Our Collective Voice: Anonymous said...
An anonymous response to NCCU's "Campus Echo" Responds to Exoneration of Hoax Victims With Call to Arms merits more attention than it would find in the comments section.
Anonymous said...
I am a NCCU student and I absolutely do not agree with Mr. Burnette's article. I feel his frustrations are misplaced and are not expressed constructively. There is and has been a frustration with the unfairness in America's justice system of not just Americans of African descent but other minorities, poor Americans of European descent, and decent people period. This is a fact. A fact that has been true long before the "Duke 3".
This frustration was further exacerbated by the overwhelming outrage by a very vocal and well funded segment of America. A segment that has never raised a voiced concerning the many injustices many Americans have been dealing with for years. And since the case has been dropped this same segment has not uttered a peep about the unfairness others in America are continuing to face.
Mr. Burnette's call to "get whitey" was wrong and destructive. I feel that Mr. Burnette should have rather gave voice to the afore mentioned frustrations many Americans feel.
In doing so I believe that the good people who were outraged over the Duke case will be even more outraged to find out that such cases have and still occur to many American not only in Durham but all over America everyday. Such good people will not only seek justice for three Americans but for all Americans.
12 comments:
I have been outraged by many other cases. And I don't care what color the person is. I don't care how much money they have either. These Duke families make way more than I make. How much they make didn't matter to me. What mattered is that they were getting framed.
I find it ironic that this person was frustrated that a group of people that normally don't raise their voices over this issues did over this case. But the group of people that normally raise their voices over these issues were silent. This was a perfect opportunity for all of us to get together and get something done. But race and class envy sadly got in the way for some.
this post is pure garbage by another apparently racist nccu student (true, not as repellant as Solomon's but just as racist).
Before I had ever heard of Mike Nifong, I personally have worked for many years (and spent thousands of my own money) over the years to get public funding of DNA retesting in routine practice, to advance the guidelines of actual innocence and to support open records in many different jurisdictions.
To the ignorant NCCU student who posted this (and to the guilty white LS who reposted it)
MOTE-EYE-LOG
EOS
So where’s the outrage on behalf of Jerry Miller who was exonerated today after having spent 25 years in prison for a rape and other charges?
Why isnt this headline news ? This guy actually served time, the lacrosse guys didnt spend a night in JAIL.
IMO I never really thought they raped her, but I know they called her a nigger either to her face, or like most racist behind her back. And on that fact alone I could care less what happens to them.
Were will all there supporters be when they get the ass kicking of a lifetime. And we all know it's coming.
My reaction to the posted response is as negative as that of the first two commenters.
It is to be fervently demanded that we all seek justice for everyone in our country, not just the three young men from Duke. I find it difficult, though, to find a rationale in the NCCU student's words for the negativity that has shocked many of us throughout the past year.
Supporting the three wrongly-accused young men does not make me a racist who has no concern for equal justice for everyone. Being white does not make me evil. In the sixties I rode a freedom bus to Mississippi to register voters--a dangerous undertaking at the time--because I found the injustices perpetrated intolerable. Joe Cheshire and his colleagues doggedly pursued justice for Alan Gell. A posting on the LieStoppers forum about a young teen unfairly imprisoned in Georgia led many of us to immediately contact those in authority demanding justice for him.
I'm afraid that the vitriol spewed by those who were eager to convict the lacrosse players and are now quite disappointed that they will not have their sacrifice has left me with a bitter taste and much less hope for the future of race relations in our country than I had a year ago.
I would globalize the future of race relations.
I would simply say that 500 years of oppression doesn't give blacks any more rights to launch death threats or assume the motives of people they don't know.
The real villian in this posting is the LS moderator.
This "NCCU student" is just a bigot. The LS moderator is a dupe for reposting this student's words as some sort of universal truth.
My husband's cousin was the white public defender in Jacksonville, FL who worked diligently in the defense of Brenton Butler who was black and was wrongly accused of shooting and killing a white woman in front of her husband at their motel. I don't know anyone in this family who would care about the color of someone's skin if they were wrongly accused or convicted of a crime. This black v. white bs has to stop. And this payback sh*t also has to go. Each of us is responsible for ourselves and not our entire race, another family member or our ancestors.
As a Dallas resident, I've seen plenty of reminders recently of how injustices can happen. And each one has made me just as outraged as the last and just as outraged as the Duke case made me. The main difference between Duke and Dallas is that we in Dallas are taking steps to try and do better. In Durham, the "rogue prosecutor" is still the D.A. and every civil rights organization in the country seems perfectly okay with that fact.
Justice should not be solely for those wealthy enough to hire the best defense. We should all be outraged at what happene in Durham because it could and does happen anywhere and a lot of people (black, white, Hispanic, whatever) don't have the resources to defend themselves as thoroughly and make sure justice is done.
