Tawana Brawley and the “Exotic Dancer” at Duke

The recent case of the lacrosse players at Duke University accused of raping a young black woman brings to mind the case of Tawana Brawley, the black teenager who in 1988 made similar charges against a group of white men in Wappinger Falls , NY.

In both cases, what turned out to be unfounded charges were widely given credit and generated immense publicity; celebrities and politicians rallied to the cause of the alleged victims, lengthy and costly legal investigations followed, and at last it emerged that the accusations were groundless. In both incidents, the charges were seized upon as self-evident, incontrovertible proof of the incorrigible and ineradicable racism that continues to permeate and infect every pore of American society.

On the Duke campus, the incident was seen, at least initially, as proof not only of the ingrained racism of American society but of other evils as well, such as sexism and “classism.” Rallies, demonstrations, protest marches and candlelight vigils were held and demands were made on the administration of the university to combat racism with greater determination. “On a single day in March 550 news outlets featured some version of the story.” [1] The incident was said to be a “wake up call against sexual assault,” and “enraged students raised questions about their safety on campus.” [2] Members of the faculty were in the forefront of those denouncing American society and its endemic racism. 88 members of the faculty "issued a statement in April saying 'thank you' to the protesters who had branded the players rapists." [3]

Protestations of the presumed innocence of the accused were often brushed aside; they were white, upper middle class males accused by a poor black female. The black female in question worked for an escort service (a widely used euphemism for prostitution) and attended the lacrosse players’ social gathering as an “exotic dancer.” It is doubtful that similar attention would have been generated if the alleged rape victim had been white since being black and female has, for some time, been the quintessential defining attribute of authentic victimhood. The long and indisputable legacy of mistreatment and discrimination black people suffered explains the continued, ready acceptance of claims of victimization also enshrined in compensatory legislation, known as affirmative action. White guilt has been an understandable, but increasingly questionable response to this historical record.

According to the President of Duke, “the lacrosse episode... put into high relief deep structures of inequality in our society - inequalities of wealth, privilege and opportunity...and the attitudes of superiority these inequalities breed.” The Vice Provost said that “whatever we have been doing to address these problems [race, class, sex and privilege] has been insufficient and needs to be redoubled and tripled.” A law professor who was also the chair of the Academic Council asked: “Have we tolerated behavior that would cause people to believe that they can treat other people without respect?” [4] The Raleigh News and Observer concluded that the situation has exposed serious issues of race, gender and class division.” [5] An article in The New Yorker reported that

“Much of the bitterest vitriol came from members of the Duke faculty who were willing to assume not only the players’ guilt but the university’s. At a session of the Academic Council Brodhead, [the president] was roundly assailed for not taking decisive action against the team and one professor... urged him to confess publicly that Duke was a racist and misogynist institution. Houston Baker, an English professor...asserted in a letter (he subsequently made public) to...the Provost, that at Duke, white male athletes were “veritably given license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech” and excoriated the university for its complicity in the “sexual assault, verbal racial violence and drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us.” [6]

It should be noted that the Duke faculty was not unanimous in harboring such sentiments. There were those willing to remind the public of presumptions of innocence, and James Coleman, in particular, another law professor, was highly critical of the handling of the case by the district attorney who characterized the accused as “a bunch of hooligans.” [7]

While the Duke case is not yet officially closed, the charges of rape have been dropped (but not those of sexual assault and kidnapping). The accuser ha expressed a new uncertainty about the nature of the incident and, moreover, DNA tests have indicated that the lacrosse players had no sexual contact (that could be defined as rape) with the accuser but that she had such contact with others prior to the time of the alleged rape. [8]

Unlike in the Tawana Brawley case, in North Carolina the district attorney gave every indication of a politically motivated urge to indict the accused and he pursued his case with an ethically dubious zeal (which included withholding information from the defense and using questionable methods for identifying the alleged wrongdoers). He was running in an election and appeared to seize the opportunity to display his anti-racist credentials for the benefit of black and liberal voters. It worked and he won re-election.

After several decades of compensatory legislation, the revamping of curricula in all educational institutions, virtually universal reverse discrimination (known as “affirmative action”) and a wide range of indicators that both official and unofficial racism has greatly diminished, demagogues like Al Sharpton continue to make lifelong careers out of mining white guilt and this guilt shows little decline, as the Duke incident also suggests. Why should this be the case?

