Oh, this is just great (not really)...just when I think that I can get away from the ongoing case of the alleged assault at Duke University, I hear this:
It seems that there is an ongoing campaign afoot by defenders of the alleged rapists and the Duke men's lacrosse team (or probably just racist crackerhead wingnuts fresh off the droppings of Little Green Footballs or Free Republic or whatever neo-fascist KKK-like meeting place they sqirm from) to invade progressive blogs (especially blogs hosted by women of color or feminists) to shut down and completely distort discussion of the case; and to continually slander and villify the working-class Black accuser as a nut, a slut, a liar, and a anti-White racist who apparantly made her story up just to spite the good, clean, hardworking White players.
In an earlier post here I pointed out their little trolling campaign..but now it has gotten so much worse that entire threads have been taken over by these fools.
Case in point: Samhita of the blog Feministing posted
an update on the Duke case, featuring the pathetic sight of the Duke
women's lacrosse team deciding to show "solidarity" for their "fallen brothers" by wearing sweatbands marked "INNOCENT" for their playoff game against Northwestern University this past week. (They ended up losing anyway, FWIW.) For background, here's Samhita's full entry:
As if yesterday's post on the asshats that were dressed like Duke lacrosse players at Beta Breakers chanting "No means yes," was not enough, this just troubles me so much further. The women's lacrosse team of Duke is planning on wearing bracelets saying, "innocent" in their game against Northwestern. The complex system of issues this brings up for me is profound, but when it comes down to it, all I can think is how stupid of them. This is indeed the type of solidarity that often makes our culture intolerable for me.
via AP (via MSNBC.com).
In a show of solidarity with the Duke University men’s lacrosse team, members of the school’s women’s team plan to wear sweatbands with the word “Innocent” written on them.
The university canceled the rest of the season for the highly ranked men’s team because of a woman’s complaint she was raped in March at a team party where she had been hired to strip.
The women’s plan to wear sweatbands on their arms or legs was reported Wednesday by The Herald-Sun of Durham. The teams plays Northwestern in the NCAA semifinals Friday.
The university has no objection to this, but you know damn well if they were wearing armbands reading, "Kill those Nazi rapists," they would. But really, this is not only an example of how (white in this case) women are complicit in their own oppression but also involved in the silencing and vicitimization of women of color. I mean they are making themselves look so stupid to stand in solidarity with accused rapists. Have gender relations in upper middle class white world shifted such a small bit? I mean really?
Would David Usher tell us this is an example of feminism "taking over" Duke? My head spins in horror.
Almost immediately, the thread was invaded by the usual brand of rightie-Whitey trollsters brandishing the usual array of smears at the accuser, her attorneys, and anyone not believing in the total innocence of the men and the total evilness of the accuser and all who defend her right to redress.
Here's a nice sample of some of their commentary:
"Has anyone been convicted yet? No? Then stop whining.
What they're doing isn't baout issues of race or gender, but that they want to support their fellow teammates if they believe they're innocent. What they're doing is no worse than what you're doing saying "It's only because she's black and a woman! Because she's so oppressed, she'd never lie!" and wearing an armband saying 'guilty'...." -- Zaij
[...]
"You dont feel the least bit ashamed for using this case to perpetuate your anti-white agenda? They probably don't think much off the womens colour, but nice of you to make white people sound like a bunch of racists,all white team hey???? It is surprising to hear it said about women.
You dont think it is the press cashing in on the race story and you lapping it up?"
-- hujo
[...]
"I hope if I were ever accused of a crime, and the evidence was overwhelmingly in my favor, that my friends would stand in solidarity with me. Do you put your political agenda above your friends? If so, I guess we define “friendship” differently (also “accused”).
Did it occur to you that the women’s team might think the accused ARE innocent? Did it occur to you that the accused might BE innocent?
BTW, you forgot to trash the parents of the accused for standing behind their children in direct opposition to your politics. They are obviously racist and sexist."
-- noname
[...]
"Here's what I think: This thing smells fishier than OJ saying "I sure hope they find the REAL KILLER". And yet, SO many African Americans came to OJ's side, likely in response for past injustices, that a clear perversion of justice was carried out. I don't know if these Duke guys are guilty or not - I just know that when a rational human being hears allegations of phony 911 calls, an alledged victim who had sex with three men the night of the alledged sexual assault, etc, a rational person would say "I'm not sure WHAT to believe", not "Well she's a woman so we MUST believe her".
