:dubious:
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
Yet in this thread when noted that most gang-rapes are committed by white males, (a statistical data point that IMO is of equal value as the scarcity of whites raping blacks in THIS case, at the time of the posting) it was promptly hand-waved away. It seems to me in a situation where statistical information is tossed around willy-nilly, one can look at which statistical data is valued and which isn’t and ask why.
Well I’m not so sure, I’m pretty sure; and I got that way via a close reading of the text. I’ll reproduce it completely, thereby including the parts that you left out; an inadvertant omission, was it not? Surely you did not mean to muddy the waters by just citing the parts that help your case.
There are two references to Tawana. We can dismiss the second out of hand. You do see that, don’t you? That leaves the first. To my knowledge, the (sort of) anonymous complainant has only told the investigators she was raped. She is not “still” claiming anything, unlike Tawana Bradley, who does in fact still maintain that she was raped. Likewise, the unnamed (but you can Google it) accuser in the Duke LAX case is not “garnering admiring audiences for it.” To the contrary, her reputation is taking quite a beating as more and more evidence comes out to put her story in a decidedly dubious light.
You are, of corse, free to deconstruct the text any way you choose. Deconstructionism being a school of thought championed by Stanley Fish, noted Duke University professor. Have fun!
What? The accuser is “still” maintaining that she is raped in spite of evidence that suggests she may be wrong about who she is accusing. She is “still” maintaining her story in spite of the negative way this case is being tried in the media. Your interpretation is nice and all, but in light of the two other times Huerta evoked Tawana’s name in place of the Duke accuser, I’d say it’s far from rock solid.
Which–if your interpretation is accurate, which it isn’t if only because Tawana has been villified more than Charles Manson by blacks and whites alike and is not “garnering admiring audiences” for anything at all–makes the whole mentioning of Tawana rather much like a complete and total non sequiter. So even he’s not calling the Duke accuser Tawana, an intelligent person has to wonder so the fuck what if Tawana is still getting positive attention? What does that have to do with Nifong? Does anyone seriously think that he is basing his actions off of what happened in the TB case? A white man serving a racially split city as District Attorney is really taking his lessons from Tawana Brawley, as if the handling of that case is the gold standard for these types of things?
Bwhahahaha!
The grasping at straws here is to laugh. Yes, I could really see him thinking that his actions will profit him because “look at the success of the TB trial!” You may think the man is a devious SOB, but he can’t be that much of a moron.
My question to you, Contra, is why are you trying so hard to defend an idiot? After 15 pages of his crap, it should be patently clear to you by now that the guy is stupid as rocks, but apparently you think well enough of him to come rationalizing away more of his bullshit. Frankly, I’m amazed. This whole trainwreck of a nightmare thread is amazing.
- For the record, I was referring (in each instance) to the real Tawana Brawley. I recently had occasion to look her up and posted in this thread a couple of articles showing that at least rather recently Tawana [Brawley] has been giving fiery speeches to admiring crowds in which she claimed, inter alia, that “What happened to me happens to hundreds of thousands of women. I’m not the first in Dutchess County, and I won’t be the last.” The article from which I pulled that quote (from an admittedly-loony-left source, but the point is that the loony-left is a highly vocal force when the race-hustlers start banging pots and pans) said that “Tawana is about whether America has the will to put white men in jail for raping Black women.”
These are the people to whom I referred as the “Tawana-[brawlery]-told-the-truth” crowd and, not shockingly, they and others of like ilk are, mutatis mutandis, making like claims and positing like unpunished white-on-black sexualized violence, in this case. I much earlier posted a quote by J. Jackson (from this case) to the effect that “this is the latest in a sad history of sexualized violence against African American women by white men.”
In this context, it was far from irrelevant to point out that facts on the ground, fortunately, show that things are far from being that dire for black women, and that for whatever complex concatenation of reasons, the Tawana-Brawley-booster idiot who questioned America’s willingness to punish implicitly-rampant white on black rape, and J. Jackson, were way off the mark. To the extent that their belief in such a non-existent plage of white rapist run amok behavior shapes their sympathy to Tawana Brawley, or to this latest accuser, it is not out of place to point out that in both cases, the rarity of the demographic pattern was one of many factors that (I think everyone seems now to be conceding) make both the respective Brawley case and this current case seem fishy.
Dude, who are you trying to con? This is what your wrote:
Bad reading comprehension. The “still” is a reference to Tawana Brawley.
Wrong, and here’s the proof.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/487.html
No, she may not have admiring audiences in the circles in which you or I travel. But so what? Again, she went from being an inconsequential teenager to the darling of a small-but-distinct circle of black activists. It might not be your career goal or mine, but it is apparently giving her enough emotional and financial graitification that she’s carrying forward, actively, with the hoax many years later.
