Out of a combination of boredom and curiosity and procrastination, I just read the whole of the "final report" of the county prosecutor's office from Smoking Gun.
As an outsider, it leaves me with a few vaguely annoying questions...While much of the evening is documented by photos and cell phone calls and credit card uses, it would seem that much of the proposed/reconstructed narrative of events of the evening still comes from 40 partygoers who were virtually all team members and/or their friends; this awareness (which is not easy to bear in mind as they are coolly laying out their "objective" version of events) gave me a little pause, particularly at one moment when the non-accusing dancer "Nikki" is alleged to have started the volley of racial epithets.
My bullshit detector tingled. How likely is that? I believe that's what all 40 white people may have said. I even believe that's what they may believe they rememembered to have happen. But hmmmm....This version of the story, as summarized in an Op-Ed today, based on a forthcoming book by the fired coach Don Pressler suggests an alternative version of this portion of the story.
Laying that aside, however, and assuming it is so, the power asymmetries are not an acknowledged part of the official narrative I read: this was a black "townie" woman, in a white "college" neighborhood. On this night, especially, she's been jerked around by everyone around her, including even the other (accusing) and messed up dancer who arrived late and drunk/stoned. "Nikki" is a woman who felt clearly very upset by the changes and upheavals in her working conditions--the lying of these lacrosse players to get the dancers, their using assumed names and lying about the purpose/nature of the party they were throwing (they said it was a small bachelor party). Then, second, the fact that her employer had ALSO lied, and apparently sent her into a party where they knew a group of men were expecting white dancers. And when her partner does arrive, she's messed up on drugs and alcohol. And how much of the $400 she received in cash was she required to turn over to the "escort service" no matter what happened?
There are dancers on Barbelith--and what they've mentioned about their work conditions is often very scary--there's little security, lots of shady dealings, you have to watch your own back constantly or you'll get screwed, financially (or, worse, drugged/raped) if not by the mostly men who manage the services and agencies and bars where dancers dance, and the mostly male customers. (According to the op-ed piece above, the Duke Lax men tried and failed to get underaged members into a strip club earlier that afternoon).
"Nikki"'s last straw in this situation--which clearly felt not totally safe nor was it turning out to be what she'd contracted for--was being urged to perform with a broom, which one of the players held up and gestured at her with. This upset her, and made her and the accuser leave the party in anger, and hide in the bathroom while the upset, drinking partygoers felt "cheated." They'd paid "good money" to have two women perform for them and by god they expected two hours worth--even though no one seems to dispute that "they started" the chain of lying by using false names and lying about the nature and purpose of the party. They pressed on the door and put money under it to try to get them to come out again.
And, let's face it: the students were mostly male, mostly white, they had the money to pay, and were on their own turf, surrounded by their friends whose cell phones and credit cards and social capital were ultimately able to exonerate them, not without some pain, which I accept is real and which I admit I have never experienced directly.
Their wealth here isn't even so much about the actual money changing hands, but about acquired privilege. First, let's all be clear: the fact of their privilege ensured that, first and foremost, this circus-case would be a win-win situation for the media, since they were assured of a soap-opera worthy story no matter what happened, or still happens. If they had been less wealthy, the media would have been less interested. The students did have to experience a party gone bad, their sports season canceled, suspensions from school (one has tranferred to the Ivy-League school, Brown University) and, yes, they had their reputations smeared, at least temporarily.
But they will never ever be as totally without the resources as virtually every single one of the people being investigated by the Innocence Project (see link above). They and their families have already been compensated by Duke, and they are possibly not done suing...and how soon do you think there will be book deals signed for these young men--following the suit of their fired coach? When that happens, read through project innocence, the nameless cases that the media just ignores, that say "Compensation? None yet."
Then go and read some of the stories on Take Back the News" of the more "garden variety" victims of rape and assault, many of which occur on and around college campuses, since that's where many of the projects are centered.
So, mainly, particularly after the events regarding the DA Nifong this week, reading that report simply leaves me with a lot of sadness for these two women called into the situation, one of whom, the accuser, was clearly a mess when she arrived and a mess when she left and in grave danger of remaining a mess for however long she lives. Given that our system offers little in the way of resources for mentally ill/drug addicted people, I don't expect that to be much. (She seems to be addicted to or at least abusing methadone already, which if I'm not mistaken is what is usually used to "treat" people addicted to heroin...)
If these messed up poor people do a lot of damage to other poor people, especially their families, we essentially say it's their own damn fault for being poor. Or, we don't say that directly, especially if we're middle class and like to think of ourselves as above that, but it's how the media handles it by its non-coverage of it, it's how our governemnt handles it in terms of the medical and police assistance we give to these communities, and it's how most of the rest of us handle it by not demanding that attention be paid.
But if in their fucked-up condition they wreak havoc in the lives of a few wealthy people, then the conservative media-sphere calls it a national emergency, and people like me get scolded by people like DM for not being contrite enough about the rich folks' 'innocent' (whatever that means) suffering and "reverse racism"?
Fuck that shit. |
