Dodge..er-r…DUMC.
To me, this DUMC analogy is not excessive. So many entities and individuals, one should reasonably have faith in…broke down in Durham in 2006. I see Baker assuring the media that there was only one story. Why ever did that educated responsible man NEED to lie? I remember a comment from the young reporter at NCCU, shocked at the comments of Mangum’s neighbors.. but SILENCING HERSELF because she could NOT serve truth and balance by printing them. I remember the “case description” on the NCNAACP website. I would think many well intentioned people (and potential jurors) might feel they could rely on the NAACP for integrity and stark honesty in ANY matter. Once, that is how I viewed that organization. Not so this time.
I remember the N&O putting the news of Mangum’s criminal record in the back pages after the “swagger story” and the “wanted poster” had been, with many other inflammatory articles…on page one.
I remember Brodhead allowing a armed (they told us) hate group to assemble on a Duke parking lot…in their desire to “interview” the Lacrosse players during exam week. Would he have allowed the KKK to assemble after Katie Rouse was raped? Did he suspend the Black frat, even when illegal drugs, a gun and a real rape occurred at their party? (Brodhead suspended the Lacrosse season.) Did he fire their advisor? Did he opine that whatever that Black Frat did…”was bad enough.”
Check out the esteemed Prof. Houston Baker appearing on (my God) Nancy Grace
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/05/ng.01.html
I think Baker would have appeared on Jerry Springer Freak Show if he could have had another opportunity to smear (as he called her son to Tricia Dowd)…the “farm animals.” Did Duke profs take to the airwaves and TV screens to condemn wild fraternity parties after the Duke Black Frat rape? Did they present the Black Frat rape in a vile racial context and build outrage on that premise?
Duke made an official statement apologizing to the two strippers. Here’s the ONLY statement about the Duke Frat rape:
Vice President of Student Affairs Larry Moneta described Katie Rouse’s rape as “part of the reality of collegiate life and of experimentation and some of the consequences of students not always being in the right place at the right time.”
Something was vicious and different and off the tracks here in the Lacrosse case…all over Duke and Durham. That is undeniable.
There was so much animosity that bubbled beneath the surface. Racial, Town-Gown, Gender, Privilege. The Black Frat rape did not set off a similar firestorm.
RCD were not three individual kids…they were symbols…finally in the clutches of people with various grievances. Or so it seemed to me. Not all of this was media. We had “boots on the ground” too.
That’s why it is so hard to trust.
So please don’t take it personally that I do not accept your more informed opinion of your neighbors fairness. That I can’t imagine putting Kathy’s child, Mary Ellen’s child, Rae’s child in their hands for justice.
I’m a recovering optimist…trying to get the feelin’ again…but I have a long, long way to travel back from Durham 2006.
I have to say that I find the obsession with the “Black Frat rape” to be very short-sighted and unappealing. The presumption seems to be that (a) the people who did everything wrong in the lacrosse case should, to be fair, have done everything wrong in the other case and (b) that all differences in the reaction to the two cases can or should be referred back to race. Anyone interested in comparing the two cases should be able to do better than that. The first step, before getting into a comparison, would be deciding how the Gattis St. rape should have been handled on its own terms, not in comparison to another case. On the judicial side, the fact that the guy was out on bail and committed another rape raises a red flag, obviously, and I defer to the victim’s father about that. On Duke’s end, I would hope that university officials would act with care and discretion, reacting to the students as individuals. I don’t see any value in second guessing their decisions based on news reports. Not in any detail, anyway, though I wouldn’t blame anyone for wondering why the fraternity wasn’t sanctioned.
Beyond that, I’m not sure how one can argue against “the sum of [your] stunned experiences.” My experiences are different, obviously. But some of the other comments coming in might be useful.
My fear if this case had gone to trial in Durham is that the tribalism Nifong was able to count on in violating so many different precepts of his profession, yet have none of the usual roadblocks to same come into play, would have allowed one “activist” juror to perform a reverse “12 Angry Men” on David, Reade, and Collin.
I love Durham, and I love living and working in this city. But as time has passed, I have been more and more saddened and stunned by the multiple system failure this case represents.
There you go, Gus, being reasonable again. I expect that someone who knows the inner workings of the Durham County judicial system might make a good argument for or against the scenario. All I can say is that it seems to come from a realistic assessment of the social dynamics of our sort-of-fair city.
YOU SAY: The presumption seems to be that (a) the people who did everything wrong in the lacrosse case should, to be fair, have done everything wrong in the other case…
Oh please. That is not my presumption nor my desire nor my goal. I’m simply looking at two raucous off campus parties where the evening ended with an accusation of rape. The second party, of course, achieves the benefit of lessons learned from the first. I’m happy about that. I would not want the young men or their families at that second party to experience the hateful backlash that was directed at the first group.
But let’s remove race or “political correctness” or world view or metanarrative out of the equation for the moment…down to just examining the two events and subsequent campus reactions.
One group hired strippers, distasteful but not illegal. The second group was found to have illegal drugs and a weapon at their party. In both cases, a woman claimed to have been raped.
Duke’s position toward the first “victim” was to issue (from the President) an apology for, if nothing else, the poor treatment she received at the party. Duke’s position toward the second victim was this statement.
That sounds a bit like blaming the victim. Do YOU read it differently? Now, be fair…Duke never tried to shield the Lacrosse team by officially insinuating that Mangum’s “consequences” had anything to do with her own choices, did they?
Now the reaction among the Faculty.
The Listening statement has been explained as an act of compassion. Professors were moved to “listen” to expressions on fear on campus. But no ad was issued in the second case. So did no woman “fear” after the second accusation? Do Duke women only fear Lacrosse players? Was there no anxiety about rape at fraternity parties?
Where was the church lady response to drinking, out-of-control expression of privilege? Was the Duke faculty no longer “listening?” All things being equal, wouldn’t some faculty type have had something to say here? Not one? Nobody? Nothing? Why if it was all about just compassion and reaction to the violence of generic rape?
Speaking of which…where was the “gender” faction? Why was there no “Take back the Night” rallies for Katie Rouse? This is a real stunner? How to they determine who gets these rallies? Are there qualifications one must meet?
On April 5, 2006, Professor Houston Baker went on that esteemed legal issues show …Nancy Grace… to say this:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/05/ng.01.html
Read the whole transcript. It’s stunning.
Now, if it is your position that race (or PC) played no part in the different approaches to the party…where was Houston Baker, a human, decrying the treatment of Katie Rouse, a human, at another raucous party? Even from the far outpost of Vanderbilt…nothing stopped him from expressing similar outrage, did it? I’m sure Grace would have extended another gig. Was it the absence of “helmets” that made the difference for him. Where WAS he for Katie Rouse?
YOU WRITE: The Gattis St. rape should have been handled on its own terms, not in comparison to another case. On the judicial side, the fact that the guy was out on bail and committed another rape raises a red flag, obviously, and I defer to the victim’s father about that. On Duke’s end, I would hope that university officials would act with care and discretion, reacting to the students as individuals.
Yes, yes, I agree. But I’m speaking of reaction as a pendulum here…all the way from one side to the other in these two cases…outrage to apathy.It is unfair of you to brush that off as if that wide chasm between the two has no interpretive value.
Did the feminists stop caring? Not a peep about Gattis St.
Did anyone check the net worth of the families of the Gattis St party-goers? Perhaps swaggering privilege was here to be condemned again.
Were the “records” of the party-goers, academic and otherwise, examined in detail so assumptions could be made on their character?