"IMO I never really thought they raped her, but I know they called her a nigger either to her face, or like most racist behind her back. And on that fact alone I could care less what happens to them."
Actually, you don't know that for a fact. Even if someone from the party used that word to her face or any other such racist language, it's not been proven by anyone (or even claimed by anyone, to my knowledge) that it was one of the three who were indicted.
10:31 PM So you never thought they raped her but you thought they called her the N word? Where is your proof that any of the 3 charged ever said that to anyone? Also I don't know who your are clamoring to get a ass kicking but it show you for the low class individual you really are.
The aspect of this Nifong case that sets it apart from some others is that the charges were known to be false by the police and prosecutors. And we have known that they knew they were false. While that is certainly not unique, it is more unusual than the typical wrongly convicted person case. Furthermore, because we have been able to see so clearly that the charges were false in nearly real time (as opposed to 20 years later when new technology revealed it), the misbehavior of the police and prosecutors has seemed so much more outrageous.
I thinks its been pretty well shown that the racial name-calling was started by one of the dancers, and that none of the 3 players charged was involved in the name calling.
I am the NCCU student that responded to the post about the opinion piece Solomon Burnett wrote in our school newspaper. In my previous post there were three basic tenets I wanted to express. First and foremost I wanted to express that , like virtually every NCCU student, I strongly and steadfastly disagree with what Mr. Burnett wrote in his opinion piece. Secondly, as a result of being newly introduced to Liestoppers and seeing the tremendous support for “The Duke Three”, I wanted to express a fact that might not have been known to some. The fact that so many people all over America and especially right here in Durham get “Nifonged” everyday, yet have not a single voice to speak for them. Lastly, I wanted to express the dire need of good people to continue to be motivated and speak for those without a voice, who have been “Nifonged” for many years and are continuing to be “Nifonged” right now. There are people that are obviously innocent that are incarcerated in the Durham county jail right now, with out the ability to make bail, the protection of even mediocre legal representation, or even at least the prospects of a speedy trial which is every American’s constitutional right to have.
From the resulting comments in response to my post, I felt that the total and even basic gist of what I wanted to heartfeltly express, for whatever reason, was not obtained by those who read it. I found one common tread in the responses. Though the reason why was never expressed, I was accused of being a racist and a bigot. I must admit that I might be a tad thin skin because to some degree my feelings were hurt as a result of such outrageous accusations.
As a result of the Duke Lacrosse case, I have been in awe of the juggernaut of media publicity, of websites, and of basically the difference a few can create in support of their cause. I have spent every waking moment attempting to encourage anyone and everyone who would listen to please not let this potentially amazing opportunity to make a difference in so many lives die with this one case. One would not even have to go no further than the Durham county court house to find the next outrage. I chose not elaborate about who I am and why I am not a racist or bigot. I feel that the issue at hand is so much larger than myself and any hurt feelings I might feel. If I wake-up tomorrow and click on such a powerful tool as Liestoppers and see that one of the many other cases here in Durham has been picked up as the next outrage, the only thing that I will be is so very thankful to each and everyone of you.
To the NCCU student:
Two points only.
First, I'm an attorney who has represented many criminal defendants. As any attorney can tell you, the number of "actually innocent" defendants is quite low -- about 1 out of 100. Don't be confused by terms like "wrongfully convicted". Those terms just mean there was some technical problem with the conviction, not that the person was actually innocent. Keep in mind that when I say that 1 of 100 defendants is actually innocent, that doesn't mean that 1 of 100 in prison are actually innocent. At least 90% of the actually innocent defendants are not convicted. That means that only about 1 of 1,000 convicted defendants are actually innocent. By the way, since I notice that I've used the term over and over, I will point out that "actually innocent" is the term lawyers use. "Wrongfully convicted" does NOT mean "actually innocent".
Second, I think a lot of black people have a misperception about why this case became such a cause celebre in the white community. The outrage among whites was caused by two factors: First, within a month of the first allegation, it was crystal clear that this case was a hoax. After the DNA reports were released on April 10th, 2006, there was no justification for continuing to pretend that the alleged crime occurred. The second and more important cause of white outrage was that Duke University -- administration, faculty, many students -- stabbed the lacrosse players in the backs. To put it in perspective, imagine how you and other blacks would've reacted if in response to Imus' remarks, Rutgers University officials and faculty had jumped up and said, "Why, yes, they ARE nappy-headed hos and so are most other black women." If you can imagine that, you will have a sense of what caused so many whites to be outraged about this case and particularly Duke's conduct.
Btw, I wasn't going to mention this, but I did represent an "actually innocent" defendant once. She was a young black woman who the police falsely accused of selling drugs. We did eventually get the charges dropped.
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