It is reasonable to suspect that when the dust settles and it becomes widely known and fully acknowledged that the accusations against the lacrosse players were questionable and probably altogether groundless, those who had been convinced of the truthfulness of the charges will fall back on the reasoning that was offered by professor Stanley Diamond in 1988 in the aftermath of the Tawana Brawley case:

“The case cannot be measured by legal canons, official justice or received morality... The grand jury has responded to the technical questions of the case, weighing the evidence but necessarily blind to its deeper meanings. In cultural perspective, if not in fact, it doesn’t matter whether the crime occurred or not...What is most remarkable about this faked crime is that traditional victims have re-created themselves as victims in a dreadfully plausible situation.” [9]

The point of view quoted is likely to originate in deep reservoirs of sympathy and guilt for the past sufferings of the “traditional victims” which resist being drained by the evidence of substantial social and cultural change. This resistance may be linked to sentiments of enlightened moral superiority which manifests itself in the eager and profuse admissions of guilt. To feel guilty for the sins of one’s ancestors (or fellow citizens) and to dwell on this guilt in public is a lofty and attractive moral position not easily abandoned.

Many academic intellectuals’ sense of identity rests the role of the virtuous social critic, on “conspicuous compassion,” and the associated readiness to renounce society for a variety of sins. But wallowing in guilt is not necessarily the best guide to action or policy or even to self-esteem. Overwhelming feelings of guilt resulted in the policies of reverse discrimination, in new injustices, when in a variety of competitive situations a middle or upper class black person is given automatic preference over a similarly (or better) qualified poor or lower class white one on account of the color of his skin and the sufferings of his ancestors.

White guilt is complemented and validated by the self appointed spokesmen of the black population who thrive on and make abundant use of what Shelby Steele called “the victim-focused identity.” The position of the innocent victim is even more compelling morally and psychologically than that of the righteous critic of society confessing his guilt - it provides a self-evident, unchallengeable moral high ground. At the same time, considerable material and social status benefits follow from the legally certified and institutionalized victim identity.

When white guilt converges with attachment to the victim identity there will be an enlarged, reflexive receptivity to the claims of the likes of Tawana Brawley and “the exotic dancer” at Duke University. It may be time for an emotionally satisfying white guilt to give way to more careful considerations of right and wrong which are not automatically determined by the skin color of either the wrongdoer or his victim.

Paul Hollander has written several books dealing with the political attitudes and political morality of American and other intellectuals, most recently The End of Commitment. Revolutionaries, Intellectuals and Political Morality. (2006)

She has her own Wikipedia page. It's an interesting read if you haven't seen it...

Crystal Gail Mangum (born 1978) is a woman known for her accusation that three Duke University lacrosse players raped her in March 2006.[1] She previously served in the United States Navy, is a single mother of two, and has a prior criminal record. At the time of her accusations, she was working as a stripper for the Allure Escort Service[2][3] in Durham, North Carolina, and was attending North Carolina Central University. She has been variously described as a petite, soft-spoken woman who is "described by friends as a caring mother and a hard worker," [4] and a convicted car thief who repeatedly passed out from drugs and fought with her fellow dancers and customers. Mangum used "Precious" as her working name on the night she danced at the Duke house.

Main article: 2006 Duke University lacrosse team scandal

In March 2006, Mangum and another female, Kim Roberts, were hired to perform as exotic dancers at a house in Durham. The residence was rented at the time by three members of the Duke University Lacrosse team.[6] Duke University purchased the property prior to the rape allegations.[7] After being involuntarily committed to the Durham Access Center (a mental health and substance abuse facility) later that night, she told somebody for the first time that she was raped by three members of Duke University's men's lacrosse team.[8][9] The investigation has led to the indictment of three members of the lacrosse team. David Evans[10], Reade Seligmann, and Collin Finnerty were charged with first degree forcible rape, first degree sexual offense, and kidnapping. Duke's nationally ranked lacrosse team's season was suspended for the rest of the season as a result. As Mangum is black and the accused team members are white, the case highlighted racial tensions in the local North Carolina community and attracted national attention. It also led to intense criticism of the district attorney in the case, Michael Nifong.