Come on, Professor, you can’t avoid my point. I do not want to impose the same bad acts onto members of the Black fraternity…but…and this is important…ALL THOSE FACULTY RESPONSES HAVE BEEN EXCUSED AS RIGHTEOUS BY THE PARTICIPANTS. So, if righteous, why were they only extended in the case of Crystal Mangum?
YOU SAY: I don’t see any value in second guessing their decisions based on news reports. Not in any detail, anyway, though I wouldn’t blame anyone for wondering why the fraternity wasn’t sanctioned.
I say, Professor, that our discussion here is pretty much always…second guessing or trying to sort out what happened at Duke and in Durham in 2006. If there is any value in it..you too must look at uncomfortable issues. This Liestopper was forced to feel, through this case, the helplessness of the many minority families facing similar “justice” as the Duke Three and far more frequently.
You too must face the part that reverse racism or political correctness played in the extreme differences in reaction to these two rapes. (I believe the one constant was Brodhead refusing to meet with the Lacrosse families and also with the family of Katie Rouse.) What would be a rational explanation for why the Team season was canceled and the Black fraternity received no censure? Whatever could it be?
I have defended you in other places for having the integrity to allow us to examine the tough stuff on all sides here. To dismiss my questions contrasting the reactions… when the two reactions are SO polar opposite…dismisses what we might learn from the mindset that allows for such disparity. That mindset, in my opinion, bears great responsibility for the circus that is known as the Duke Lacrosse case.
Isn’t the exercise here to understand? And the goal for a few of us to creep out of the Tribal tents and engage each other? So, if not race and PC…educate me why Duke and the Duke faculty community had such vastly different reactions to two human women crying rape after a Duke off campus party. And if compassion is the backstory to all how Houston Baker and other Duke faculty types conducted themselves, where were their expressions of the same for Katie Rouse?
I’m afraid I’ll have to argue about premises. The allegations against the lacrosse team and the campus reaction to them were unprecedented in the history of Duke. I don’t know of a comparable scandal, anyway — I’ll admit that I’m not that well versed on Duke’s history. I’m pretty sure that there will be very large discrepancies between the lacrosse case and any other crime or incident you compare it with. So if you want to know whether there was exceptional favoritism shown in the Gattis St. rape, you need to compare it with some non-apocalyptic incidents. Perhaps it would still stick out like a sore thumb, I honestly don’t know. Has any diligent liestopper compiled a news dossier of all sexual assault allegations over a 10 or 20 year period?
The fundamental difference between the two incidents you’re comparing, with respect to Duke’s reaction, is that in one case it was Duke students charged with the crime and in the other a Duke student was the victim. If you want a rational explanation, I think that’s a significant part of it, especially since the students charged in the first case were a high-profile athletic team — a group that’s thought of as representing the institution. And the victim was perceived as a representative of the surrounding community, which means that the logic of public relations was very much in play in one case (eg, Brodhead’s apology) but not the other. I don’t think PR is the whole story, though. I’m not an administrative thinker, so I may be off base, but I think it’s normal for the institution to react differently depending on whether it’s tied to the alleged perpetrator or victim of a crime.
I don’t think you can call that statement by Moneta to a TV news reporter “Duke’s position.” It’s probably an excerpt of an interview, so I doubt that it’s even all of Moneta’s position (unfortunately the video isn’t online). If there was an institutional position, it would come from Duke as a press release. It’s possible but not certain he was, to some degree, “blaming the victim,” though I’m not inclined to read it that way. If the theory is that he was “blaming the victim” in order to coddle the black fraternity, that he wouldn’t have said the same thing if it’d been the same crime and victim at a white fraternity, I think that’s a pretty wild story to hang on that one line.
Where does the information come from that Brodhead wasn’t willing to meet the family of Katie Rouse? It seems like he should have been willing to, so if the story that’s circulating is that he wouldn’t, I hope it’s got a credible source.
The “listening” ad was based on the perception that an officially-constituted part of the Duke community — the lacrosse team — had acted out their unmitigated racism and sexism. The Gattis St. assault can’t be read in those terms, so if the same group of faculty had run another ad, what it would have showed is that they were insincere in the first place, that the “listening” ad wasn’t, as it claims, about social issues, but really it was about a crime, as its critics claim. And anyway, I don’t believe there’s a history of faculty groups running ads in response to sexual assault or other crimes.
I believe there is a constant level of concern on campus about sexual assault at parties (frat or otherwise). But the Take Back the Night rallies are yearly events, not a response to specific incidences. The one in 2006 happened to coincide with the vilification of the lacrosse team. But if you want to know “How they determine who gets these rallies,” then you should look at other cases to see if anyone else has gotten them.
And Houston Baker, well, he made a fool of himself. He was the one faculty member publicly rebuked by the administration. (It’s interesting, though, to compare what he says about Penn to what his arch-enemy, Alan Kors, says about the culture of Princeton, back in the old days.) If “compassion is the backstory,” in Baker’s case, then it’s selective and self-serving compassion. But if you won’t be satisfied until he can be justified or rationalized as a credible, non-hypocritical figure in the lacrosse case, then I won’t be able to do much for you.
Let’s see, there’s also the “church lady response,” which I guess I see about the same way you do, and the selective righteousness, which might also be a point of agreement in some cases. But that doesn’t add up to that much of an indictment of a mindset.
The fundamental problem is the narrow, selective frame. Treating these two incidents as a complete story, and at that based on highly filtered impressions, is not a useful way to “confront uncomfortable issues.” It’s just fishing for outrage.
Yes, Mark Rougemont, I made some very harsh statements. However, are you telling me that there are no gangs in prisons that would have been interested in teaching Reade, Collin, and David a “lesson”? And that the guards and the police and others would have gone all out to protect these “rapists”? Somehow, I think not.
As for the atmosphere in Durham, I recall that Irving Joyner, William Barber, and Al McSurely were pushing this to a trial, and Joyner was out-and-out predicting a conviction, or at least claiming it was a strong possibility. Furthermore, Joyner claimed that since the “rape” charges were dropped, the “rape shield” laws would prohibit most of the exculpatory information to be kept out of the trial, and that a guilty verdict would be fairly easy to obtain.
The NAACP ran some very wild accusations on its website, and kept the accusations up long after Roy Cooper had declared the defendants “innocent.” It is clear that McSurely and Barber were not “convinced” of the innocence of Reade, Collin, and David. They didn’t need evidence, did they?
So, are you and Prof. Zimmerman saying that Joyner, Barber, and McSurely don’t speak for Durham? That they are not influential? In the spring of 2007 these three men were doing everything possible to keep the prospect of a conviction high on the public agenda. Furthermore, Joyner claimed that since the case started in Durham, a Durham jury should be able to decide the guilt or innocence.
[snip]…
Anyone in Durham who feels that Irving Joyner, William Barber, and Al McSurely speak for you, please raise your hand! They don’t speak for me.
The rest of the comment is in “some type of cyber warehouse accessible only by link.” Accessible only by link! Am I cruel, or what?! And this is my “nasty, Sean Hannnity-esque comment.” Read it and weep! (thanks, Gregory, and MOO to you too).
Prof. Anderson,
So we are now adding Joyner, Barber, and McSurely to the “engaged in attempted murder and nothing less than that list”? It would not surprise me if your “and others” now includes every man, woman, and child in Durham.
And what I am saying Bill is what I posted, not what your twisted logic makes it out to be. I believe many things you wrote about the case were excellent and helpful to your cause in defense of the Lacrosse team and families. I also believe that many things you have written recently are so extreme and exaggerated that it isn’t helpful to that same cause. I urge you to take a step back and try to look at some of the things you have posted lately without letting the emotion this case has generated in you cloud your common sense.
