| Potbangers, revisited | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 6 2010, 10:21 AM (610 Views) | |
| Quasimodo | Mar 6 2010, 10:21 AM Post #1 |
|
(a refresher, from the DRC and Ekstrand suits) : 251. On the evening of March 24, English professor Faulkner Fox sent an email to numerous persons associated with Duke, calling for a protest at the lacrosse game. Other Duke professors attended the protest as well. Fox later told the media: "The students need to realize they live in a community, and people are going to talk back if they do something, or potentially do something, that is disrespectful to women." Protesters holding "DON'T BE A FAN OF RAPISTS" signs arrived at the lacrosse field prior to the scheduled Georgetown game. The game, as noted above, was canceled by Brodhead shortly before it was scheduled to begin. 252. Professor Fox, in addition to calling for the "DON'T BE A FAN OF RAPISTS" protest at the Georgetown game, also helped organize a "candlelight vigil" at 610 North Buchanan on the night of March 25. On the night of Saturday, March 25, over 250 people—including Duke faculty members, staff, and students—gathered outside the house at 610 North Buchanan 253. Gathered in front of the house, the crowd chanted "shame," and "you can't run, you can't hide," and other hostile slogans. Members of the crowd told local media that every attendee of the March 13 party should be expelled from the university. 254. The same night, the protesters moved from 610 North Buchanan to a nearby duplex located at 1105 and 1103 Urban Avenue. This house, owned by Duke University, was occupied by lacrosse team members William Wolcott, K.J. Sauer, and Erik Henkelman. The protestors surrounded the front of the house and banged on the windows, screaming "Shame!" Wolcott called Larry Moneta, Duke's Vice President for Student Affairs, and asked for help. Moneta said there was nothing he could do. 55. At approximately 6:10 a.m. the next morning, Sunday, March 26, Duke personnel and students, gathered outside the lacrosse team's residences and engaged in a so-called "pot-banging" protest. They banged on pots and pans, trash bins, water jugs, and empty beer cans. The crowd wielded signs reading "CASTRATE!!", "You can't rape and run," and "It's Sunday morning, time to confess." Other signs stated: "Real men don't protect rapists," "Don't rape and run," "Give Them Equal Measure" and "Get a Conscience, Not a Lawyer." Sam Hummel, Duke University's Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, shouted into a megaphone: "The community consequences for this action, I guarantee, will range far beyond the legal consequences you will face." The crowd chanted: "Who's protecting rapists? They're protecting rapists! So who are the rapists? They must be the rapists!" The protest lasted at least two and a half hours. 475. The menacing slogans were compounded by “speakers” who addressed the crowd and the home of three of the lacrosse team captains through a bull horn. The Potbanger- Speakers variously asserted that a rape occurred and demanded a confession. The statements of Potbanger-Speakers, many of whom were University Professors, Administrators, and students, included, for example: (1 ) “We are making this kind of noise because we are standing in solidarity with the women who have gone through this horrible atrocity.” (2 ) “Wake up! Wake up! The Sun is up! It’s Sunday morning! Time to confess!” (3 ) “We want the members of the Duke Lacrosse team to come clean.” (4 ) “They haven’t been convicted, but 30-something kids are remaining silent.” 476. Several Durham Police and Duke Police Officers were standing a short distance away, watching the mob in front of 610 N. Buchanan, and did nothing to intervene. One officer appeared to be taking pictures. [All that NOISE in TRINITY PARK, disturbing the community early on a quiet Sunday morning--but no noise citations were issued, nobody asked the drums to stop beating or the pots to stop banging, or the megaphones to be turned off? I guess students espousing other causes may similarly indulge then in other protests in Trinity Park, using the same equipment and making the same kind of noise, with speakers using megaphones?] |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Mar 6 2010, 10:24 AM Post #2 |
|
256. Upon information and belief, Hummel played an instrumental role in the protests, helping to organize them by, among other things: sending one or more emails calling for a protest, creating and distributing a slanted and harassing "fact sheet," attending the protest and directing multiple signs (including "Get a Conscience, Not a Lawyer") at the lacrosse house and at television cameras, shouting into a megaphone during the protest, and setting up a speaker system for the protest. Hummel also posted harassing and inflammatory messages on the "Durham Responds" Yahoo Group. In one message, Hummel implored readers to attend an event "geared toward educating the larger Duke community about the sexual assault that occurred two weeks ago in a house just off East Campus that is rented by Duke students." In another message, Hummel referenced a protest in which he had recently participated, and then discussed "planning an on-going response to the March 13th sexual assault that addresses root cause issues such as racism, sexism, misogyny, alcohol culture, paternalism, economic exploitation, athlete impunity, and Duke's (lack of) accountability to the community." On information and belief, Hummel was also involved in creating and/or distributing the WANTED posters, described below. 