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Well, I think people certainly often form hypotheses based on their natural sympathies, yes, and also on the available evidence. However, what you actually said was:
I think that to assume the rich white kids must be guilty by default is almost as bad as assuming the poor black stripper woman is a "lying ho" by default, and considering most os us (myself included) started this thread under the former supposition - which no one questioned, and many seem unwilling to do so even now - maybe we should adress our own "reverse racism" as well. Isn't it?
So, you said that most of the people in this thread assumed that the white kids were guilty by default, and that the same group are unwilling even now to acknowledge that they are not guilty. I don't see this in the actual thread, and if you believe that it is the case then I would like to understand what the basis for your supposition is.
This kind of "we", like the same usage of "people", is quite dangerous, because it suggests that this is a communal action.
So, if you're saying that you, personally, assumed that the students were guilty, and you think that you did so based on your own "reverse racism", that's fine. But I'm not convinced that we, by which let's assume we mean the people who interacted on this thread, assumed that the students were guilty. Hence the request for identification. I think you may be generalising.
Also, I have absolutely no idea what you mean by:
And the silence that followed the dismissal of the case was a bit of a give-away, wasn't it?
I was not aware that it was compulsory for people to return to threads and recant their previous statements, lest some conclusion be drawn about them. If this is the case, then I think we need to start enforcing it a lot harder.
So, let's try for a version of that which:
a) Does not begin with an unsupported claim about the thoughts or actions of other members of Barbelith.
b) Does not rely on arguments such as "a DA who brings a case that is subsequently dropped is necessarily incompetent", "if a lawyer says something, it must be true" and others which appear to be trying rather too hard to prove those unsupported claims.
c) Does not once again lead us back to prison rape.
So, at the end of this case, do people think that the way in which it was reported, and the way the evidence was presented, encouraged people to make up their minds one way or another? Also, why did this case become such a big story? What were the magic ingredients?
Possibly the American obsession with sports is a factor, but I can't shake the feeling that other factors may be in play. For example, recently Don Imus has become the center of another controversy involving race and sport after his use of racist language abotu the Rutgers women's basketball team - story here. Reading the American press during this, occasional note was made of a previous incident in which the captain of the Rutgers women's basketball team abducted her ex-girlfriend for several hours and subjected her to various depredations. In these situations it is almost impossible to compare situations, of course, but I am curious as to whether it received the same profile, and if so whether this was due to better news management or other factors. It _sounds_ like a story made in Heaven. Did it go big, Americans?
There is also a broader question about whether it would actually be possible to conduct a trial if the media is out of control, as it may become impossible to isolate a jury sufficiently. If the potential jurors have been fed so much information and hearsay before a trial is even convened, how can one state that they are unprejudiced? Whhat can be done to reing the press in?: |
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