The post we are discussing here is an example of that Bill, and it is just my opinion (and nothing more or less than that ) that you should retract it rather than defend it.
Yes, “A Reader’s” source is pretty credible. It was Katie Rouse’s father, and he told me directly that Brodhead would not meet with him. Larry Moneta’s excuse was that “President Brodhead is a very busy person.”
Katie Rouse was raped in a Duke fraternity house, so there was a Duke connection. Jermaine Burch was not a Duke student, but nonetheless he was at the party. As for Moneta, he is someone designated to speak for Duke University, and in the interview in question, he was talking as a Duke spokesperson, not as a private citizen.
So, you want to say that Crystal Mangum was “representative” of Durham. Fine. Are you also going to say that Jermaine Burch is “representative” of Durham, as well? I would hope not.
Duke University gave Katie Rouse and her family the back of its hand, and there still is a lot of residual anger about what happened not only at the fraternity party, but also afterward. Katie’s father contacted me directly and he and I have had many conversations about what happened.
So, yes, the “source” is quite credible. Katie Rouse was treated as someone inconvenient to Duke University and to Durham in general.
How interesting that you’d turn up behind another unflattering story about someone on the wrong side of the lacrosse case at Duke. This Larry Moneta talks like he’s in a bad movie. And if Hollywood made a bad movie about an academic feminist, I think she’d talk like that Karla Holloway your friend heard. All these years in Durham and I didn’t realize that I’m in the land of the walking, talking cliché.
I don’t at all mean to dismiss the possibility that Katie Rouse was treated badly or even atrociously by Duke. That angle on her story is always linked to diatribes about the lacrosse case, though. It’s not something that comes out in, for instance, the interview in Newsday or her father’s comments quoted in the Chronicle.
As far as CM representing Durham, I was talking about the perception in which she stood for “town,” the lacrosse team stood for “gown,” and the alleged rape stood for what gown could do to town and get away with. I’m not suggesting anything remotely like the position you imagine Joyner, Barber, and McSurely have vis-a-vis Durham.
Some of your answer makes sense to me….other parts I could rebut..but I’m thinking of something else this AM as I read your post. I’m thinking of a comment I read in the Chronicle about the DIW and LS crowd…”What do these people WANT?”
I’m going to try to answer that.
I’m not speaking now of the injured parties…the boys and their families …let me make that clear. I support whatever remedies they choose for their ordeal (and ordeal it was.) I want ..for them…whatever they want and need.
And I’m not directing this at the “framers” in this case…the criminal or semi-criminal bad actors…like Nifong, Meehan, Gottlieb et al. I want MUCH in this area, accountability, change, exposure…and in many broader areas needing reform as well. That’s another topic.
And I decline to extend “my offer” to the most vicious of the Faculty torch-carriers like Houston (“farm animal”) Baker or Burness the alleged Leaker-Extraordinaire.
But in regard to your average signatory of the Listening Ad…what does a Tribalist from the Other Side like me “want” from them?
This is it for me: Acknowledgment with a dose of empathy and regret.
Not groveling. But..please…not self-serving denial. Not twisted convoluted re-interpretations. Does Kathy Davidson realize how offensive her “explanation” of the Listening Ad was to anyone who understood…really understood…. the fear and pain and suffering experienced by these kids and their families? Does she know how slippery she looked, how shallow she came across…as she tried to grab some sainthood AND victimhood for herself and her fellow signatories? That explanation did nothing more than reaffirm the “otherness” of the Lacrosse team in the way that WE feared these faculty members perceived them. Essentially, she made our point that these young men existed outside of the parameters of her (and other faculty members’) empathy.
Davidson presented like a mud-spattered bystander whining at the scene of a horrific car wreck…”Look at my muddy skirt! Look at me! I’ve suffered too!” And some of us at that accident scene…could not help but watch her and remember…. the ad she was defending, intended or not, did indeed complicate “the rescue.”
Her words did nothing to ameliorate the situation. Talk about throwing gasoline on a fire…
What a moment it might have been instead…if Davidson or Karla Holloway or Wahneema Lubiano had drafted a second statement after exoneration that read something like this:
Followed of course by 88 signatures.
I think that would have shut down much of the vitriol and shut up many persistent faculty critics. It’s hard for most people to not acknowledge sincere regret and graciousness. But instead, there was denial, stubbornness, and silence.
I think, if I were in their place…even if I felt myself 90% right…considering the national scourging these kids faced and the way that ad was used to batter their reputations at the most dangerous time…I could find the empathy to apologize for the 10% that I perceived my own actions added to that situation. I even think I would WANT to do that.
If I take these individuals at their word …that the Listening Statement was an overt act of empathy…why has not one whit of that same compassion ever been extended ..in any form or on any individual basis…to Collin, Reade, Dave or their families? How and why does the caring come to a dead halt…when it comes to those young men?
It is in trying to find explanation and understanding of that void, that all the talk of “metanarrative” and “reverse racism” etc. occurs. Because even if there are 88 different reasons…there are, at best, 88-once-so-empathetic professors…. now…astounding in their apathy!
I’d like to ask Professor Holloway. Has she ever expressed the smallest amount of empathy for Collin, Reade or Dave? Does she acknowledge…. alone, without trying to dilute by any other comparison…that they did indeed suffer? Has she any regret for how the Listening Statement was used against them, even as she may insist that was not her intent?
Would she ever allow herself to say anything along those lines?
Since exoneration, have you…teaching on campus…as a colleague and acquaintance of these folks, heard any similar commentary of faculty compassion?
If there is no empathy, I do not think you can fault those of us who deeply feel such empathy, for exploring possible reasons for that stunning void. And the larger societal …and personal ramifications of those “reasons.”
And, THAT, is why we continue to this day.
I think couching it in terms of “the media perception of your guilt” instead of an outright presumption of guilt is a diplomatic compromise. It seems to me that the Concerned Faculty statement could have done something like the statement you propose and it’s a shame that it didn’t. I don’t think that any statement that came out of deliberation by committee was likely to hit the right notes. I assume that the moment for conciliatory statements that admit much of anything passed when civil lawsuits started to be filed.
The only way I can imagine a rapprochement between the LS endorsers and the players and their families is if it developed out of interpersonal dialog that happened out of earshot of all the third parties who have a personal or political investment in a “Group of 88” apology.
The thing I’d like to see is a collection of oral histories from people who were in the thick of it — from the players and their families and friends, students who took a strong position for or against the team, students who were ambivalent, students quoted in the LS, faculty (hopefully some fresh voices, not what Johnson would call “Group stalwarts”), staff, neighbors. Something like that might help to soften entrenched positions. Either way, it would be fascinating.
I haven’t heard anyone’s candid thoughts about the 2006 lacrosse players or their families, but then I haven’t been circulating that much on campus for the last few years.
Joan,
What you call “two divergent points” most people would call an analogy. It’s nice to know that you’re not hoping for another terrorist attack, like your fellow member of LS, but I wasn’t asking you to share your 9/11 story, as touching as it may be. What I want to know is, is it fair to assume that every member of LieStoppers agrees with the poster who “can’t wait” for another terrorist attack? As you can see from the thread, no member of LS publicly stated that they disagreed with the poster who made this callous remark. Should I assume that their silence equates to their approval? Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think it’s a fair assessment. Do you agree? If so, why are you trying to portray Chan Hall and Victoria Peterson as the spokespeople for Durham residents?
When you applaud Bill for comments like this…
“The charges went on because Nifong wanted to win an election and because the black community in Durham was demanding a conviction no matter what the evidence. Chan Hall pretty much spoke for most blacks and their leaders in Durham.”
