208. FAKE MEAT, ANYONE?

From the Archives

(April 2006) Strippers, prostitutes, porn stars and escorts are the sacrificial lambs we feed to the Patriarchy.

So says Biting Beaver at bitingbeaver.blogspot.com.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee Guerilla Women are promoting a flaming red burka—it’s all the rage for Spring ’06 in the red states.

But the biggest topic on wimmin’s blogs today is the alleged gang rape of a black stripper at a predominantly white Duke University lacrosse team party.

The New York Times says this case has placed new strains on Duke’s ties with the city of Durham.

(ya think?)

A spokesperson for the accused says that these boys are “from wonderful families.”

(Note that this spokesperson chooses to focus on the boys’ families though and not on the actual players, fifteen of whom have been arrested in Durham since their arrival at Duke.)

Without giving away my anonymity, I will say that I spent many years at The Gothic Wonderland and remember the lacrosse house in question being toilet-papered more than once by campus women’s groups as a warning to women that someone was sexually assaulted there.

I can also say with certaintly that the lacrosse team (and many Dukies) earned their reputation for celebrating their obnoxiousness (and that this reputation extends beyond the Cameron Crazies).

Example: Cops who arrest Dukies for drunken and disorderly conduct are often taunted with such barbs as Ooo. I bet you had to complete a whole high-school degree to get YOUR job . . .

This allegation is being made in a gritty town that is 50 percent black, a town in which 15 percent of the residents live below the poverty line.

The gap between the Haves and the Have Nots grows wider daily in Durham and across the globe, and Durham is already a place where a whole lot of the working poor resent the drunken, privileged eighteen-year-olds racing around in their luxury vehicles.

The demographics of the university population where the lacrosse team is enrolled and the university population where the stripper is enrolled could not be more different, and these differences are definitely not lost on the Durhamites.

Frankly, I admire any DA who would even pursue a case of this proportion, given the money and pressure that are no doubt breathing down his back right now.

(And I hope he has a damn good case too because, otherwise, his ass is now officially grass.)

So yeah I can just imagine what the town/gown relationship is like right about now.

A perfect storm.