Thanks for the thoughtful response Kim. You have convinced us all.

Thanks Anon for the correction. You pointed out that there are plenty of blacks with trust funds. To which I say, how many white boys could have been the addressee of such an epithet as this "Tell your daddy thanks for the cotton shirt." Probably none. Unless some WOP-Anglo-Polock Mongrel Presbyterian with a hard-on in one hand a gamestick in another spilled Red-Bull on his buddy's Old Navy up there in Exeter. Those WASPS up there in those prep schools are some hard muther-fuckers, sneaking dip tin cans and smoking fags into the witching hour on daddy's dime.

But I agree with you in spirit that we should just move on and live colorblind. You know, forget about how this country was built on the broken backs of blacks. You know forget how racism infests the corridors of Tier-1 college dorm rooms and just how oppressed white people are.

Allow me to utilize my James Baldwin Latin tongue, tho not attributable to him, from a catholic cresecent city white boy five years out of stanford and limping alumnus of the school of hard knocks:

Allez vous fair soucer la bite gigantesque d'Adam Smith et ne me venez point vous plaindre du gout; voila c'est du sang epais des voleurs sauvages qui vous apprivoisent a tenir au vide de votre peau."

trans: roughly, "Go suck Adam Smith's giant cock and don't complain to me about how it tastes; that's the thick blood of the savage criminals training you to hold on to the void of your skin."

I’ve lived in Trinity Park. I’ve taught at Duke. I thought this article was well researched and a fair assessment of the problem. I would only add that this incident could have happened on just about any campus.

A culture of debauchery, misogyny, racism, and privilege can be found at any major school, private or public. It isn't just athletes. In this country, one fifth of all students study less than 5 hours a week. Two thirds report getting drunk at least once a week. That is what college life is about today. Parents seem to be oblivious to the circus-like atmosphere of sex and alcohol on American campuses. And reform seems unlikely.

I went through the letters below and found two that I liked a lot:

It's Not Just a Jock-School Issue - Katherine

This sort of loutish behavior occurs in more-highly-ranked academic institutions than Duke, and is perpetrated by athletes who lack the prestige of Duke programs. My Ivy League institution was woefully inadequate when it came to winning games, but the team members were still pretty good at generating sexual assaults….lots more good stuff here

Salient points – MTM

As a former Duke grad student, I think the deepest problems are with the administration:

1. Athletes do get a pass--on everything. As a T.A., I saw star basketball players get away with academic murder to keep them eligible.

2. There's a real unwillingness to pay more than lip service to investigating and prosecuting sex crimes through the university's judicial system--which is what students are urged to use…more good material follows

I don't know about some parts of this article for example:

"The paragraph describing the Duke lacrosse team at a bar. This was the Georgetown lacrosse team. Upon arriving in Durham and finding out that Duke had forfeited the game, they decided to toast the Duke team at a local bar. The young woman was not kicked off the bar softball team and is, by the way, an idiot."

Or atleast that's what I found out when I talked to someone from the area. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

A new development in this story: following the release of a horrid, horrid email, a player has been suspended, the coach has "resigned," the team's season is cancelled, and the president finally seems to be getting it.

http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/425520.html

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/425493.html

A snippet of from the story about an email sent by this lacrosse team player following the incident:

--

It was sent at 1:58 a.m. on March 14, about a half hour after the woman, an employee of an escort service, told police she had been raped at the party where she had been hired to perform.

"Tomorrow night, after tonights show, ive decided to have some strippers over," the message read. "However there will be no nudity. i plan on killing bitches as soon as the walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off."

The message goes on to read that he would find the act sexually gratifying.

--

I admit I am enjoying all of the Duke folks in denial and defending Duke when everyday the news accounts are getting nasty and ugly. Payback is sweet.....

In an alternate universe where justice reigns over innuendo hearsay and speculation, the victim's big brother would have organized the entire town of Durham to lynch these poor rich white boy racist rapists. Hail if that noise be up to me - that I were they, and ain't we not for real trippin' if citizens like us ain't up to the task, those bullshit white boys would be hangin' from the Durham poplars like pendulous bells for whom that shit is already tolled. Best recognize. Best thank that brown hippy Christ you got lawyers. Best remember we got the guns. And we got the numbers. Only some chumps call this a race war under the mantle of white civilization - this is a class war. We got the guns. We got the numbers too.

Yo rich white boy, you want yo magnums of champagne at your confabulation un-matriculation pomp and pimp and circumstance? Yo rich white boy, want yo Godfather DVD library to shore up that mongrel cock of yours about what it means to be hard? How about a .357 magnum slug right up the gullet, like Don Cicco, futher-muckers. That's right. That's hate. Your corpses should be like wind chimes in the Durham spring breeze. Fuck you and your tuition and your property taxes. Rich white boyz need to put their mouths where their money is on the nickel-plated cock of Sweet Lady Justice's strap-on colorblind dealer of muzzle velocity. Kill yourselves, rich white boys.