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/single/?p=161158&t=1495788
…I assume that you agree with Bill’s unfounded assumption. I can see how Chan Hall’s statement could contribute to your “‘feelings’ about a Durham conviction” if you believe he “pretty much spoke for most blacks and their leaders in Durham.” But Chan Hall doesn’t speak for Durham’s black community…I can’t believe we’re even debating this.
In your earlier post, you used Victoria Peterson’s “Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong” blog (justice4nifong) as an example of the general sentiment in Durham in regard to Mike Nifong. This is laughable. Vicky P is only speaking for herself and the other two members of her committee. When she posed her theory, at the NCCU forum, that DUMC was tampering with the DNA evidence, she was speaking for Victoria Peterson. When she advocated burning down the lacrosse house, which even shocked the militant New Black Panthers she was protesting with, she was speaking for Victoria Peterson. When she was one of the three people, who weren’t government employees, who showed up to DAMN’s Appreciation Week luncheon, she represented herself and no one else.
How about the one guy on the Duke lacrosse team who shouted a racist remark, in response to Kim Roberts’ equally racist remark? (*Analogy Alert!) Does that guy speak for the entire Duke lacrosse team? I don’t think so, but that’s what the potbangers wanted us to believe.
So, why do you think Victoria Peterson speaks for the people of Durham? When you use to post at TalkLeft, under the screen name “Cecelia”, you said…
“Victoria Peterson is an honest representation of the mindset of most of the Durham community.”
http://forums.talkleft.com/index.php?topic=1665.0
IMO, your generalization of the people of Durham is anything but honest. Granted your generalizations aren’t psychotic like Bill’s above…but your opinion of the people of Durham is misguided. Back to my original analogy…would it be fair to say that “Clowns” is an honest representation of the mindset of most of the LieStoppers community?
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/single/?p=162242&t=1508194
Thanks for your time and I look forward to your response.
Joan said:
Well said, Joan. In the context of who you are addressing this to and what you want from them (“your average signatory of the Listening Ad…what does a Tribalist from the Other Side like me “want” from them?”, I think your response is reasonable. I even think you used to speak for your tribe on certain aspects of the case. I can see just based on some of the harsh words said to you by even discussing this here, it is not the majority opinion at LieStoppers.
I’m not quite sure how to read the last part. You’re saying that Joan no longer seems to speak for her tribe?
It is interesting that krddurham mentions Victoria Peterson. From what I have read in the news, she just was elected to an official position with the Durham County Democrats. Since Durham pretty much is a one-party city, if local Democrats are willing to give Peterson an office in the dominant political party, it seems to me that they don’t think of her as a “fringe” character.
When she claimed at the April 12 meeting that DUMC “tampered” with the DNA evidence, her remarks received applause. Furthermore, are you telling me that Mike Nifong would have won the Democratic primary had he not secured indictments against Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty? Somehow, I have my doubts.
Is Harris Johnson a “fringe” character? What about Diane Cattotti? These people are the mainstream of Durham politics, and they firmly were behind the drive to prosecute the lacrosse players. For that matter, the Durham Herald-Sun, which is “mainstream” Durham was demanding the case be brought to trial and just a couple days before Cooper’s announcement, the H-S ran a news article which claimed that RCD had beat up Crystal and raped her (the writer was Brianna Dopart).
So, call my posts “psychotic” or otherwise, but you have yet to demonstrate that I was wrong. The latest election of Victoria Peterson to an officership in the local Democratic Party once again demonstrates my point.
“So, call my posts “psychotic” or otherwise, but you have yet to demonstrate that I was wrong”.
As if that is going to stop you?! Your being wrong has been pointed out, & demonstrated time & again but you continue into obliviousness.
But let me try once again to explain about Harris Johnson. Harris Johnson was angry because he felt outsiders were trying to influence the election in Durham. Imho, they were. I hope you realize the citizens of Durham do have a right to choose whomever they want as DA. At that time, the people of Durham exercised their right to vote and chose Mr. Nifong. Whether you accept it or not, Mr. Nifong won that election fair & square. That’s what democracy is all about.
I’d like to add “Justice58” to the list of Durham residents who don’t speak for me.
The majority of Durham voters voted against Nifong in the 2006 general election.
The link krddurham included at the end got mangled: 2006 election results (PDF). As I see it, it doesn’t reflect at all well on Durham that Nifong was reelected, majority or not. It’s not the first or last time that voters will collectively make a stupid choice, though.
FWIW, Justice58 told me that she doesn’t live in Durham and never has. The only thing I can say for sure is that her IP isn’t in NC.
And incidentally, krddurham’s level-headed exchange with KC Johnson about shared jurisdiction is well worth reading.
So, Justice58 admits that prosecuting someone on the basis of racial and sexual politics is just fine. Who cares about evidence when prosecutors can lie and get away with it? And where I have been pointed out to be wrong?
It was you and others who demanded that these young men be put on trial and convicted and sent to prison, despite the fact that there was no inculpatory evidence but lots of exculpatory evidence. You have supported a prosecutor who lied to the public, lied to a judge, and lied during his Bar hearing. I remember the posts from Justice58 in 2006 that insisted that Crystal had to be telling the truth and that Nifong really did have evidence of a crime. Just before the December 15 hearing, the Nifong enablers on the Liestoppers comment board (not the discussion board) were claiming that Nifong was going to pull out an eyewitness to the “crime.” Well, it turned out that his “eyewitness” was Brian Meehan.
• KrdDurham and Mark…. I am not going to refute everything I might in your posts because I am tired of the reality show aspect of all this. Think and assume what you wish. KrdDurham, your valedictory post about me on LS the night we were hacked indicates to me that civil debate with me, at some point, no longer became your intent. I really do not understand this and hope that here we can do better. In my opinion, just because we disagree on the general attitudes prevalent in Durham, it is not a personal matter. I have disagreed with your postings but never posted a derogatory or obscene word about you personally. I’m glad that, here at least the debate is civil again.
• Consider that although almost every comment and deed on record from the Durham and Duke communities in 2006-2007 can be labeled anti- LAX team, or at best pro-Mangum, we are now told by you that this was not an indication of the dominant sentiment in those communities. Indeed we are told that this existed in opposition to the prevailing sentiment of the community which was supposedly eager for the boys and families to endure the stress and expense of a trial, so that Durham might acquit! Is it your position that this dominant, prevailing, and Pro-Lax community sentiment was believed to be best articulated and most effectively utilized by each member of this community by SILENCE?
Because either we had a community of apathetic Lax supporters doing nothing to stop Nifong (even with their vote) or we had a community caught up in a maelstrom of vindictiveness demanding trial on just an allegation with no evidence. Do you see a third possibility? Please explain.
• KrdDURHAM, in your opinion, was the silence at Duke and in Durham of all these LAX supporters….sufficient in its moral obligation to the innocent Collin, Reade and Dave? Did it meet your ethical requirement of what we owe each other when we are witness to a great moral, political, and judicial outrage occurring? Doesn’t it “take a village” and all that?
• Consider that Nifong was elected by overwhelming support from the Black community and with recommendation by the most powerful Black community political action group. According to you, this occurred despite their opposition to his methods (indicting arresting Elmo) and tactics (line-up) and lack of a real case.(no evidence of rape or DNA) So ELECTING Nifong by an overwhelming majority, according to YOU, is the way the Black community of Durham showed disapproval for one of the most egregious cases of prosecutorial abuse, playing out IN THEIR community and on the national scene? Please explain the message here? How did that work? “We decry these sorts of prosecutorial tactics; we support the LAX team; therefore let us give Nifong 4 more years?” Are you saying one customarily votes FOR an individual to repudiate his actions? Then Obama’s election is an affront to him and a high five to Bush? Explain please.
