Read other letters about this article

• Sunday, April 23, 2006 02:03 PM

  Let's have some stereotyping equality

  Stephen Rifkin,

  My original point was that people are so fixated on the accuser's background and biography, and Fox essnetially tells her that working as a stripper was "unreasonable," yet no one even talks about the background of the accused or tries to stereotype them in any way. No one talks about whether it's reasonable or not to admit people to Duke based on their lacrosse skills, or whether it's reasonable to go to Duke at all, when you can go to your state school. Your University of Maryland point seems a bit strange, since Duke isn't in Maryland, and people don't have to go to maryland to go to a public university. In whatever state you live, there is a public university system which you can use at in-state rates. The accused could have gone to Rutgers or CUNY/SUNY. No one talks about whethere it's "reasonable" to be rich at all, when there are so many poor people that the proceeds from $2.4 million mansion could have helped. No no, the rich are rich and that's their perogative, we can't attack them. But poor black single moms who decide to strip to earn a living, well, now that's just horrible and we can call them "whores."

  All of this is probably because the people who come on to Fox to chat about all this are rich and spoiled themselves. Especially these stay-at-home-moms-turned-journalists whose husbands work at investment banks. Just like the families of the accused. what i want to see is equality in ignorant stereotyping, not just one-sided stereotyping of black single mom exotic dancers with previous criminal records.

  I guess the enemy is where you find them. A friend of mine recently noted that something like 13 of the 16 high school students who are validicatorians in the Wake county school system were given BMWs by their parents. By your reasoning there's something nefarious afoot somewhere, isn't there?

  I'm not sure the point you're trying to make here. Yes, rich people have an advantage because their parents can hire them tutors, they don't have to work afterschool to support their families, whether it's a real job, or taking care of siblings informally, since rich people can hire nannies to do that, and these high school students can concentrate on their work in their vast quiet mansions rather than trying to do homewokr on the kitchen table of a 1-bedroom apartment near the highway.

  And since you didn't address my point that out of state Public unversity students pay basically what a Duke or a Princeton or Dartmouth cost - I'm guessing that's just an ugly fact you don't want to encounter. After all if you can afford it it must make you some kind of spoiled monster.

  Well, i don't think i'm a spoiled monster, even though my parents paid for my private university with no loans. I never said that all rich people are spoiled monsters, you're just trying to set up strawmen. See above about in-state tuition.

  —LeCastor
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel