DU on the Duke indictments -- read it and weep

Last night I noticed that someone started a thread about the Grand Jury indictment with a statement from the Defense attorney - about the poor, innocent, players. The comments seem to take their cue from that.


I started my own thread.

Two Duke Lacrosse Players Indicted - alternate version

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x953130

The vileness of many of the posts infuriate me.

The offensive comments here extend to him as well. It's no longer enough to malign a woman who's been raped - now anyone conducting the investigation is maligned, also. I've seen comments here suggesting that he's only pushing forward with the case for "political reasons" - as though a DA who doesn't summarily dismiss a rape claim is suspect, and deserves swift-boating.

Its absolutely crazy right now. :banghead:

I came here to see if anyone had posted about the indictments yet--so we could have a thread to discuss it here (in Feminism). I suspect we will in time have to start one, if you know what I mean. ;)

But that is so disgusting. I'm staying away from posting on any of those GD threads on this--yuck! :puke:

The really disheartening thing is that so many on these boards never even consider how many women and minorities they hurt when they say such things.

I guess the rw doesn't have exclusive rights to bigoted, sexist assholes. :eyes:

Some seem to be trying to defend some sort of "rule of law" premise. Totally ignoring sexual assault statistics, in the general public and in the exotic entertainer/sex worker industry.
What needs to be said is the record of sexual assault in this country is heinous and sick and needs to be fought. These thread debating "guilt" are just bizarre. (The defense team said... the DA said... And oh by the way he's running for political office....)
If we we were debating a rape in oh, say Pakistan you could FEEL the outrage (misogynist, repressive countries, how DARE they treat women that way)
When it's close to home, There is a deep blame the victim psychology is in our national psyche. It's covered up by useless debates about guilt or innocence. (Most of them can't quite bring themselves to say "she asked for it") It goes round and round. If the women were proved to be a liar, there would be some who would gleefully say "I told you so" and the more high-minded ones would point out that this hurts "rape victims anywhere." which may be true, but it has nothing to do with the women who is being raped as I type this. The Sexual assault that is occurring RIGHT NOW somewhere. Trying to explain that gets lost in the guilt/innocence/ he said she said/ bullshit. Any rape is all rapes. Any accusation needs to be taken seriously. Not debated, but taken drop dead seriously. Not only is a rape occurring as I type, but a rapist is also being formed the same attitudes and judgments we see on some of these threads-- the most frightening to me, is the ones saying "sometimes rape IS about sex." Sweet Jesus Christ, that's scary.
It's part of what feminism fights everyday.
On edit: I found this link on smoking gun about that email that got the coach fired. I had no idea....
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0405061duke1.html

:scared:

I guess that player doesn't have a high opinion of women, particularly women that strip. To state he wanted to "skin" them--akin to how one might skin an animal...

I'm speechless. :wow:

That was the first time I had actually read the email. The descriptions I had read made much of the coach getting fired and less of the content of the email itself. They it made it sound much less-- Oh I don't violent?-- Psychopathic? What do you say to something like that?

(from http://redstatefeminist.blogspot.com/ ) Wednesday, April 12, 2006

"It was pointed out to me that Ryan McFadyen's email to the team was a reference to the book and movie, "American Psycho" . Apparently, this was a bit of a cult favorite among Duke Lacrosse team members.

(There) is an exerpt of the book, and of the fine literary style cultivated by Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho....

The fact that this was a "cult favorite" amongst the lacrosse team speaks volumes for the mentality of some of the players.

With all the vitriol that has existed in the last few days towards the victim, I feel like it's important to turn the focus back on the subject of the investigation. All too often these cases become a character assassination of the victim.

How disturbing it is that some of these guys admittedly seemed to spend a large amount of their time thinking about extremely graphic violence against women of a sexual nature, and they and others see absolutely nothing problematic about that."

Or have we been invaded by a bunch of misogynists?

I usually don't get involved in these kind of heated debates, but my goodness, where do these people come from?

Please do not rally the troops or continue a locked thread.