• The comment you cite from LS about terrorist attacks was said once. That poster does not return over and over to advocate for terror attacks again and again and again. The silence of the LS community relates to understanding that that particular…. singular…. moment of hyperbole was borne of a moment’s frustration. Victoria Peterson has had many, many moments and many, many articulations of antipathy toward the Lacrosse team. Therefore Durham’s silence toward HER comments, the tolerance of her community, and her recent political appointment in Durham are much more significant, much more telling. Your analogy therefore is weak. Yes, KRDDurham? you understood that Clowns did not mean her statement as posted. So did those of us who know her and post with her. Is it your position that the people of Durham do not believe Peterson means her comments about Nifong, about the Lax team, etc?
If you exclaim, “I could kill my wife!” upon opening a huge credit card bill, I will hardly ascribe to you homicidal intentions, and I do not think I need to run to the authorities. If however, you say that over and over, in many venues and many situations, and couple it with overt action….my responsibilities, I believe, are certainly different. You cannot equate non-response to one flippant comment on a forum, to non response to 18 months worth of deadly serious comments from Peterson.
• Can you cite to me any other case in Durham where the City Manager felt he had to lie to reporters to prop up a criminal case? Why did Baker feel it necessary to state Mangum only told one story?
One might guess because he is a politician and it was politically expedient. But according to your reasoning, Baker was acting counter to the belief in LAX innocence that dominated Durham? So are you saying this was an act of political courage? In the same fashion, do you believe Nifong returned from the NCCU forum feeling he had political options NOT to indict if the evidence showed, as he said, “we are fu*ked! ” Is that how you analyze that situation? That Nifong was standing up to Durham sentiment when he indicted? Please explain.
• Why did the NCNAACP carry that outrageous “case description” for months after exoneration? Why did Joyner… the case monitor… continue to demand a trial? Was this in defiance of the community belief in innocence that was so prevalent at the time, as you describe it?
I had no idea all the personal acts of courage were going on as those who pushed this case must have faced censure in their churches, neighborhoods and workplaces. They DID, did they not? I mean that is what you observed, is it not? Tell us more about these acts of censure toward the Durham Hoaxers!
And yes, Justice, the citizens of Durham had a choice…Nifong won that election fair and square. Your point is so well taken. Thank you. I rest my case. I look forward to specific rebuttal to my specific points. Thank you.
It is interesting that you appeal to the “outside interference” line. That was the same thing that the Jim Crow racists were saying during the Civil Rights Era, that those “Northerners were interfering” in Southern affairs. In fact, if you take the comment that the assistant prosecutor made to the jury during the Scottsboro Boys case, you will find that his comments are almost identical to what Harris Johnson said, except the assistant prosecutor said “Jew money” and Johnson said “White boys.”
So, I am interested to see that the Nifong enablers on this blog also endorse the political strategies of the Jim Crow racists. Guess that Justice58 and Sam Bowers pretty much deserve each other.
The idea that Durham was embracing the hoax because of Nifong’s election is not a fair characterization of reality. Of his 2 “opponents” the stronger one had already said he would not accept the position even if he was elected and the 3rd candidate was an absolute joke. The fact that Nifong still just barely won with less than a majority is testament to the fact that many voters were concerned with his actions in the Lacrosse case. Nifong basically ran unopposed and still failed to get a majority.
“So, Justice58 admits that prosecuting someone on the basis of racial and sexual politics is just fine”.
Where did I say that? Stop making things up in your mind. I am not responsible for what you think but don’t falsely accuse me. Just to be clear…It is my right to support whomever I choose to. Is that a crime? You will not intimidate me about the person I support. Mr. Nifong was elected as DA of Durham. He won! Why even Attorneys Butch Williams & Kerry Sutton supported his candidacy, and iirc, some of the lacrosse players were being represented by them. These attorneys thought Mr. Nifong was the best man for the job. So did the rest of the voters.
Note to Bill Anderson: Please find a way to question or criticize people without putting words in their mouth. I don’t really want to edit or reject your comments.
Mark, his tactic to inflame Durham’s Black community worked. Look at the statistics from the Black precincts….it was a Nifong blow-out.
When you seem to have one segment of the community that ardently accepted Nifong’s lies regarding this case, how does that impact the effort to seat a fair jury?
Think what information was available to all of us on election day! The Black community of Durham, who might have made this case an “AHA!” moment to force open our eyes to injustices their own children historically more often endured than ours…instead rallied behind the Rogue who was using every corrupt tactic (they so well knew) against these Duke Three.
Here are two of many, many similar comments that I read daily under our Liestopper Blog posts. These two from the day after the election.
Nov 13, 2006
http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/11/nifong-loses-referendum-retains-office.html
The first is Justice 58. 4:32 PM:
5:15 AM:
That “Nifong blow-out” needs to be understood in the context of the choices on the ballot. A little ways further down, krddurham does a fine job of describing them.
As far as the comments go, angry and antagonistic comments are absolutely a dime a dozen on the web. Even on relatively neutral sites like the Duke Chronicle that’s true. Liestoppers’ blogspot page is not neutral, though — it’s set up to energize the in-group and, intentionally or not, antagonize the opposition. There are many other sites like that, and it’s a legitimate approach to advocating for a cause. But it’s a very poor way to get a feel for public opinion.
Anyway, the first commenter you quote isn’t from Durham and claims not to have ever been here. As for the second, who knows.
William Andeson said:
“So, Justice58 admits that prosecuting someone on the basis of racial and sexual politics is just fine. Who cares about evidence when prosecutors can lie and get away with it?”
I must have missed this one Prof. Anderson. Do you perhaps have a link?
RZ said:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well, that’s a relief…perhaps now Bill Anderson will stop using Justice58 as an example of the general sentiment in Durham.
As for Nifong’s election…to be clear, Nifong wasn’t “reelected”. Before the 2006 general election, he was appointed DA by Gov. wEasley. Nifong, according to wEasley, promised not to run for a full term. wEasley went on to declare Nifong his “poorest appointment” ever.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1192022/
I agree with you that the election of Nifong doesn’t reflect well on Durham. I also agree with you that this was “not the first or last time that voters will collectively make a stupid choice,” however Durham voters are never given much of a choice. The choice is usually — Bad or Not As Bad. In the 2006 general election, I voted for Lewis Cheek, even though he said he wouldn’t accept the job. To tell you the truth, I’m glad Cheek didn’t win…who knows how this case would have played out? I wasn’t really comfortable putting the decision to appoint a new DA in wEasley’s hands, again, but there was no other choice. I think many voters struggled with the decision to vote for Lewis Cheek, because it was a vote for nobody.
Also, thanks for linking to KC’s comment section. I, too, thought it was a level-headed exchange but KC’s no longer approving my comments.
Right, Nifong was standing for election after being appointed. I really should have refreshed my memory about that election before I started commenting about it. Go to the next thread to see the comment that didn’t make it past Johnson’s moderation.
Joan,
I will try to answer the numerous questions you have asked, but my schedule’s pretty hectic this Memorial Day weekend. I’ll try to give them a stab sometime next week. However, I’d like to go ahead and address your first bulleted paragraph.
Whoa, Almighty Joan…that’s quite an accusation! You’re going to have to elaborate a little more on that one, because I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t direct anything “derogatory or obscene” towards you before the old LS board was hacked. If you construed something I posted as “derogatory or obscene” you certainly didn’t mention anything about it when I resumed posting on the new LS board. What, exactly, did I allegedly post that you interpreted as “derogatory or obscene”?
