Duke Lacrosse--The Exonerated?

Today I heard that Mike Nifong, the disgraced D.A. who mis-handled the Duke Lacrosse rape case, apologized to the three men he originally accused and said that there was not substantial evidence to link them in the rape case. And as various magazine and newspaper articles, and even a book written by the former Duke Lacrosse coach all emphasize, these young men were all victims of "racial profiling" and are, instead, innocent of the charges brought against them.

And in the wake of this media storm, I'm not sure what to think with respect to the woman who brought these accusations against the men. I certainly feel sympathy for her, because regardless of whether she made up her story or she was, indeed, sexually assaulted, she more than likely did not bargain for the reception she received at the house party in which the lacrosse players were present and she more than likely did not think when she was a little girl that she wanted to earn extra money to support herself through college by taking off her clothes for drunken college boys.

If she did lie, well, then that's a topic for another post--because it is damaging for women to lie about rape--there are so many women who are raped every day, many by people they know. And they are afraid to come forward because of the criticism and judgment they will face--most especially the idea that they are lying. And in some cases (a few I know personally) the man in question probably didn't think that he was raping a woman who was crying or saying no, as incredible as that is to believe. There were two such cases of women I went to college with, who told me their stories of male friends raping them, while they were sleeping, even after they had said no--but because they were drunk or because they were making out, or because they were friends, the idea that they could accuse these men of rape never entered their minds, and they were both clear that they were sure that these men had no idea that what they had done was rape, even though the women just lay there, and in one case, she cried the entire time. So if this woman did lie, well, she's doing a lot of damage for a lot of people.

But putting aside the veracity of her story--the larger problem I have with the exoneration of the Duke lacrosse team is over issues of race, class, and sex. There are the facts of the largely white team members and the two women, one African American, the other half-black, half-Asian. There is the overheard racist remarks outside the house ("Thank your grandaddy for my cotton shirt") and the racist comments that the women reported went on inside the house. There is the privilege that comes with wealth and with attending an elite university like Duke and with playing for an elite sport like lacrosse. And then there's the fact that this group of young men, athletes, who ostensibly represent their school, didn't think twice about hiring women to take off their clothes for them. Strippers, exotic dancers, whatever language you want to use, it's women who, I believe for the most part, are doing this to gain money, a lot of money relative to the labor involved, although perhaps not a lot of money relative to one's mental and emotional well-being. I don't know. I have acquaintances who have worked in strip clubs before, and they talk about a feeling of empowerment, but mostly they talk about how good the money is, and that the cash flow outweighs the crap they have to put up with.

What I'm trying to get at is that regardless of whether or not these men sexually assaulted this women--I don't feel the Duke lacrosse team is fully exonerated. Yes, they may not have perpetrated rape, but are they totally innocent of the white privilege, the class privilege, the very male privilege that they wear as casually as they wear their uniforms? And Duke students who support these players, do they stop and think about the larger picture--that rather than seeing themselves as embattled victims of a corrupt legal system--as victims prosecuted by the media, perhaps they need to really think about what it means to have the privilege of attending Duke University or any four-year university--of having a college degree, something only 25% of the US population has. Shouldn't Duke students, lacrosse players and non-lacrosse players alike, owe it to themselves to question the kinds of privilege they walk around with and the ways in which subtle promotion of white male superiority gets produced around not-so-innocuous parties involving dark skinned women taking off their clothes at the command of white men?

Discouraging Words

I am someone who believes, fervently, in the power of words. And yet, there are times (like today) when I wonder what difference my own words will make in the world. Whether it wouldn't be better to "do" rather than "write" or "talk." Or perhaps I am returning to a misgiving I have about academia--specifically the work of my particular field, English Literature and literary criticism: what difference will another work of literary or cultural analysis make?

I know the answer, of course. So it's not necessary to rehearse why words matter. But I am struck, today, by two stories, one emailed to me by a friend, the other I stumbled upon in the NY Times that are also reflective of discouraging words.

The first, about a Montgomery County (VA) school district who are pulling a lesson plan that was supposed to precede discussion of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, returns to the debate in schools about how to handle the "n" word, "nigger." I should make a note here, that ala Randall Kennedy, I'm choosing to actually print, albeit in quotations, the actual epithet rather than refer to it as the "n" word. To use a pop culture analogy, it's sort've like the way JK Rowling has her characters refer to Lord Voldemort as "he who shall not be named" with another character (I think it's Dumbledore) commenting that there is a power to not-naming as much as naming. And, personally, I also think it's true--that there is a way in which we can give too much power to certain names--as well as create a hierarchy of slurs. For example, most people have no problem saying or printing the word "bitch" but "cunt" seems reserved for all but the most venemous of attacks, and "chink," "gook," "spick," and "kike," don't seem to have the same taboo-like qualities as "nigger," and yet in the right context, they can elicit just as much hatred and vitriol. Of course, I also understand that like it or not, there has been a racial hierarchy in this country, so perhaps it does make sense that not all racist slurs are equal.

But I digress. There is a larger story behind the decision to stop using this lesson plan, one based on an essay by African American author Gloria Naylor and her own musings with the word "nigger." Suffice it to say, it's a thorny subject, and feelings and issues of self-esteem as well as historical oppression are all involved. But perhaps at its very basic form, what is most telling about this story was a recounting of why one of the student's complained about the lesson plan: her white teacher's performance of African American stereotypes, adding a layer of discomfort and a signaling of difference that was not in the classroom before (apparently on the day of this lesson plan the teacher re-arranged the desks into a semi-circle and actually read the essay aloud, performing it for her students in exaggerated, some may say minstrel like gestures).

The second instance of discouraging words from the NY Times article is about the revival of Lacrosse among American Indian communities in upstate New York. After a discussion of its cultural significance among various Native communities, there is a segment that talks about how many of these new leagues do not allow girls to play and that, in fact, if a girl or woman has even touched a lacrosse stick, then that stick must be placed in quarantine for a week to banish the contaminating female essence, and in some instances, boys/men give away these polluted sticks once girls/women have touched them.

I don't know if I need to analyze any of these stories further--lets just say that I definitely categorize them as discouraging words.