It's amazing how real life sometimes patterns itself after fiction. Tom Clancy writes a novel that features a terrorist flying a jet airliner into the Capitol Building (Debt of Honor) and a couple of years later real-life terrorists attempt the same thing, succeeding in New York and at the Pentagon but failing to strike the Capitol.
A couple of years ago Tom Wolfe wrote a novel (I Am Charlotte Simmons) about privileged athletes and sexual licentiousness at DuPont U., a thinly disguised stand-in for Duke, and a month ago that very campus was set awhirl by allegations of group rape of a black stripper by Duke lacrosse players.
Actually the accounts of the goings-on at Duke take us back to another Wolfe book of years ago called Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers. Wolfe describes in this early work how militant blacks exploit white liberal guilt essentially to extort money, favor, and status from them. A similar type of pressure may be what we're seeing happening at Duke. We might call it the Cynthia McKinney-Tawana Brawley strategy.
Anyway, Peter Bradley at The American Thinker offers up a nice summation of the apparent travesty enmeshing the Duke University lacrosse team. He notes that a month after the original allegations there is still no evidence that the woman's claims to have been assaulted and raped have any merit, but that hasn't stop the true believers among the politically correct from all but castrating the Duke athletes.
He points out that there's been a long and ignominious history of gullible, guilt-ridden whites happy to swallow almost any accusation of racist, sexist, elitist impropriety. For example:
During the 40th anniversary of the integration at Ole Miss, two black students found racial insults scrawled on the doors of their dorm rooms: "F**g Nigger" and "F**g Hoe [sic] Nigger." Similar messages turned up in other locations across the campus. Students organized a "Say No to Racism" march, and race activists demanded "programs and procedures" to instill racial sensitivity. A spate of national news coverage commented on how little Ole Miss had changed in 40 years.When the perpetrators were found to be black students, Ole Miss chancellor Robert Khayat made it clear there would be no criminal charges, even though the students caused over $600 worth of damage and harmed race relations at the school.
When a hate crime was reported last year at Trinity International University near Chicago there was a flood of indignation on campus. Students at the mostly white school wore yellow shirts to symbolize solidarity with blacks who had received a stream of hate mail. Jesse Jackson spoke on campus. Over 40 students were evacuated to an unnamed hotel for their own safety and security was beefed up at the college. Counselors were made available and students held prayer vigils.
But when the culprit turned out to be Alicia Hardin, a black student who wanted to transfer out of Trinity to be closer to her friends, the story-and the campus outrage-faded away. University president Greg Waybright even announced that he felt "a sense of relief" because the incident was "resolved." He warned that the hoax should not reflect on any particular ethnic group.
Also last year, students at Wooster College in Ohio awoke to find swastikas and racist messages written on dorm walls. Angry protestors raged against "typical white males" until the writers of the slurs turned out to be a group of lefty students led by a black studies major.
A similar incident happened at the University of Louisville in 2004. Students endured racial graffiti and racist fliers passed out on cars. Protesters held rallies and handed a list of demands to U of L president Jim Ramsey. The incident quietly faded away when black students admitted to passing out the fliers as a "prank."
And then, of course, there was the infamous Tawana Brawley episode which so disgraced, or should have disgraced, were he capable of it, Al Sharpton. It seems there is no shortage of white naivete and gullibility nor is there a lack of black cynicism and willingness to exploit the dread whites have of being labelled racist.
We're not saying that no crime was committed in the Duke affair. We don't know, but we do know that there is supposed to be a presumption of innocence, and the reaction of a lot of people in this incident, from the Duke administration to many in the Durham community, suggests that that presumption has, for whatever reason, in this instance been waived.
Indeed, there's no doubt that the lacrosse players indulged in disgraceful conduct, but disgraceful conduct is not necessarily criminal conduct. There's a lot of doubt that they actually did what their accuser claims they did and not much reason yet to indict them of having committed anything that rises to the level of a crime. Bradley's essay explains why.