The Duke Lacrosse Rape Scandal
Recent news stories concerning the alleged rape of woman [FN1] by the three Duke Lacrosse team members has sent the small town of Duhram into a frenzy. No charges have been filed, but the lacrosse team's season has been cut short by the President of the Universitiy's decision to await the fruit of further investigation.
As someone who loves the game dearly, I think this is a real shame on all accounts. Playing college lax were, tritely speaking, some of the best years of my life. It's too bad Duke Lacrosse had the feel the brunt of the pain. Not only the unduly nominal tarnishing of the school's reputation, but also the physical pain endured by 46 of the 47 team members [FN2] who received DNA samples by "swab checks".
It would only be fair to point out that rape is not new to the sport of lacrosse. I am not proud to say it, but I can remember several occasions of being raped on the lacrosse field by top ranked SSU Lacrosse Team during my tenure at UC Davis. To my eternal torment, I can remember a particular game thinking, "Wow, J-Dub you just got raped big time in front of all these people and your defender now has an assist thanks to his fast-break efforts. "
And even off the field, rape accusations are not new to men's lacrosse. For those of you who the man J-Dub, I'm sure you have head my tirade about my buddy Magnus who was charged of raping a girl [FN3] at a lacrosse party and later acquitted at trial after a year's bitter torment of preparing testimony against her sorry ass. (This event, incidentally, led to J-Dub rap debut.)
From the reports, here's how I see it: it's too bad this is about the only publicity lacrosse gets. It really is a kick ass sport.
Further, the woman who consensually agreed to entertain the lacrosse team with her services was a female escort. To make matters worse, she was an escort without a body-guard. Isn't there some kind of unwritten rule against this, abrogating the written rule is is meant to prevent? I think it's completely outrageous that a girl can claim rape, and immediately everyone points the sour end of guilt at the man. It is exactly this sort of jumping to conclusions that ultimately led to the Davis Police breaking down Magnus' door the next morning and throwing him into a cop car, slamming the door on his toe and breaking it, injuring our star player for the rest of the season.
Further still, least shocking to all else but most to me is that the annual tuition for Duke is $43,000. The annual tuition for Phnom Penh University in Cambodia is $500. Doing some quick math, over 320+ students can have B.A.'s in Cambodia for the price of a single Duke graduate. Wow... $43,000 a year - the authorities should be investigating Duke University on similar rape allegations.
~J-Dub
[FN1] The woman who alleges the misconduct is black, and I refuse to make this a racial issue. It very well may be, considering Duke is in the South, but for the record: racism is not cool. I will leave it at that.
[FN2] There is one black man on the Duke Lacrosse Team and he did not have to undergo swabbing because the woman says the perps were white.
[FN3] By all accounts, this girl was crazy. She looked like a man. She played women's rugby. She stalked Magnus for about 1 month. And was easier to berate in a rap than Dick Cheney or the Catholic Church.
As someone who loves the game dearly, I think this is a real shame on all accounts. Playing college lax were, tritely speaking, some of the best years of my life. It's too bad Duke Lacrosse had the feel the brunt of the pain. Not only the unduly nominal tarnishing of the school's reputation, but also the physical pain endured by 46 of the 47 team members [FN2] who received DNA samples by "swab checks".
It would only be fair to point out that rape is not new to the sport of lacrosse. I am not proud to say it, but I can remember several occasions of being raped on the lacrosse field by top ranked SSU Lacrosse Team during my tenure at UC Davis. To my eternal torment, I can remember a particular game thinking, "Wow, J-Dub you just got raped big time in front of all these people and your defender now has an assist thanks to his fast-break efforts. "
And even off the field, rape accusations are not new to men's lacrosse. For those of you who the man J-Dub, I'm sure you have head my tirade about my buddy Magnus who was charged of raping a girl [FN3] at a lacrosse party and later acquitted at trial after a year's bitter torment of preparing testimony against her sorry ass. (This event, incidentally, led to J-Dub rap debut.)
From the reports, here's how I see it: it's too bad this is about the only publicity lacrosse gets. It really is a kick ass sport.
Further, the woman who consensually agreed to entertain the lacrosse team with her services was a female escort. To make matters worse, she was an escort without a body-guard. Isn't there some kind of unwritten rule against this, abrogating the written rule is is meant to prevent? I think it's completely outrageous that a girl can claim rape, and immediately everyone points the sour end of guilt at the man. It is exactly this sort of jumping to conclusions that ultimately led to the Davis Police breaking down Magnus' door the next morning and throwing him into a cop car, slamming the door on his toe and breaking it, injuring our star player for the rest of the season.
Further still, least shocking to all else but most to me is that the annual tuition for Duke is $43,000. The annual tuition for Phnom Penh University in Cambodia is $500. Doing some quick math, over 320+ students can have B.A.'s in Cambodia for the price of a single Duke graduate. Wow... $43,000 a year - the authorities should be investigating Duke University on similar rape allegations.
~J-Dub
[FN1] The woman who alleges the misconduct is black, and I refuse to make this a racial issue. It very well may be, considering Duke is in the South, but for the record: racism is not cool. I will leave it at that.
[FN2] There is one black man on the Duke Lacrosse Team and he did not have to undergo swabbing because the woman says the perps were white.
[FN3] By all accounts, this girl was crazy. She looked like a man. She played women's rugby. She stalked Magnus for about 1 month. And was easier to berate in a rap than Dick Cheney or the Catholic Church.
posted by Cali Thais at
4:46 AM
10 Comments:
I love lacrosse so much it makes me want to do naked cart wheels in my living room, but i dont see how, just because a guy is a lacrosse player, automatically can not also be a racist. What if he did do it? Have you been in the situation where you couldnt make someone stop and have been physically hurt by someone in an attempt to? no? well, it sucks, worse than a broken toe, which I also have .
anonymous, I can't tell if you are a guy or a girl (I think the latter) nor if you are trying to be funny or make some inquisitive statement. But my point was not to make the post about racism- maybe Duke is a bastion of opression and all the lacrosse players are bigots, who knows? When did I ever imply the connection between playing lacrosse and not being racist?
To your second question, yes, I have been physically demoralized trying to get Bear to stop talking about his bodiy functions after he blew up the bathroom. My nose was on fire for about 5 min. I'm sorry about your toe.
~J-dub
i meant to say rapist. but racism sucks too. pardon me...
anonymous, Pardon ME !
Am I taking crazy pills? Are you saying that lacrosse player are rapists now? I hope you are speaking about actions expressly on the field....
~ J-Dub
Good use of footnotes, JDub.
Thanks Shark - totally ripped you off....
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/more/04/09/duke.lacrosse.investigation.ap/index.html
It definately is a race issue. Bottom line, if she were white and they players black members of say, the Duke basketball team, not only would the media not be making an issue of it, they'd be portraying her as a head case who "probably wanted it". There's racism involved here to be sure, and it lies in the assumption by our liberal elites that white people are the propagators of all evil that exists.
wow, the PUMA has completely lost it.
Is the Puma joking. Does he really think blacks get off easier. Does he know how black men raping white women goes over in the south. I think you miss the whole importance of this case. It has nothing to do with Lacrosse, it is about white privalage and black poverty, had it been at a community college it would have been a very different story. The only right thing to say is if they did it they should be punished, and if they didn't do it then I feel terrible for them. For you to assume they are innocent shows your own bias, this was not a squeaky clean club, they had been warned they needed to start acting proper and chose not to. They made their own record which has given people room to feel that they are the kind of club that may have done something like this, and that is only there fault, had they had a perfectly clean record maybe their coach would have stayed on to try to defend the clubs name, but that name had long since been tarnished.
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