One other interesting comment for the jury pool Chronicles: (3:44 PM)
Locals on our Board confirmed trinity Park was loaded with Nifong signs. Now remember we had watched Mr. Elmostafa arrested; no DNA; faulty lineups …all the rest. Nifong’s rogue behavior was in full bloom.
I believe Collin and Reade may have been attending their first party at the Trinity Park house, yet it seems a 20 year history of annoying behavior by other Duke students generated much support for Nifong’s quest to make them stand trial on an allegation and no evidence.
Tell me this, Mark Rougemont, would Nifong had been elected had he declared early on, “There is no evidence that I can use in a prosecution for rape. I will not pursue charges against anyone until I can see some real evidence, and not just a bunch of mutually-exclusive accounts.”
Somehow, I doubt it. Mike Nifong won the Democratic primary in May 2006 precisely because he secured indictments. Furthermore, he won the election in November because he stuck to the case. Do you really think he would have been elected in the fall had he decided to drop the case? Right.
You are right. Not everyone in Durham embraced the hoax/frame, but enough people embraced it that the case stayed alive until some very extraordinary things were done to dislodge it.
This whole idea of “who speaks for Durham” is an interesting one. It seems the quotes used are always on the extreme of one position or another. I just think people tend to embrace something that puts their thoughts into words. Honestly you can’t judge how well a thought or quote in the media is embraced by the public as the media will tend to chose the most extreme quotes for it’s stories. Anyway, early in the case I thought this quote from Kai Christopher in the NCCU Campus Echo spoke for me:
There are some quite reasonable people in Durham and many fair positions taken on this case by many people. It is the nature of the media that they get so little attention.
Thanks for that, Mark. It’s nice to know someone was willing to put those thoughts on the record in early April, 2006 (the piece was printed in the April 5, 2006 issue of the NCCU student paper, the Campus Echo). The last part, about the “prematurely decided verdict,” applies about as well to the one being passed on Durham as it does to the one that was passed on the lacrosse players.
Sorry for taking so long to clear this, too.
Joan,
Upon further review of the 23 questions you have posed, I realize that I’ve already answered most of these questions for you in the past. I’ll give them a try again, but I bet you’re not going to like my answers…again….
Consider that just about every comment and deed on record came from what you read or viewed in the media. I don’t think I need to explain to you the media’s shameful role in the Duke lacrosse case. You know how most of the media wanted to shape this story. Plus, Nifong was in front of the cameras lying through his teeth. Many of his comments certainly inflamed the community. I wasn’t surprised by the reaction of some of the people in Durham considering what Nifong was telling them. Nifong knew what their reaction would be, too…that’s why he did it, IMO.
They weren’t silent, Joan…see below.
Yes, a variation of the two. Part of the community contained apathetic Lax supporter who could do nothing to stop Nifong (if it wasn’t for former Durham Republican County Chairman, Steve Monks, Cheek might have won), part of the community was “caught up in a maelstrom of vindictiveness demanding [a] trial”, part of the community felt that if the Duke lacrosse team was as innocent as they said they were then they had nothing to worry about, and part of the community simply had better things to do.
You think that they were silent because you didn’t read or see anything about Durham’s “apathetic Lax supporters” in the media. Not that there weren’t any…you either forgot or you’re ignoring them. For example…how about when Nifong considered resigning from the Durham Animal Control Advisory Committee because he “was truly dismayed at the number of [his] fellow board members who signed the Lewis Cheek [petition].”
http://www.newsobserver.com/145/story/466495.html
How about when Nifong accused some Durham residents of trying to buy the District Attorney’s Office? You know, some of the people who organized the Cheek petition drive…
State juvenile justice official Ed Pope and former Sheriff Roland Leary…
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/465647.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/459754.html
Dan Hill…
http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2006/11/01/News/Veteran.Cheek.Hopes.To.recall.Nifong-2414850.shtml
There are more…some even post (or used to) on LS.
Other Durham residents spoke out…
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=4738144
And these are just the “apathetic Lax supporters” who the media spoke to. The media certainly didn’t seek quotes from many of them, though. It’s not that there weren’t any.
Speaking for myself, yes, I met my “ethical requirement.”
What do you consider “overwhelming support”? Do you know how many black people voted for Nifong? I can’t seem to find those numbers anywhere. I do know that Nifong received 26,606 votes…even if you assume that every one of those votes were cast by a black person, that’s still not even close to the majority of Durham’s black community.
How many times did Chan Hall make his infamous “whether it happened or not” comment?
Oh? Once?
Are you going to give Chan Hall a pass and just chalk it up to “a moment’s frustration”?
Doubt it.
No, and I have no idea why Patrick Baker felt the need to do that. I hope the depositions will shed some light on the extent of his involvement in this case.
I don’t know, have you asked them?
I don’t know, have you asked him?
Look Joan, just as Victoria Peterson and Chan Hall do not speak for the people of Durham, neither do I. All I can do is share with you my experience living in Durham. I’ve lived in Durham my whole life (30 years)…I do not even know ¼ of the people in Durham, but I do know a lot of people around here. From my experience, I did not see the general sentiment that you and Bill have so broadly ascribed to the people of Durham.
There’s a lot here about what was going on under the radar, or right at the edge of it. Since much more happens under the radar than on it, it’s very important to find a way to factor it into one’s picture.
For me, and it seems for krddurham and Mark, as well — all of us residents or former residents of Durham — Joan is basically saying that we should believe her, not our lyin’ eyes (more or less quoting Richard Pryor). Same with Bill Anderson, except that he’s on the corner shouting it through a bullhorn. There may be nothing more to do about that than to acknowledge that we’ve reached an impasse.
I do think that RedMountain’s quote from Kai Christopher loses a little of its openmindedness in context. Specifically, the context of a paragraph a bit higher in the original:
Those really weren’t the opposing sides. Those would both seem to be in the “she was raped” side.
On the other hand, the closing is very strong:
and as RZ notes, it’s remarkable that this came out on April 5th of 2006. Also - thanks to RM for bringing this up - I’ve enjoyed going through some of the Campus Echo archives generally and Mr. Christopher’s writing specifically.
Here’s the full text: http://web.nccu.edu/campus/echo/archive11-0506/o-christopher.html
Yeah, it seems like he’s describing the opposing sides as they appeared at the time, based on what he was hearing and thinking, and it’s remarkable that “what’s alleged in the media isn’t what happened” isn’t one of the choices. That seems to be a pretty typical syndrome, that the media and public opinion, and even the opinion from within the ivory tower, settles on a narrow set of alternatives and works them obsessively.
A Reader, thanks for putting on Justice58’s comments on the Liestoppers blog. It proves I did not put words in her mouth.
The prosecution of Reade Seligmann, David Evans, and Collin Finnerty happened because of who they were, not because of anything they did. There was not a shred of evidence at any time to support Nifong’s charges, so anyone who supported the prosecution did so because of racial and political reasons.
You can argue that Nifong “fooled” people but I don’t think anyone was fooled.
I’m not putting any words in the mouth of Justice58. She has been writing incendiary comments about the lacrosse players for nearly three years and even now insists that they were guilty.
What if I were to insist that the Scottsboro Boys really did rape Victoria Price and Ruby Bates? You would ask what evidence I had, and I would say that Price went to her death insisting her story was true.
Now, the medical exams of those women demonstrated something else, and even in that pre-DNA age, it was absolutely clear that they had not been raped by anyone on that train. The medical evidence was very clear on that point.
