Reporting The Truth
April 4, 2006 9:44 PM   Subscribe

 
I thought this would be a story about Afghanistan. I was like "Afghans play lacross, who knew"?

There are all these weird stories about race and rape/violence where someone just makes crap up on campuses. It's so odd. There was a black DPS officer who claimed to get beat up by local skinheads: ended up being fake. Then later a white girl claimed to have been raped by black guys, also fake.
posted by delmoi at 10:15 PM on April 4, 2006


Hmm, we don't find out what the results of the DNA test were.

Plus, I hate this idea that a rape accuser is automatically assumed to be telling the truth in all cases, no matter what.
posted by delmoi at 10:20 PM on April 4, 2006


Also, the story is written by Gezari, but about a school reporter.
posted by delmoi at 10:21 PM on April 4, 2006


delmoi - the DNA results are not in yet.
posted by pitchblende at 10:54 PM on April 4, 2006


The way the story is written makes me react heavily against the girl accusing the guys of rape, even just as devil's advocate. I mean 'the staffers hungered for justice, but people weren't sure the girl would get it. Already, the defense lawyers were making her story look flimsy and possibly untrue'. (deliberately misquoted). Because clearing white guys of a fake rape charge wouldn't be justice, it would be... the white patriarchy beating down a black girl!
posted by jacalata at 12:45 AM on April 5, 2006


Plus, I hate this idea that a rape accuser is automatically assumed to be telling the truth in all cases, no matter what.

First, she's not assumed to be telling the truth -- people are doubting, attacking her character, and not automatically coming to her defense. But of course, people are going to assume that what she's saying could be true, and that's reasonable.

It may bother you that there's this risk of being unjustly accused of rape, and that this will challenge your honesty and reputation regardless of what you do about it. You might be a victim of a false accusation. However, consider that women have to deal with the risk of being raped. Which is a bigger risk? Who has the worse end of it?

People can be dishonest, and there are victims in the world, men and women. You have to deal with it. I don't like the alternative, where a woman who is raped has her word automatically rejected -- her word automatically doubted seems harsh enough.
posted by adzuki at 7:19 AM on April 5, 2006


Further down the page from the Gezari piece (which by the way is an essay, not a news article) is a link to a news article that interests me personally: Lab-grown bladder is a first for science. Now they don't have to cut a bladder out of a corpse, they can grow a fresh new one in a vat! Imagine the implications: can vat-grown penises be far behind? And imagine the email spam: "Our science can make you a bigger new manhood!" (OOPS, did I just ruin a future FPP for somebody?)

As to the essay referred to in this thread, I'm inclined to doubt there are as many false rape charges as there are rapes, in Durham or anywhere else, but I'm also inclined to be even-handed about such stories until more facts are in. On this topic I'm the kind of guy you'd want on a jury if you're interested in justice: as a 'multiancestral' feminist leftist it's easy for me to sympathize with the accuser, while as a man it's easy for me to dread being falsely accused of rape, regardless of which census categories apply to anybody involved.

As to team sports, in Afghanistan they play polo -- but they don't use balls.
posted by davy at 7:23 AM on April 5, 2006


Woah, check http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0405061duke1.html">this out.
posted by delmoi at 2:34 PM on April 5, 2006


er, this
posted by delmoi at 2:35 PM on April 5, 2006


Leave it to delmoi to follow my rambling digression with an actually relevant and interesting link.
posted by davy at 7:04 PM on April 5, 2006


Which by the way is also bloody creepy (and vice versa). He planned on skinning the women? Really? And assuming he was serious, he told somebody in email from his own account? That sounds like an insanity defense in the making, or some kind of mental incompetence anyway.
posted by davy at 7:07 PM on April 5, 2006


« Older Sexual Predators on the Internet   |   The future from the past Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments