INC NEWS - Privilege Meets Protest at Duke University (Edge of Sports)

[John Schelp]

Privilege Meets Protest at Duke University
By Kevin Prosen and Dave Zirin
Edge of Sports, 13 April 2006

In Durham North Carolina, a scant three miles separate
Duke from historically black North Carolina Central
University (NCCU), but the divide more resembles a
canyon. The seismic shock of the recent and now
notorious rape charges levied against the Duke
Lacrosse
team has upturned this complex cultural cocktail of a
city, occupied by an aloof and narcissistic private
school catering mainly to wealthy students rarely seen
outside the gothic cloister of their campus. Tuition
at
Duke is $43,000 per year, more than four times the
cost
of NCCU and about $3,000 more than the median joint
family income in Durham.

The case in question is by now widely known; Lacrosse
players at an elite campus hired two young African-
American women as exotic dancers, one a student at
NCCU.  While details aren't yet clear, the woman has
injuries consistent with being raped and sodomized.
Lawyers for the team have gone on a remorseless
counter-offensive. A new well-heeled booster club
called the Committee for Fairness to Duke Families
hired the ultimate authority in smearing women who
"cry
rape": Bill Clinton's former attorney Bob Bennett.
Bennett has already begun, saying, "A lot of innocent
young people and the families are being hurt, and
unfortunately this situation is being abused by people
with separate agendas. It is grossly unfair, and cool
heads must prevail."

Bennett and his team have also released personal
details about the assault victim. This gets the
spotlight off the confirmed squalidness of the case.
911 calls report racist epithets being screamed by men
in the party house. Ryan McFayden, a sophomore on the
Lacrosse squad, sent an e-mail dated the night of the
party describing in morbid detail his fantasy of
torturing the exotic dancers, saying, "I plan on
killing the bitches as soon as they walk in and
proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my
Duke issue spandex."  The same McFayden had the unholy
arrogance to show up at the Take Back the Night Rally
on campus and while sexual assault survivors gathered
in a circle, he stood on the sidelines giving
interviews with the Chronicle, Duke's odious student
paper.

The racial climate on campus is utterly appalling and
this isn't isolated in the world of Lacrosse. Others
on
campus have noted parties with vile themes, like the
"Viva Mexico" bash where students handed out "Green
Cards" for invitations.   Danielle Terrazas Williams,
a
grad student at Duke, told the Independent, a local
weekly "This [the rape] is not a different experience
for us [African-Americans] here at Duke University. We
go to class with racist classmates, we go to gym with
people who are racists. That's not special for us."
Commenting on the persistent sexual harassment faced
by
black women at Duke, Williams continued, "[it's] as if
they're re-enacting a rap video or something. As if
we're there to be their video ho..."

Many students, at least the ones that speak from the
conservative Chronicle's pulpit, don't seem to grasp
what the fuss is about.  A screed by Duke junior
Stephen Miller is typical: "...we are Durham's main
attraction. Every time we set foot off-campus, we're
actually leaving the best thing the city has to offer-
and in turn, entering some of the most violent
neighborhoods in the state. Duke is Durham's
lifeblood,
plain and simple. So if we want to stay on campus or
to
limit our interaction with Durham...then we have
nothing to apologize for. If anything, the insistence
on interacting with Durham locals is condescending to
the town residents. Durham isn't a petting zoo. The
residents won't get lonely or irritable if we don't
play with them."  Some have used the term "lynch mob"
to describe the reaction from the Durham community to
the alleged rape, a response that has included vigils,
noisy early morning protests, and sit-ins on campus by
outraged and offended students of both Duke and NCCU.
These hardly resemble the actual lynch mobs that
lurked
in the Carolina landscape not so long ago.

Clearly a little historical perspective is in order.
Durham was a hub of civil rights activism in the
South,
led by poor blacks in the city as well as students at
North Carolina College (renamed North Carolina Central
University in 1969).  When the sit-ins of 1960 were
sparked in nearby Greensboro, Durham was one of the
first cities in the country to join the movement.
Civil rights leaders like Howard Fuller and Ann
Atwater
figure prominently in the city's history.

Duke did not admit its first black student until 1961,
two years after the first desegregated school in
Durham
and seven years after Brown v. Board of Education.  In
1967 the Afro-American Society at Duke occupied the
Allen Administration Building after negotiations with
the school administration to improve the climate for
blacks on campus led nowhere.  Their statement
explained: "We seized the building because we have
been
negotiating with Duke administration and faculty
concerning different issues that affect black students
for 2 1/2 years and we have no meaningful results. We
have exhausted the so-called 'proper' channels."
Progressive white students played a positive role,
holding off the police in defense of the black
students
inside. The Allen Building occupation led directly to
the founding of Malcolm X Liberation University, which
sought to provide, in the words of its founders, "a
real alternative for black people seeking liberation
from the misconception of an institutionalized racist
education."  Professors were recruited largely from
NCCU, as well as from the non-academic activist milieu
in town. In an ultimate rejection of Duke's aloof
stance toward the city, they proclaimed "The
accreditation for the university will be granted by
the
Black community."

The student press seemed a bit more swept up back
then.
Reading old issues of the Chronicle feels more like
finding a yellowed copy of Ramparts than the servile
stuff served up campus papers these days.  The central
focus of the paper seemed to be Black Power, the anti-
war movement, "vanguard student action," and
legalizing
marijuana.  An editorial on the '69 Allen Building
occupation read: "The police were nothing more than
robots; they performed an inhuman act at the bidding
of
the administration.  The administration took this
action against students who are trying to create a
more
human place for themselves amidst the great machinery
of this university...The administration failed Duke's
black students, and these students then took a
justified action to correct this failure and handled
themselves with dignity."

The campus press may have changed but the fights of
the
sixties are hardly over.  Activists on both campuses
that were separate just a few weeks ago have begun to
unite against the town's class divide and racist
bigotry.  African-American students at Duke occupied
the Allen building again two weeks ago.  A large and
inspiring vigil was held at the NCCU campus last week,
and activists have continued to put pressure on.  The
solidarity built between activists on both campuses
and
in the city is breaking down the walls meant to keep
them apart. The Lacrosse legal team has called on the
woman to drop all charges "so the community can heal".
Durham will only heal if its proud tradition can be
recalled in the name of justice.


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