Blue Collar Muse

UPDATE: The good folks over at Webloggin’ have an update on this case. After the Dukies were cleared, DA Mike Nifong was charged and tried. Looks like he’ll be disbarred and likely face additional civil suits. Not to worry, after all, isn’t Terry Moran’s point that white guys in this situation can’t really be hurt all that much. This will all blow over soon and Mike Nifong can get back to his privileged life …

After more than a year of legal wrangling in the Duke University men’s lacrosse team rape case, David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligman were more than just cleared. They were ‘declared innocent’ which is far different from being ‘found not guilty’.

You’d think people would rejoice that the system worked. You’d think they’d point to the outcome and use it to create confidence in the system. You’d think it impossible for anyone to find fault with this victory. But you’d be wrong.

Who is raining on the parade and why? No lesser luminary than ABC News Nightline co-anchor, Terry Moran, on the faulty premise that until everyone gets justice no one should get it.

His blog advises us not to “feel too sorry for the Dukies”. After all, they are white, rich and they have contacts we don’t. Thus this unfortunate episode is a minor bump in the road and will all blow over as if nothing ever happened. That’s the way life is when you’re wealthy and white. In other cases like this, minorities who don’t have the advantages the Dukies do get sent to prison instead of being feted in the media.

It seems almost painful for Terry to admit the Dukies did nothing wrong.

… perhaps the outpouring of sympathy for Reade Seligman, Collin Finnerty and David Evans is just a bit misplaced.

So as we rightly cover the vindication of these young men and focus on the genuine ordeal they have endured, let us also remember a few other things …

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.

You can read Moran’s disapproval between every line. The system is rigged so that if you’re white you get a pass. There is no rejoicing for the victory of truth. There is only distaste for the exoneration because they are horrible young men to begin with who used resources unavailable to the rest of us to clear their names.

Just when I was beginning to think the MSM was not beyond redemption, Mr. Moran stuffs his blog in his mouth.

Misrepresenting the nature of the case and focusing on unimportant details while implying that your actions are for the good of people who were truly wronged is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.

The holes in Mr. Moran’s position are numerous and huge.

He contrasts the ‘Dukies’ with people whose cases didn’t get so much MSM attention The idea is if the MSM paid as much attention to wrongly accused blacks and latinos more of them might also be exonerated. But Mr. Moran is the MSM guy, not the Dukies. If media coverage helps, why hasn’t Mr. Moran flooded the airwaves exposing these injustices? If he can’t or won’t, how does that invalidate the Dukies’ exoneration?

The Dukies, on the other hand, got lots of MSM attention. Little of it was helpful. Outside of talk radio, the MSM sided with the Dukies’ accuser. Is that what Mr. Moran wants for the innocents he champions?

Mr. Moran seems to make the argument that bad things happening to wealthy whites aren’t really bad. It’s only bad if you are a poor minority. Not only is that blatant class warfare but it is, as my teenage daughters would say, “Wrong on SO many levels!”. Perhaps Mr. Moran classifies 13 months of living in a MSM fishbowl, expending tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, the loss of jobs and careers and the ever popular mental anguish, pain and suffering as ‘not really bad’ but he’s in the minority if he does.

Finally, despite Terry Moran’s claims about MSM power, only the Dukies and their families are actually doing something to fight prosecutorial misconduct. Because they were able to resist Mike Nifong he may be disbarred. At a minimum he has been tainted by this affair. He will either be unable or hesitant to do something like this to anyone else regardless of social status thanks to the Dukies and few others.

The lesson we should take from this is that anyone can fall victim to this sort of tragedy, rich and white or poor and black. We must fight it whenever happens, not just when it happens to the poor and black. Finally, we must be truthful concerning the crime, its context and its consequences. Anything else, regardless of how high minded and proper it sounds, is a lie told by white people, trying to purge their guilt for not having done the right thing earlier. But white lies will not help black victims. As has been said elsewhere, only the truth that can set you free!

Wanting to believe the Left is honorable but having read too many stories like this one …

Blue Collar Muse

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 8:09 pm and is filed under Individual Responsibility, You'd Be Wrong. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.