However, am I supposed to say that even though the kind of evidence that would demonstrate some sort of sexual activity on that train was non-existent, that there WAS a rape because a woman, Victoria Price, claimed it was such? If I were to make that claim, would the others on that board be justified in saying that I was wrong? I think that would be the case.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm
Yet, we had a woman claiming to be raped, and all that her story entailed, yet there was no physical evidence on her to corroborate her story. Furthermore, the bathroom where the alleged rape took place was not cleaned up after the party, so if there had been any DNA to be found there, it would have been found. Furthermore, removal of DNA (by something other than the “magic towel”) would require chemicals such as bleach. (Remember that in the Knoxville torture-murder case, the perps allegedly sprayed chemicals into the mouth of Channon Christian to get rid of DNA.)
Yet, all of that is ignored. Instead, we are given stories that are mutually-exclusive and are told that in this case — and in this case only — DNA no longer matters. Furthermore, those of us who point out that fact are attacked and called all sorts of things.
So, Justice58, just why do you insist that these young men still are guilty. If one of your friends or loved ones faced similar charges, and the evidence (or non-evidence) in the case were the same, would you still insist on guilt, or would you take a hard look at the evidence?
Also, none of you who have been defending Durham have explained to me why the Democratic Party — which DOES represent the political mainstream of Durham — recently made Victoria Peterson an officer in that party. This is someone who still openly insists there was a rape and she went up to Mary Ellen Finnerty during the Nifong bar hearing and told her that the case should have gone to trial because lots of people in Durham still believed that “something happened.”
Here is one of the more infamous quotes from the Scottsboro Boys Trial:
“Now the question in this case is this: Is justice in the case going to be bought and sold in Alabama with Jew money from New York?” —Prosecutor Wade Wright addressing the jury in Alabama v Patterson (NY Times, 4/8/33)
How does that quote differ substantively from what Harris Johnson said after the election? It does not, except that Johnson said “white boys” rather than “Jew.” Yet, people on this blog go after me because I am critical of the political climate in Durham? Here is the Harris quote:
“This goes to show that justice can’t be bought by a bunch of rich white boys from New York,” said Harris Johnson, a former state Democratic party official and Durham resident for 56 years.
So, when the mainstream, ruling party of Durham has as its officers people who make statements like this, why is it wrong for me to interpret such sentiments as being part of the political mainstream of Durham? If the Democrats in Durham disagreed with such sentiments, then why would they make these people officers?
This comment has been sitting around for a while, along with several others that I finally cleared yesterday. This one I kept back until Anderson could point me to an instance showing that Justice58 “even now insists that they were guilty” (my request does not amount to an accusation that Anderson was lying, by the way). And here it is — Justice58 commenting on justice4nifong, the blog that embraces the same kind of tunnel vision that’s made DIW such an enlightening read but turns it in the opposite direction.
Bill Anderson said:
“So, Justice58 admits that prosecuting someone on the basis of racial and sexual politics is just fine. Who cares about evidence when prosecutors can lie and get away with it?”
I believe that was the quote where I asked Bill for a link and justice58 accused Bill of “making things up”. The fact that justice58 believes that the accused were guilty of the charges is not exactly a news flash.
It is my opinion that Bill has a history of questionable ‘mind reading’ when it comes to making statements like this.
That’s been one of the most bizarre things I have seen around here. How someone who is - or at least was - SO anti-gay and SO pro-life gets a leadership position in the Democratic Party defies imagination. Interesting that she calls herself one of the “prodigal daughters” - I guess that indicates that she doesn’t know the meaning of the word: “characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure.”
Which, hey, describes Nifong’s abuse of funds for the lacrosse case. Maybe she was right after all…
I used to live another Democratic party stronghold, the city of Chigago. My impression from the politics there is that an extra wide range of scoundrels all shoehorn themselves into the one party that can get them elected. I don’t have my finger on the pulse of Durham politics, but maybe the situation is similar — the single-party big-tent effect, I guess you could call it.
I figure as a Durham resident I’ll take a shot at Joan’s questions, too:
I think we had a community that contained both, and more. If “the community” had been a single entity, then your question could be an either-or proposition. Durham, however, is more than that.
In reflecting on the history of all this, I often look at how Wahneema Lubiano’s construction of perfecting offenders and victims comes into play when applied to different players from her original blog post. I feel like some are trying to turn all the citizens of Durham into a “perfect offender” in this case. I believe that leads to two major problems. The first is this - it so simplifies the case that easy counterarguments can be made, and with those, the rest of a thesis tacked on to a “perfect offender” argument is diminished.
The second is, I believe, more important. That a case like this could get the traction it did, and last as long as it did, and be pursued the way it was with such small resistance in the real, complex, and diverse Durham community is much, much more troubling to me than if it had happened in the simplified one perfectly aligned to accept and support Nifong’s creation.
I also do not believe the men on the team need to be turned into “perfect victims” for the crimes committed against them to be any more obvious, damaging, or, for lack of a better word, criminal. I, personally, think the party was a bad idea. I also, personally, think that in no way, shape, or form legitimizes, excuses, or diminishes either the criminal negligence or criminal activities that came into play to try those guys in the court of public opinion; to manufacture indictments, to (allegedly…) break state and federal law; to promote the sensation at the expense of the factual; or to play on the deepest and darkest fears and history of a community to gain personal wealth, satisfaction, or standing.
In my opinion, the lacrosse team writ large and Collin, Reade, and Dave specifically did not get nearly the appropriate support. Naturally, it is easy to say that now - given that their innocence is so remarkably clear, obviously they deserved everyone’s support. Looking back, it is clear that many felt like this case was the goose that laid the golden egg. Time has shown instead an empty, sulphurous shell.
Apologies to those eating breakfast.
One of my favorite Nifong quotes came after the Democratic Primary (from http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/436642.html)
Erm. Mr. Nifong? Wouldn’t conservative voters, regardless of race/color/anything else, be voting in the, um, other primary? That same story had this gem, too:
I had never before heard the notion of indictments as necessary and sufficient proof of fairness.
In that election, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People had actually endorsed Keith Bishop. And the election results for the primary showed approximately equal voting percentages for Nifong among black and white voters. My guess - and it truly is one - is that without his “pep rally,” Nifong would have lost a significant portion of the black vote – though most likely to Bishop and not to Freda Black, unless she or her supporters had chosen to use the lacrosse in her favor at that point. Would it have been near the 900 votes needed to change the election? That’s hard to know. Certainly, if Nifong had publicly stated that he would not pursue the case, I think we would have lost a tremendous number of votes. And if Black’s supporters had started a whisper campaign?
I’ll abstain on this one, except to say that Victoria Peterson is an active, vocal member of the Durham community with whom many, many people disagree about a whole host of subjects.
I’ll take a wild guess again that, in its history, Durham has seen some lies come forth from just about every office in the administration, though certainly having a City Manager involve himself in a criminal case not involving the City directly is peculiar, at best. Whatever his motivations for making false statements, he diminished himself and his office by doing so. That he now holds the position he does makes me mourn for what Durham could and should be.
I actually did (try to) ask both or Rev. Barber and of the NCNAACP. As you might imagine, I received no reply. Upon reflection – even with admitted bias - I believe that my inquiries were respectful, specific, and non-accusatory. They were also, ultimately, fruitless. The damage the NCNAACP did to itself in my eyes is both significant and tragic.
Well…in the actual election…kind of. Macroscopically they did. In the context of the election, they had a “choice” but it was among an empty chair, a tardy and unofficial spoiler who couldn’t even get himself on the ballot, and…Nifong. Admittedly, the empty chair had stronger ethics and would have served Durham better.
As a final aside – I still enjoy the fact that my spell-checker wants to convert Nifong into “Knifing.” Fortunately, the stroke he thought he’d so perfectly aimed got deflected onto his own misspelled law license.
