27/04/07

If This is Powerless, Can I have Some?

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As the curtain closes on the final act of the Duke Rape Hoax, several questions remain. Most of them will never be answered. But one stands out – What about Crystal Gail Mangum?
For those unaware, Crystal Gail Mangum is the stripper, lionized as the black, female single mother stripping to put herself through college who was so cruelly violated by the rich, white college Duke Lacrosse team. It was her tale of rape, shame and degradation (concocted after being discovered passed out drunk in her car the night of the party) that prevented her arrest and likely the loss of her child to authorities. It also plunged three innocent young men and their families into a nightmare that may have ended legally on Tuesday, but will carry on for some time in terms of damaged reputations, exhausted finances and a drastically changed worldview.
In dismissing the charges, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper had little to say about Mangum. Cooper hinted broadly at her mental problems, and stated he didn’t feel it would be “in the interests of justice” to pursue legal action against her. Victims’ rights advocates have fretted that the complete collapse of the case might discourage other victims from “coming forward.”
Terry Moran of ABC news, on his “Pushback” blog, urges us “Not to feel too sorry for the Dukies.” He goes on to explain that while Crystal Gail Mangum has been shown to be “either a vicious liar or a troubled fantasist,” he reminds us that the social status of the Duke boys “is a very large cushion under them,” one that entitled them to the “high priced legal representation” that led to “high- profile, high-minded vindication.” Mr. Moran rightly notes that reckless, defamatory prosecution is hardly unheard of in this country, but that the majority of its victims are not nearly so well equipped to combat it. These are, said Terry, “young men victimized by a reckless prosecutor, who had the resources to fight him off.”
No, they weren’t. While Mike Nifong (the district attorney who initially filed the charges) is a loathsome character to be sure, Colin Finnerty, Reade Seligman and David Evans were not victimized by him – they were victimized by Crystal Gail Mangum. Mike Nifong made it possible. A culture that has criminalized male sexuality and is obsessed with romanticizing the “underclass” – that’s blacks, women and gays in order of precedence – made it inevitable.
Race hustlers have promoted the idea that a crime committed by a white person against a black person is not a crime committed by one individual against another – it is a crime committed by one race against another. This position has been codified in so-called “Hate Crime Laws.” Ostensibly, this applies both ways to persons of all races. In practice it is ignored in the case of even the most heinous assaults against whites (See “The Wichita Massacre” or the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom in Knoxville Kentucky), while trumpeted as an epidemic with vast implications for society when crimes are committed against minorities (see James Byrd Jr., Jasper Texas). Feminists nicely glommed onto this concept when they began declaring rape an act of “systematic oppression” committed not by one man or men against one woman, but committed by all men against all women. This has been accompanied by sexual harassment laws and theories which see a direct connection between flirting and rape; after all, as members of an oppressed class women cannot consent to sex anymore than slaves can consent to the master – they cannot consent who have no real ability to refuse. These ideas have been accompanied by massive outlays of public funds, enriching such alleged intellects as Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, whose ideas have found codification in federal laws such as the hideous Violence Against Women Act.
Also essential to this movement is the myth that women don’t lie about allegations of rape. If you are ever in the mood to make a feminist turn purple (not hard to do) just question this tenet of the faith. Women do lie about rape. Women are every bit as willing and capable as men of lying about whatever suits their fancy – and rape is all too often one of those things. The canard that subjecting allegations of rape to any of the scrutiny such serious allegations deserve will prevent legitimate victims from coming forward changes the constitutional standard of “reasonable doubt” for convictions that result in deprivation of life, liberty or property to one of “we’ll take your word for it.” Furthermore, credible accusations will meet with increased skepticism from a public grown jaded by false hysteria.
The inevitable result of such politicization of the justice system is nothing like justice – innocent men are railroaded, the act of rape is trivialized by very public false allegations, and the actual statistics regarding the occurrence of rape in society become increasingly difficult to determine with any accuracy. This last state of affairs is further abetted by an expansion of the definition of rape to include such circumstances as having sex under the influence of alcohol when you otherwise might not have, or rape by “fraud in the inducement” – understanding the nature and quality of the act you are engaging in, but consenting to engage in it by false pretenses.
And so, Let us take nothing away from Mr. Cooper. His dismissal of the charges against the three Duke boys was forceful and principled, laying the responsibility for this fiasco squarely at the feet of a “rogue prosecutor.” This was admirable, but incomplete. While Crystal Gail Mangum indeed cuts a pathetic figure, what she has done has implications beyond the Durham community and the lives of the accused. She has demonstrated that being black, a stripper, a substance abuser and single mother with a criminal record are no impediments to bringing outrageous charges of rape against even the most privileged in our society. That society has demonstrated that it will not hesitate to let the mob rule in pursuit of those charges, with total disregard for even the most compelling evidence of innocence.
While I find the tone of his point contemptible, Mr. Moran is certainly correct in pointing out that when a lynch mob gathers, only a very small percentage of the population has a prayer of escape. Every year such mobs gather, and many men – husbands, fathers, sons – do not.

Categories: Politics, Women's Issues, Feminism, Men's Health   English (US)
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