Few non-fiction stories deliver an ending that drips with such deliciously sweet justice as the Duke lacrosse case. It offers a combination of elements I might have only read in paperback had it not happened for real, in slow motion, in the national press, for my gratifying consumption. As with any vulgar tale it contains a cast of odd characters guided by misplaced self interest, hubris and conceit. An outline of key roles in this real life act from my personal playbill:
>>The tragically flawed protagonist who becomes the moral object of the story when he completely abandons every ethical mandate, all that he has sworn to honor, everything he's worked hard and long to build, all for a quick fix of power. An incomplete commentary on the baser imperatives of the human condition, Mike Nifong sums up my view of career politicians in general, except that he's devoid of the carefully honed skills necessary to successfully break the rules, game the system and exploit travesty for personal gain. Go fall on your sword, Mr. Nifong, you have our attention now.
>>The chattering intellectual elites in academia and the press, wrapping themselves yet again in their self-appointed mantle as shining defenders of the underclass du jour against an organized and actively conspiring majority.......and ultimately exposed as the self-serving, exploitive backstage agitators that they are. Their sole purpose is to burnish their cred to each other with shrill commentary on an assumed narrative that neatly defines their meticulously cultivated view of the world. Just as biased and prejudging as those they rush to condemn, the facts matter not as there is no use for pragmatism among their ranks. Now that the truth has stripped away their tidy assumptions to reveal a completely different scene for the audience to behold the resulting silence from their gallery is deafening, and one can only conclude that they have no use for introspection or contrition either. Do not expect any wise words from them now. Having followed Mr Nifong over the precipice, they should all be publicly flogged with the same contempt they so carelessly pitched at the Duke lacrosse players, whites, males, white males, jocks, the sports industrial complex, the current universal order, and every other perceived oppressor, ghoul, monster and straw man that emerges from under their beds at night.
>>The exotic dancer, a pitiable and sorry figure that as it turns out was exploited not by privileged white jocks worked up into a despicable frenzy of male bonding, but instead by those who would neatly paint such a predictable picture for their own selfish aims regardless of the terrible consequences. Of all the antagonists in this story she is the easiest to pardon if only because she was a very troubled young lady who was used by others to bludgeon the accused for their own ends. True, her false statements gave Nifong and his intellectual accomplices the initial premise they were looking for to spin this tragic farce. But it would have been immediately dismissed by judicious district attorney and promptly forgotten as just another unfounded accusation were it not for those with the power, the motives, and a complete lack of concern for the real circumstances of justice to blow this up into the national mockery of our system that it became.
>>The Duke students who, as stand-ins for the unsuspecting average Joe that gets rear-ended at the intersection of power and politics, were simply going about the everyday business of living their lives as young men without any considered intention to harm or oppress another human being. Those with ulterior aims will castigate them simply for their privilege if for nothing else. And they will do it from a distance and from a position of quite some privelege of their own. But privilege is not a crime any more than the lack of it is. The Duke students are to a great degree a product of the circumstances they were born into much as you or I or the sorry, tragic stripper that changed their lives forever. And in the end, were it not for that priviledge and the expensive counsel it can buy true justice might have never been attained. And so the oddest moral of this story is that privlege prevailed over a form of conceited class prejudice that cares less about seeking truth to further blind justice than it does about asserting its own preordained account of things.
>>Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Had Shakepeare authored this play these two clowns would have flitted across the stage clad in the bells and bright colors of the jester. An insatiable appetite for attention feeds the power, the position, the money, and not to mention the privilege, that these parasites of racial correctness have tirelessly accrued to themselves with little appreciable gains for those they purport to defend. Had either of them a scintilla of honor they would now come back to admit they were wrong on this one, or rather wrong once again in Mr. Sharpton's case. Such honesty would only bolster their voices in the cause of racial justice when the next national race story gets told, assuming that achieving racial justice is their true aim. A lack of such honesty now only confirms what is already known by anyone who believes that these two self-promoters simply hijack racial divisions for personal gain. And it further tarnishes their credibility among those they should be working hardest to convince.
>>The audience. This story could, in the end, only confirm one of a competing set of assumptions about how things are supposed to work, and if I sound smug its because I am. All who thought it best to wait patiently offstage while our system of justice finished its work, albeit haltingly, to uncover the truth can take satisfaction that the system ultimately worked and the real facts of the case were eventually uncovered. Pass the popcorn please.
-Ico