Similarly, this current woman, and Nifong, need not enjoy plaudits from the bien pensant SDMB or urban sophisticates who populate it in order for us to posit that there is some payoff for them in maintaining these claims without regard to their truth. (one “payoff” is the negative reinforcement that if either had to back down now, having drunk the Kool Aid, it would be humiliating in the extreme). Nifong brought dubious claims. Nifong won a primary in a racially split, racially polarized district in which many voters may or may not have had the level of education you do, but in which many felt very strongly that prosecuting and convicting the players was a Good Thing, full stop. Similarly, this woman’s been promised a college scholarship and has been rallied around by the “civil rights” leaders who have flocked to Durham. Are other people questioning her (and Nifong)? Sure, but neither of them had any way of knowing just how much apparently-exculpatory evidence would come out of the woodwork.
I’m not.
TB is a pretty good model for how white authorities “should” (a Machiavellian “should”) handle an allegation that whites have victimized blacks, in the face of angry demands and threats by race baiters – sure it is. No one paid much of a price for the TB hoax (except Steve Pagones and the other accuseds). The race huslters were placated and bought off and did not riot in the streets. Pandering is an ugly game, but Nifong has done it effectively.
You have an obvious and deep need to believe that this woman was, or could have been, or must have been, raped, and that if she wasn’t, that still doesn’t mean there aren’t roving bands of rapist frat boys looking to continue the slavemaster persecution of black girls. Fortunately, this is not the case, and this scenario is confined to your own sordid rape fantasy projections. You have not forgiven me for my citation of, and your utter inability to refute, some facts and patterns that led to skepticism in this case, skepticism that is not waning, one suspects, but quite the opposite, in the mind of any posters here. Yes, I am “stupid as rocks” and full of “bullshit.” Every additional frustration-fueled epithet you hurl weakens, not strengthens, your case (whatever that may be, it’s hard to see much of coherence behind the blind name-calling at this point).
You learned nothing from Tawana Brawley. I suspect you’ll learn nothing from this case. Some people, you just can’t reach. So drop it. And, as an extra special favor to you, I will pretend we never saw those DOJ statistics, which absolutely sent you over the batshit deep end in disappointing your preconceptions. So let us stipulate that millions of white Nazi slavemaster frat boys (of whom I am one; no, I am the ringleader) rape billions of innocent black girls in America EVERY DAY.
In some sick way, I think that actually would make you feel happier.
Hey, like who’d go around positing unpunished - or unreported - white on black sexualised violence? Surely no-one hereabouts? (If the facts don’t support your case, assume the existence of some that do.) :dubious:
You’re a moron. The same people who used Tawana-Brawley-told-the-truth, and the same arguments that were trotted out in support of TB, are the ones in evidence in the Duke case.
Do you not understand the concept of allusion? “Tawana-told-the-truth” became (partly through the offices of Spike Lee) a shorthand allusion to black rage at the supposedly-un-vindicated victimization of blacks by whites. When the Texans shouted “Remember the Alamo,” did you think that meant they were going to head back to San Antonio to refight that same battle, or was their collective memory of and rallying around the cause of the Alamo defenders an animating force, a shibbeloth (do you know what that means), that shaped and inspired their going forward behavior and attitudes?
This isn’t that hard.
But the thing is, my friend, you haven’t pointed out “facts on the ground”. You’ve just thrown the name around here and there, as if what went on in the TB case is the same thing that happened in this one. You could pretend as if you’ve been trying so fervently all along to shed some pertinent background on this issue, but we ain’t buying it.
And if you want to educate the SDMB readership on all these relevant “facts on the ground”, by all means do so. But don’t insult our intelligence by acting as if your use of Tawana conveys a cogent argument in relation to this case, because it hasn’t. The only thing apparent is that you’ve used TB to attribute specious motives to Nifong and the accuser. If the woman really was raped and Nifong really believes that she was, then attacking their motives like that is wrong on so many levels.
Hmmm. That’s real nice. An article published in 1997 is supposedly proof that TB is “still” garnering admiring audiences.
An article written almost 10 fucking years ago.
Well, you done tole me, Huerta. You’re a credit to the SDMB. Whatever was I thinking?
If she was really raped, then all our other handicapping goes out the window and it is unfortunate that the past did not accurately predict the future.
Nifong is an elected official. If you don’t routinely question the motives of elected officials, God bless you, because you’re going to have a sad series of disappointments in life. Nifong is a white elected official who faced a loud and dissatisfied outcry about an (alleged) rape of a black woman by white men. Nifong had good reason to fear that if he were not perceived as taking strong action against the “hate crime,” he (or the city) would be made to pay – at the polls, in unfavorable publicity in the national spotlight, in the form of civil unrest. At this point in American history, blacks still tend to vote more as a racial bloc (if you insist, the cites can readily be provided), and to vote on perceived issues of racial justice, to a greater extent than do whites, especially when goaded on by charismatic “civil rights leaders” telling them they are being persecuted. There’s not an equal and offsetting pressure to act to please “white leadership” because the political dynamic isn’t the same. All of these factors were at play in the Duke case, and were also, in large part, in play in TB. It’s far from arbitrary or irrelvant to suggest that the pressures that bore upon (and clouded the judgment of) the similarly-situated Dutchess Co. prosecutors in TB also bore upon, and conceivably misled, Nifong.