Thanks for chiming in, Gus. Philip Cousins’ very coarse measure of Nifong’s “fairness” is a remarkable artifict of the time. A few months ago I reread parts of The Best of Enemies. If Cousins is old enough to have experienced Durham as it was then, his remark makes some sense (which doesn’t mean it was cogent). It’s a great book, anyway. It says something about how Durham ended up with a political culture that’s highly reactive and poised to polarize on issues of race.
There was at least one attempt to speak as a community in relation to the case early on. That was the Community of One ad issued and signed by Bell, Ammons, and Brodhead. The irony of this ad is it is now being used in one of the civil suits as ‘evidence’ of a conspiracy.
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/pdf/communityofone.pdf
Not a bad little statement. Here’s the question it raises for me, though: What was the event on “why our system of law presumes innocence until guilt is established”?
I just wrote a post somewhere else that I might paraphrase a bit in answering some of the thoughtful points made here. I’m thinking a lot about “loyalty” these days and, yes, our Host’s concept of Tribalism. Anyway, this self-reflection is unexpectedly answering some of my long-held questions and also requiring I make some admissions.
First… it is time that I modify my own rhetoric, and stop saying “Durham this” and “Durham that.” KrdDurham is right to chide me that I am standing far off, assessing his town from reports and quotes in media outlets…. that I regularly declare (when it suits me) to be utterly biased and unreliable in everything else. He is absolutely right in his assessment of my swaying standard in citing the MSM. I can’t have it both ways.
And Gus (if I may call him that) is correct to point out that it was not “DURHAM’ as one collective culprit… but instead certain subgroups of Durham …each working within its own motives and mindsets…that knit together loosely to construct the offensive WHOLE… that is so disturbing to many of us. And he makes an excellent point that we who try to deny “the real, complex, and diverse Durham community” essentially weaken our own argument as to the enormity of what happened.
True again.
However, not all of us tried to “perfect” the Lacrosse Team or their actions that night…not even in the throes of our fear while Collin, Reade and Dave were under indictment. I will admit though, that the element of “overkill” that existed in many places regarding these kids… made it difficult for those of us who supported their innocence… to articulate any objections to their “party activities” that night. I did try to address the topic in an essay here on LS in Feb, 2007: http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2007/02/overkill.html.
Someone asked me recently to consider why each of us REALLY got involved in this case. Of course, I would like to take off my Clark Kent glasses and proclaim I only cared about Truth, Justice and the American Way…but really, the short answer is…I could see my son doing the dumb thing and going to that party. And he would NOT have been there to demean women, or to impose his sense of “white privilege on Black strippers” or “to play out scenes from the book American Psycho” (as suggested by the NCNAACP) or to represent the values and opinions of his Father or me on any or all of the former issues. At 19 years old, he would not be planning his evening’s entertainment based on re-enacting historical outrages or representing perverse socio-political agendas. He doesn’t buy a can of Coke recalling “Coke can history” and therefore signaling support of overseas American military intervention.
He would have been there, as most of these kids were…because he was a team member and the Captains called the party. So, originally… I spoke up because I could see my son at that party. I could imagine his fear, my fear, the helplessness, the hopelessness. I empathized. I wanted to help. I wanted to articulate that empathy. I was “Thinking About the Moms.”
Today…I can accept that some who signed the “Listening Statement” may have pictured… among the minority students that article described…someone similar to… someone THEY loved. Maybe a bridge to understanding what happened here…could start with recognition of each other’s empathy and an acknowledgement of how we each tried..each in our own way…to act on it. Surely, that’s something …at least some of us..have in common, even if our empathy was lavished in different directions.
But, any bridge cannot be paved over (as Davidson tried to do) in The Big Lie…that the Listening Statement was not about the Lacrosse case…nor can it deny the harm, though it may not have been intentional, that The Statement did to the three kids under indictment at their most vulnerable time. But, at this juncture, the goal should not be about browbeating the signatories but getting to a place where our empathy on both sides can be less exclusive and more..inclusive… and spill over in such a way that all these kids come under a joint umbrella held by “Listeners” and Liestoppers alike.
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if Jesse Jackson had traveled to Durham to forcibly speak in support of three kids (Skin hue not in question) arrested on an allegation and no evidence…and while Brodhead spoke of the need to have empathy and compassion for Mangum…equal time at the podium would have given to Ammons …speaking on behalf of Collin, Reade and Dave…and the presumption of innocence …not just a sentence or phrase but a compelling address on the rights of the Team.
As to my other question…why so many stayed silent..I think I’m beginning to understand more about that every day. As difficult as it is to speak “truth to power”…speaking truth to our friends and heroes is even more daunting. And it has, like it or not, a very personal price tag. I believe one Duke Professor was quoted as saying any negative quote from her regarding the Listening Statement would mean “my word would not count for much around here.”
Someone quoted Churchill on another blog…addressing a friend who had called him out in public: “Brendan, we are so few. We must stick together. Your words, justified or not, will be used against me and against our cause by those who would oppose us”.
I answered this way (sort of): “These are beautiful words…but they imply that some “solidarity” is more important than our personal integrity. I must respectfully disagree. I think it’s that kind of thinking that has generated much of the lack of outrage and moral inertia that allowed this terrible Frame to move forward.
Over and over in this case, we saw that so few people were willing to “call out their own.” I’m sure they felt they had many good “reasons” and they wrapped themselves in their own cherished “causes” to comfort themselves. There were so many “excuses” for silence, weren’t there? Certainly, there must have been some ADAs who disapproved of Nifong’s tactics, but no doubt they felt they owed “The Boss” their loyalty or owed the “office” their loyalty. Someone at DUMC must have realized Levicy was off the tracks, but perhaps the larger goal of “wanting victims to be believed” shut them up. Some prominent members of Durham’s Black community did indeed know the truth…but opted for the comforting excuse of essential racial solidarity and sympathy with Sister Survivor. And certainly some of Duke’s faculty were appalled at the Listening Statement and the public denunciation of their own students by their fellow faculty members…but elected to be “collegial” with fellow faculty members with whom they work and socialize regularly.”
We see this Silent Loyalty mindset everywhere today. We let others represent us, speak for us, carry the ball for us. But if we see our Hero is out of bounds, we turn our eyes, because he is so important to our larger cause. Before we look at someone’s actions..we look at the tee shirt he’s wearing…. if it’s the same as ours…because THAT alone will decide how we react.
One good discussion to arise from this case might be ….does this kind of “Silent Loyalty” truly serve the best interests of either our respective cause or our errant hero or friend? Did Levicy’s role in this…help more women who cry rape…to be believed? Did the bizarro actions of the NC NAACP enhance the common groundwork their once and future issues with our justice system will require? Did the legitimate gripes of the Trinity Park homeowners advance now that the “Targeting Dukies” issue is linked with them in every airing? And, anyone want to ask Nifong how winning that election played out down the line …personally…for him?
So often our “best friends” are not those who cosset us, but those who confront us. And our best service to the ideas and issues we care about is not loyal silence but a loud and negative shout-out to our own. Where might we be today if, instead of loyal silence… one person might have emailed to Lubiano..”Don’t print this.”…might have advised “Meehan”..”Don’t go along with this.” …might have chastened Levicy, “This is not how a Sane nurse conducts herself.” ….or one LAX captain might have told another ….”Forget the strippers.”
I could pick up a few points in this to agree or disagree or clarify or whatever, and maybe I will at some point. But for now I’ll just say that I very much appreciate the thought that went into this comment, as well as the ones leading up to it.