I’m sitting here reading this story about a Black female exotic dancer who was gang raped. Now this rape didn’t occur in some seedy motel by a bunch of clients she picked up on the street or something, it occurred at Duke University. No that wasn’t a typo, I said Duke University. This violent act was perpetrated by members of the Duke lacrosse team. To be exact, the incident occurred at a house right outside of the university grounds which is rented by the captains on the lacrosse team. But the actual location of the house shouldn’t matter here. Now these gentlemen (and I use that term very loosely) decided that wanted to have a little bit of fun one night about two weeks ago. They hired two ladies for some nighttime entertainment. The two ladies who arrived to show them a good time happened to be Black. They arrived at the house thinking that they were performing for 5 guys and all of a sudden mayhem breaks out where dozens of players were present. These ladies were accosted by these cowards. They were met with racial slurs and physically harmed.
One of the young ladies was held down, beaten, choked, raped and sodomized. The police reports say that in the house they found her fingernails, her make-up bag and her cellphone. This is certainly the customary items a woman leaves behind after entertaining a group of athletes right? It’s typical for a white guy to holler out “Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt” while getting a lapdance from a Black woman right? Of course it isn’t. Now it seems to me that this story should be all over the news. I mean, when a Black athlete gets caught speeding on the freeway on the way home from the club we hear about it first thing on ESPN right? Let’s see, I think we could talk about the small discretions of Black athletes that make the headlines or the front pages of the newspaper quite often. Let’s just imagine that this assault took place at a predominately Black university and the victims were white, this would’ve been front page national news. We’d be inundated with stories from Dateline, 60 Minutes or Primetime with exclusives as to how and when this incident occurred. They’d be interviewing the neighbors in the community talking about how outraged they are. It seems to me that this story has remained local to the North Carolina area. Their media is covering the story completely, but what about the rest of the nation. You can’t tell me that this isn’t newsworthy. It sure is newsworthy to African-Americans.
Okay, so this young lady was an exotic dancer, did she deserve to be raped? She is a student at North Carolina Central University, has two children and is trying to provide for them and pay for school. It may not what you consider the greatest way to pay the bills, but that’s not the issue here. I don’t know whether I’m more outraged about the incident itself or the lack of coverage in the media. This was a sick and disgusting act committed by members of Duke’s lacrosse team and it’s 5th page news. Seems kind of ironic that I go to the Duke University website and click the link for their lacrosse team –Duke Lacrosse Team and the roster and photos have been deleted. Coincidence??? I think not. The student athletes have not been cooperative with the police and the university punished them by forfeiting games. Hmmm… that sounds like a suitable punishment don’t you think? These guys should be arrested immediately for not stopping the brutal attack. Justice needs to be swift and severe in this case.
I’ve included links to the story from The News & Observer. This newspaper serves the cities of Raleigh, Durham, Cary & Chapel Hill in the state of North Carolina.
–Dancer gives details of ordeal
–Team’s silence is sickening
–DNA tests ordered for Duke athletes
–Rally calls for action at Duke
–Lacrosse team forfeits games
–15 players had prior charges