Similarly: TB and this accuser both lived in a world in which black women may feel (and have some socioeconomic justification in feeling) comparatively powerless or not at the top of the socioeconomic heap. Neither of these women seems to have had too successful a life going on. But there’s one exception to this perceived powerlessness – as TB proved – even a young, poor black woman can muster some (initial, from the white establishment, and lasting, from the hardcore black activist) sympathy, attention, prominence, power, credibility by making an allegation of rape, and the more sordid and extraordinary the allegation, the better. Now, sure, there are ways in which it is self-defeating and probably ultimately-humiliating to make such an allegation if it is unfounded and bound to be found out – but people don’t always think rationally, and in the extremities of teenage angst at not wanting to be punished (Tawana Brawley), or (perhaps) of drunken anger at rude fratboys, the temptation to Go Nuclear with a rape allegation apparently was irrestistable to T. Brawley. Again, why it is per se irrelevant to suggest that possibly this accuser went through some of the same thought processes, or could have succumbed to the nuclear option temptation, in ways that were analogous to the thought processes of Tawana B.?
Find me a more recent cite that shows she has since retracted (I don’t know if she has), and I will withdraw the reference (although as to the point I was making, it would still be the case that she persisted in a palpable lie for ten years, with the enthusiastic support of more than a few activists).
Questioning is a heck of a lot different than ascribing certain motives to someone when, which has been said ad nauseum, you aren’t privy to the same evidence Nifong has seen.
And what about the other half of his constituency? You know, the one consisting of the privileged and affluent white people who identify with the accused? You know, the ones who actually have the most power due to their socioeconomic advantage? Since when did rich white people become chop liver?
If your views and others are any indication, his actions are ruffling a lot of feathers and the white outcry is pretty loud. Yet we’re supposed to believe that none of that concerns him. He’s only worried about the black folks and their potential for “civil unrest”. Color me unconvinced that Nifong’s actions can be reduced in such an oversimplified manner.
And regarding your pitiful display of “proof”: please do your own homework. If you make an assertion, back it the fuck up with something valid.
They were both situations where a dubious charges of gang rape were filed. That’s very similar.
I put much more credence in all other evidence presented so far. None of my current opinion has anything to do with DOJ statistics.
I disagree completely. I would very much make the connection between the Duke case and the Tawana Brawley case no matter what the races of the principles in the former. Their race means nothing to me.
But you, apparently, cannot see anything but race.
Yes, so why didn’t you just call it a strawman instead of using it as evidence of a racial fixation? I don’t need an answer, as your posts have made it obvious. You cannot see anything in the world outside of race. For you, there is nothing but race. What a sad little life you must lead.
Your credentials in statistics do not impress me. If you had ever shown any ability to be objective or reasonable in this thread instead of shouting from the rafters that everybody was fixated on race, I might pay you more heed. But as it is, your opinion is, IMO, completely worthless.
At least now I understand why you accused everyone who disagreed with you of being fixated on race. You were projecting. Because you are so fixated on race, you assume that everyone else is.
I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but then neither do you.
Do you mean I am supposed to find additional proof that Tawana hasn’t retracted since 1997? It hardly matters, as I noted, given that she kept up the lie (with vocal support from activists) at least from 1989 to 1997, which is significant in itself. I’ve seen nothing (and I’ve looked) indicating that she retracted since then. We know for pretty certain that Sharpton, for instance (one of the “Tawana-told-the-truth” crowd) has not to this date apologized, because it became a minor point of discussion in his Presidential bid.
Have you seen the prosecution’s evidence? How can you say the charge is dubious if you don’t even know what medical evidence we’re working with here?
It’s both.
There is no white political/social equivalent to Jesse Jackson. There were no whites marching through town banging pots and pans and demanding justice for the lax players. In contemporary American politics, whites vote as a solid racial bloc less often than do blacks, and are less likely (as the majority often is) to take the defensive posture of voting mainly on racial issues (or perceived racial issues). There is comparatively little recent history of whites rioting in response to alleged racial injustices, and somewhat more evidence of blacks doing so. Nifong was aware, as every waking American is, of these baseline facts.
Finally, ask yourself this question. Nifong staged a press conference/pep rally on the accuser’s campus, promising justice for her. Did he stage an analogous event at the lacrosse house, pledging that he would not rush to judgment against the white kids? He didn’t, and it is entirely reasonable, in view of what we actually know about racial politics, that he didn’t because he feared the repercussions of not addressing vocal black demands significantly more than the repercussions of any white resentment against a rush to judgment.
The lack of DNA evidence, the inconsistent timeline, the other stripper’s changing story, the malicious prosecution of an alibi witness for the defense, the circus act that the DA put on in the first couple weeks…
Okay. This is info that the defense will use to support their side. All well and good.
But I’ll repeat myself: have you seen any of the evidence from the prosecution? A simple yes or no will suffice.