If you didn't like people rushing to murderous OJ's defense because of their political views, you shouldn't like someone doing the same just because it's a woman this time. Next time, that sort of mentality could work against women (as it did in 1994)." -- Felix
Notice how the last poster attempts to link O.J. Simpson's acquital of murder and the suppossed Black support of his "murderous ways" (as well as the apparant political backlash of the 1994 elections which brought the Republican Right to power)
to the present Duke assault case as merely a political case of White-baiting. It would probably not be kind to remind this fool that Simpson was ultimately found liable for the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown in the civil trial that followed and was forced to pay hefty damages to the Goldman and Brown families; and that even today he is still vilified as a murderer who got away. But, why let the truth get in the way of a lynching???
To continue
[...]
"You should spend more time teaching women not to make false claims of rape. If these strippers were told, this whole duke locrasse rape thing wouldn't have happened."
"Seems like if you even stray a little from feminist rhetoric, you're labeled biased against feminist and the miuse of "mysogyny" is thrown all over the place!
Seems that feminist don't like women who are capable of thinking for themselves." -- me again
[...]
"this thread is such a perfect example of feminisms uslessness, three men acused of raping one women means feminists are allowed to be as intolorant of white men as the kkk is of blacks.
I wonder what the women that run this site think of all this hatred and intolorance that they have inspired by taking a side and a race in this duke case? Mission acomplished?
I wonder if they feel any sort of guilt for inspiring young women to hate?
I wonder if samhita will fully explian herself, but that would show integraty and mean admiting to a mistake so i doubt it.
How can anyone say feminism is not a hate group after reading this thread?" -- hujo
[...]
"You want the truth?
The truth is, these guys had a party with some strippers. They got the strippers as a joke. The strippers were offended. The strippers decided to exact revenge on the party by claiming they were raped.
That's what happened." -- the truth
But the crowning jewel on this piling on of excrement has to be this post, which also happened to be posted by the same person to other blogs in a deliberate smear campaign:
The women of the Duke lacrosse are courageous for taking a stand for the lacrosse boys who didn't desearve to be treated so poorly by the public. The stripper lied and is a pathetic excuse for a human being.
Duke Lacrosse Rape Accuser Mentioned No Condoms Were Used
It seems the defense keeps finding more to support their side of things, with each new piece of information they get. Now from that stack of 1,300 papers, they have discovered that the stripper accuser mentioned no condoms were used. No condoms and…
The stripper’s body was completely void of any sign of a sexual assault (except for signs of recent vaginal and anal from her boyfriend). The alleged crime scene was completely devoid of DNA.
It is impossible that a crime scene with three drunk men in a small enclosed room with a fighting and clawing woman being orally, virginally, and anally penetrated not leave any DNA evidence of urine, blood, vaginal fluid, sweat, fecal matter, scat smears, saliva, tears, or semen... especially if condoms were used. How would they take off the condoms during all this chaos without spilling, smearing, or touching the content inside or outside of the condom?
When investigators questioned the stripper after DNA tests on the semen found inside her vagina and rectum didn’t match any of the Duke players, the stripper admitted to having had sex with at least three men around the time of the alleged rape. The stripper named her boyfriend and two men who drove her to Duke.
When questioned, the “drivers” said they would drop her off at several places, including hotel rooms.
It appears that the stripper has sex with men for rides to her strip shows…Nasty!
-- "Betty Friedan"
I should confess to something here...that last post was also attempted to be posted to this blog in response to my
original entry on the Duke rape case....but I rejected it then due to my stated policy of not allowing trolls to overwhelm my comments section. I am only reposting it here to show the depths to which they will go to smear and distort this woman. BTW...the policy remains in effect right now, so any trolls reading this should save themselves the aggravation of throwing their crap here; because you won't make it past the moderation stage.
Needless to say, this episode shows once again not only the deep seated racism, sexism, classism, and (anti)sexual chauvinism that still infects this country so deeply, but also the basic fact of how women of color are still denied basic their basic humanity to speak out, to be believed. You would think that after Rodney King that such crap would have gone out of style...but as is most things reactionary in this Bush era, you just can't keep bigotry and hate down for so long.
Both
Nubian at Women of Color Blog and
browninfempower at Blac(k)ademic have posted powerful essays at their respective blogs on this issue; this 'Dog stands in full and unabashed solidarity with them and Samhita for their efforts.
Memo to all you racist, sexist, sex-hating fuckheads who print this pile of crap: You may think you've won this, but you are sorely mistaken; we are better, bigger, and badder than you, and we're not going away...ever. Deal with it!!!
(Tip of the hat as well to
Vegankid for motivating me to reset this story...and for some unique ideas for controlling the trolls, too. He has a great reset as well
here.
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