On 16 April 2006, Jesse Jackson promised to pay for the rest of her tuition regardless of the outcome of this case.[11][12] On 21 April 2006, the talk show host Tom Leykis learned the name of the accuser and announced it on his radio show.[13]

On December 14, 2006, defense attorneys filed papers in which they allege that DNA testing in the Duke lacrosse rape case found genetic material from several males in the accuser's body and her underwear, but none from any team member. The testing was conducted at a private laboratory for the prosecution. The papers were filed by attorneys for lacrosse players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans. Attorneys for lacrosse players complained that the information about DNA from other men was not disclosed in a report prosecutors provided earlier in 2006 to the defense. Also, on December 15, 2006, it was reported that Ms. Mangum is pregnant and the judge in the case has ordered a paternity test.[14] Defense attorneys said, "It's impossible for any of these young men to have fathered that child," while the district attorney similarly stated that he has no reason to believe any of the players is the father of the woman's child. She is reportedly due in February of 2007.[14]

On December 22, 2006, prosecutors dropped the rape charges against all three suspects. The kidnapping and sexual assault charges remain.[15]

Education and military background

* Associate's Degree, Durham Technical Community College[16]

* Coursework in Police Psychology, North Carolina Central University[2]

* Radio Operator & Navigator, United States Navy[4]

o Mangum enlisted in the fall of 1996 for two years of active duty with six additional years in the reserves. She began her duty in the summer of 1997, but was discharged in 1998. The U.S. Navy has not released the reason for this discharge[4]

Criminal history and credibility

Lawyers for the Duke lacrosse players have said that she was intoxicated and possibly on drugs.[17] Defense attorney Bill Thomas urged her to retract her statement, saying that the rape allegations were concocted to avoid a charge of public drunkenness. The Duke defense lawyers or media reports have said that:

* DNA results revealed that the woman had sex with a man who was not a Duke lacrosse player. Attorney Joseph Cheshire said the tests indicated DNA from a "single male source" came from a vaginal swab taken from the accuser. Media outlets reported that this DNA was from her boyfriend.[18]

* She was convicted of stealing a car and sentenced to 3 weekends in detention. (In 2002, she stole a taxi from a man to whom she was giving a lap dance. A high speed chase then ensued, and when the deputy chasing her approached the stolen taxi on foot, she tried to run over him. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of larceny, speeding to elude arrest, assault on a government official and driving while impaired.)[19][20]

* She had made a similar claim in the past which she did not pursue. "On Aug. 18, 1996, the dancer - then 18 years old - told a police officer in Creedmoor she had been raped by three men in June 1993, according to a police document. She did not pursue the allegations. The officer who took the woman's report 10 years ago asked her to write a detailed timeline of the night's events and bring the account back to the police. "Apparently she never returned," Granville County DA Sam Currin said."[21]

* The accuser told authorities that in 1998, her husband threatened to kill her. However, she did not appear at the court hearing and thus the charges were dropped.[22]

* The accuser frequently passed out while performing as an exotic dancer at the Platinum Club in Hillsborough, according to the former club manager. The former manager also stated that Mangum had to be dragged out of the establishment onto gravel either one or two nights prior to the March 13 party. "She was heavy. It took four or five of us to carry her outside. She was dead weight. That's how passed out she was. She never woke up. We could have put the scratches on her. That could be how she got them."[23] The former manager went on to describe the accuser as "a club employee whose problems with other dancers and customers sometimes made it hard for her to make money," citing an event in which she started to pull a female customer's hair.[24]

* According to the Platinum Club owner, the accuser danced at the club on March 23, 24, and 25. Those were the same dates she told doctors she was "in excruciating pain from the [...] beating." The owner said the accuser did not say anything about being raped 10 days earlier.[25] Similarly, 60 Minutes released a video of her allegedly dancing at the club less than two weeks after the alleged incident, again raising doubts as to how "traumatized" she actually was.[26]

* The strip club's security officer said that the accuser told co-workers four days after the alleged incident that she "was going to get money from some boys at a Duke party who hadn't paid her," adding that she essentially said, "I'm going to get paid by the white boys." The security guard did not make a big deal of it "because no one takes her seriously."[27]

* Sperm from several males was found in the accuser's body and her underwear. DNA matching showed that no sperm was from any of the accused Duke players. Mangum had denied engaging in any sexual activity in the days before the alleged assault, told police she last had consensual sexual intercourse a week before the assault, and claimed that her attackers did not use condoms and ejaculated..[28]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Gale_Mangum

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