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The Ugly End of the Duke Lacrosse Story
Townhall.com ^ | November 29, 2013 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 11/29/2013 4:43:39 AM PST by Kaslin

On Nov. 22, with the national media focused on the 50th anniversary of former President John F. Kennedy's death, few noticed the story of a jury in North Carolina convicting Crystal Mangum of murder in the 2011 kitchen stabbing death of her boyfriend Reginald Daye. Why should that fact fixate the national media?

On its own, it shouldn't. But in 2006 and 2007, Mangum's false charges of rape against three Duke University lacrosse players caused a national tsunami of media sensation, an angry wave of prejudiced coverage presuming the guilt of rich white college boys when being accused by an African-American stripper.

More than any other media outlet, The New York Times trumpeted Mangum's rape accusations, even after they fell apart. As other liberal media were backing away, the Times published a notorious, error-riddled 5,700-word lead story on Aug. 25, 2006, by Duff Wilson, who argued there was enough evidence against the players for Michael Nifong, the atrocious local prosecutor (who would later be jailed and disbarred), to bring the case to trial.

Within the Times, perhaps the most aggressive accuser was then-sports columnist Selena Roberts, who made a habit of comparing the accused Duke lacrosse players to drug dealers and gang members.

Roberts continued to lob charges of white privilege in her last column on the subject in 2007: "Don't mess with Duke, though. To shine a light on its integrity has been treated by the irrational mighty as a threat to white privilege. Feel free to excoriate the African-American basketball stars and football behemoths for the misdeeds of all athletes, but lay off the lacrosse pipeline to Wall Street, excuse the khaki-pants crowd of SAT wonder kids." She lamented, "some news media jackknifed as they moved from victim's advocate to angel-tinting the lacrosse team."

To Roberts, the false accuser never stopped being the victim. Roberts never wrote a retraction for her columns that relentlessly championed a false narrative. She is the Al Sharpton of sports columnists.

The coverage ended. Well, there was one small trickle of news. In December 2010, The New York Times ran a tiny wire item in the sports section about the Duke lacrosse "victim" being found guilty of "misdemeanor child abuse and damaging property. A Durham County jury convicted Crystal Mangum, 32, of contributing to child abuse or neglect, injury to personal property and resisting a public officer after a February confrontation with her live-in boyfriend."

Then, in 2011, Mangum was indicted for murdering her boyfriend. Again, it was a tiny item in the Times -- a brief at the bottom of page B-14 of the sports section, under "Lacrosse": "Crystal Mangum, who falsely accused three Duke players of raping her in 2006, was charged with murder in the death of her boyfriend."

So when Mangum was convicted of murder on Nov. 22, now would it garner serious attention? The Times ran a tiny, 98-word wire story. There were no burning columns from the successors of Roberts.

Now remember that the entire time Mangum was ruining the reputations of three young men, the media kept her identity a secret. But now that her secret of lying and even murder is out, the secret remains, at least on the media's radar screen.

There were no Duke-accuser updates on ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS, USA Today or The Washington Post.

Like Roberts, ABC legal reporter Terry Moran didn't easily let go of the blame-the-rich-whites game in the spring of 2007, writing for his ABC blog: "Perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for (the falsely arrested Duke lacrosse players) is just a bit misplaced ... As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives ... They are very differently situated in life from, say, the young women of the Rutgers University women's basketball team."

Those women were briefly, unfairly smeared one day in a bad Don Imus joke at 6 a.m., as "nappy-headed hos." Few would have heard it if liberals hadn't flagged it. Just as liberals flagged some falsely accused lacrosse players who were only guilty of being rich and white.

On Saturday, Nov. 23, CNN offered two segments on Mangum's conviction. Defense attorney Mark Geragos offered a strong post-trial verdict: "I thought at the time that that (Duke lacrosse) prosecution was not only ill-advised but that prosecutor and we were vindicated to some degree was -- ended up being disbarred."

"Now you have a woman, and, you know, somebody had remarked to me this morning, karma is a bitch," he said. "You've got a situation where, you know, she had at least arguably a decent defense in this case, but has absolutely no credibility."

The national media also lost credibility in this Mangum mess. Their coverage at the start was outrageous, as was their suppression at the end.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: athletics; collegesandunis; dukeuniversity; falsecharges; lacrosse; lax; mangum; murder; sports
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To: Kaslin

Left unsaid is the economic cost to the falsely arrested Duke lacrosse players, their parents, the team coach and the other players that were ‘tarred’ by association! The player’s defense cost millions, the coach was adversely fired and the other players had a hostile campus environment and terminated playing seasons. The missing part of the equation is that the various law suits that were brought against almost everyone involved in the PERSECUTION (note not prosecution!)

While the District Attorney Michael Nifong ended up bankrupt, disbarred and disgraced, most of the settlements were court-sealed so the financial balancing is unknown. Still the fact is that most of these expenses would never have been incurred if a rush to judgement of race crime combined with an elite university’s reflexive liberal assumption of guilt and political considerations had not trumped real police work!


21 posted on 11/29/2013 6:25:09 AM PST by SES1066 (To expect courteous government is insanity!)
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To: Kaslin
Rush's drive-by media appellation fits perfectly here.
22 posted on 11/29/2013 6:26:17 AM PST by Steely Tom (If the Constitution can be a living document, I guess a corporation can be a person.)
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

So would the Tawana Brawley story.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yes,..It would.

Good point.


23 posted on 11/29/2013 6:28:55 AM PST by wintertime
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To: Kaslin

Whites sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. Not the first and not the last.


24 posted on 11/29/2013 6:44:01 AM PST by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible traitors. Complicit in the destruction of our country.)
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To: RKBA Democrat

>>>I really think we’re wasting our time with these sorts of stories. The leftmedia isn’t going to change. Best to focus on the economics and do what we can to expedite their slow demise.>>>

WELL SAID.


25 posted on 11/29/2013 7:03:26 AM PST by kitkat (STORM THE HEAVENS WITH PRAYERS FOR OUR COUNTRY.)
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To: kitkat

Thanks.

Unfortunately too many conservatives think that by using logic they’ll somehow swing leftists to our way of thinking. Logic means nothing to the insane.


26 posted on 11/29/2013 7:09:34 AM PST by RKBA Democrat ( There is no worst president but owebama, and valerie jarrett is his prophet.)
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To: HangnJudge

Here is a summary of my dealings with one of these little academic marxist tyrants:

I was outraged by the arrogant and presumptive proclamation by 88 members of the Duke University after they took out an ad in a campus newspaper connecting the accused Duke La Crosse players with intimidation and racism.

Accordingly, I sent two group emails to the Duke 88. The only response I received was from one Paula McClain, who among her other offices is the Co-Director, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity
and Gender in the Social Sciences at Duke. Below is the second iteration of the two messages that I sent.

The Duke Rape case is a crystallization (pardon the pun) of all the corruption to the rule of law, linear reasoning and the presumption of innocence engendered by political correctness and Cultural Marxism (particularly that personified by campus professorial elites) .

It has added a new phrase to the lexicon: To be Nifonged. The egregious conduct of Nifong will be addressed in other venues. As an Illinois state policeman for 28 years, I can say with near complete confidence that a case like this with these facts would never have passed Felony Review with even the WORST State’s Attorney that I ever dealt with.
The most important lesson to be gleaned from this is that Tawana Brawley Syndrome is no substitute for a proper analysis of the objective facts. I LOVE to see liberals like you hoisted on the petard of Political Correctness, racial identity politics, gender determinint feminism and what I have coined as “Tawana Brawley Syndrome”.

TBS exists when one takes a historical reality such as the marginalization of innocent blacks within a once overtly racist criminal justice system or the past subjugation of women or any number of other offenses and attempts to apply that to a contemporary situation wherein the objective facts don’t apply; ala OJ Simpson, Rodney King, Anita Hill etc. In the Brawley case, Al Sharpton was continually referencing the “400 years” of unrequited oppression for black women and their inability to obtain redress within a racist criminal justice system. The fact is that had absolutely nothing to do with the Tawana Brawley case.
None of this would have happened if an unscrupulous DA had not chosen to exploit racial identity politics using an apparently mentally ill woman for his political gain, and if the Duke 88, the Durham black community, the radical feminists, and the racial grievance industry merchants had sifted thru the facts objectively and not attempted to stuff them into lurid post modern meta-narratives of privileged white male elites sexually exploiting black women. But than the attendant historical overtones of plantation sexual abuse were probably too much for them to resist. I have increasingly noted that fact and truth present no barrier to the fanatical Cultural Marxist.
My question now is this: Will all those who stampeded to rush to judge and vilify these innocent men now arrange a meeting with them, ala Imus to apologize and create a genuine aura of “healing”? I hope so but I don’t think so, because often being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.

Aside from the fact that petty tyrants like you have turned US college campuses into little ivy covered North Koreas, I suspect that you were seeking to appropriate PC bonus points and obtain instant moral authority by championing the cause of the “other” (marginalized black exotic dancer) against racist male chauvinist members of the privileged white elite. A case of cultural Marxist Class warfare that boomeranged. GOD how I love it so!!!!!

Even though I despise the racial identity politics that mindlessly multicultural cultural Marxists like you have fostered amongst my people to our ultimate detriment, I would like to state that I am a black man living in the heart of Chicago’s South Side ghetto, who values the rule of law and truth as best as it can be objectively and humanly determined.

It would be fitting if they get a pretty penny from you.

I got the response below:

Your continued messages have now moved into the realm of harassment and
I have reported you to your service provider for using abusive and
inappropriate language in your email which was sent through their servers.
Paula D. McClain
Professor of Political Science
Professor of Public Policy
Department of Political Science
Co-Director, Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity
and Gender in the Social Sciences
Duke University

I responded to this spluttering thrat as follows

I was unaware that the 2 emails that I sent to you had caused you such distress. I wish to tender my apologies and desire to assure you that you shall receive no further messages from me. But since you are a college professor I was acting upon the putative assumption that universities are about the exchange of ideas, and I thought that my admittedly critically gloating message might prompt a suitable rejoinder. My missive was harsh, yes even severe. But it does contain concepts and ideas that however offensive ought to provoke a suitably barbed retort rather than a threat of server censorship.

Alas, I shall have to reconsider the notion that the campus is about the free exchange of ideas. But this is precisely what I was getting at in my email. If you can ever manage to free yourself from leftist dogmatic doctrine maybe you will realize that.

This episode represents some of the best evidence of the thought policing that must be extant on all too many college campuses. If she can threaten me with this, someone unconnected with Duke University, just imagine the ax that she wields over any dissenting students!!!! Political Correctness is the intellectual scourge of our time and the worst threat to academic freedom that I have ever seen.


27 posted on 11/29/2013 8:26:18 AM PST by DMZFrank
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To: abb

Thanks for the ping.


28 posted on 11/29/2013 8:39:24 AM PST by windcliff
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To: DMZFrank

+1000


29 posted on 11/29/2013 8:42:40 AM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

There’s someone here who keeps a big list of that sort of thing. I may have a link on my home machine. Ping me Monday if you want me to look.


30 posted on 11/29/2013 10:40:13 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: DMZFrank

Excellent letters, and it is a testament to the moral low-lifes these people are that the only response you got was that weak.


31 posted on 11/29/2013 10:50:20 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: abb

Yeah - she UGLY!


32 posted on 11/29/2013 11:05:03 AM PST by Enterprise ("Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire)
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To: Kaslin

Ugly beginning, ugly end.
Crystal Mangnum may have held the knife, but she had a host of accomplices.


33 posted on 11/29/2013 11:45:11 AM PST by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Kaslin

She’s a danger to society, and always will be.


34 posted on 11/29/2013 11:48:45 AM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: DMZFrank

35 posted on 11/29/2013 12:30:03 PM PST by HangnJudge
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To: FreedomPoster

Thanks!
I will.


36 posted on 11/29/2013 5:18:33 PM PST by pieceofthepuzzle
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