257. . . Likewise, Duke professor Tim Tyson publicly admitted in a National Public Radio interview to participating in the protests, as well as the "candlelight vigil." Duke professor Kim Curtis also participated in protests targeting the lacrosse players 259. In the face of these menacing protests, the players reasonably feared for their physical safety. Players Evans, Zash, Flannery, Wolcott, Sauer, and Henkelman were driven from their homes. On or around March 28, Player Bo Carrington was accosted and surrounded on campus [What happened to Duke's "no harassment" policy?] by a jostling crowd of students who shouted "Tell the police what you know! Why are you protecting these rapists?" On Sunday, March 26, when pressed by defense counsel to provide more security or at least excused absences from class for the players, Moneta refused, stating "well, frankly, I don't believe them." |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Mar 6 2010, 10:31 AM Post #3 |
|
(from KC's Durham-in-Wonderland) Monday, September 22, 2008 Group Members Discover Civil Liberties Wahneema Lubiano. (snip) Yet this self-described “post-structuralist teacher-critic leftist”—who views part of her job as “engaging in politics (including strategizing)”—has found a new crusade to occupy her time. In 2006, a former Brooklyn College(!) student named Syed Fahad Hashmi was arrested in Britain on charges of providing material assistance to Al Qaeda. At the time of his arrest, Hashmi sought to travel to Pakistan, carrying with such items as a large amount of cash, night vision goggles, and sundry military apparel. Hashmi is currently awaiting trial in the United States, which is holding him without bail. Lubiano’s not the only faculty member going to the barricades for Hashmi. A petition from a group calling itself “Educators for Civil Liberties” has attracted the signatures of more than 500 professors. While denying that their words take a position on Hashmi’s guilt, the “Educators” maintain that the U.S. government has denied the civil liberties of this citizen of Pakistani descent, who the petition curiously describes as a “Muslim American.” (I guess that the new standards of political correctness dictate calling me not an Irish-American but an “Agnostic-American.”) (snip) More remarkably, Lubiano isn’t the only Group member to have suddenly discovered civil liberties. In fact, the list of “Educators for Civil Liberties” includes no fewer than ten members of the Group of 88. It’s not clear what has caused Lubiano’s sudden interest in due process. I would have asked her directly, but Lubiano previously had instructed me not to e-mail her. Joining Lubiano as “Educators” members are Group of 88’er Rom Coles (Political Science)—perhaps best known in the case as husband of the infamous Kim Curtis—the Literature Department’s Michael Hardt and Walter Mignolo; English professor Priscilla Wald; and Caroline Light of Women’s Studies. Likewise, Group of 88 historians Pete (“floating phallus”) Sigal, Irene Silverblatt, Jocelyn Olcott, and Claudia Koonz all have apparently become born-again civil libertarians. (snip) A naïve person might wonder if the Lubiano cohort learned from the Mike Nifong case. Having not only remained silent during the highest-profile modern case of prosecutorial misconduct but joined in an effort that even some signatories (privately) conceded mirrored Nifong’s viewpoint, Lubiano, Koonz, and the other eight Group members might have decided to stand up for due process rights whenever and wherever possible. A less charitable—if more realistic—person might suppose that, as in April 2006, the civil libertarianism of Lubiano & Friends begins and ends with the limits of their race/class/gender worldview. [Parts of this post originally appeared, in a modified form, at Cliopatria.] |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Mar 6 2010, 10:47 AM Post #4 |
|
[Civil liberties in America, circa 2006 . . .] http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html (From LIESTOPPERS, December 2006) Facts, History, and Presumptions: A Retrospective (snip) . . . being falsely charged with a brutal crime isn’t all that bad if you are white and have money to pay for a defense. The lacrosse players haven’t been proven innocent by facts and concrete evidence, they’ve only been shown to be innocent because of their white privilege. Facts simply don’t matter because those making judgments based on those facts must be doing so because of white privilege. As Duke professor Karla Holloway wrote, "The appropriate presumption of innocence that follows the players, however the legal case is determined, is neither the critical social indicator of the event, nor the final measure of its cultural facts." While the presumption of innocence is unimportant, the presumption of racism is paramount. Holloway continued, “innocence and guilt have been assessed through a metric of race and gender. White innocence means black guilt. Men's innocence means women's guilt." This privilege and race language was echoed in the early days after the allegations. On March 28th, Duke Senior Tiana Mack told the Duke Chronicle, "This is a matter of white privilege..When I read what was going on, it made me think about Jim Crow.... If these three culprits get away with it, it will prove to me that Duke does not honor the black woman's body." On March 30th sophomore Kristin High told WRAL, "We understand that the legal system is that you are innocent until proven guilty…But people are nervous and afraid that these people are going to get away with what they did because of a wealthy privilege, or male privilege, or a white privilege." The Group of 88 ad contained a quote stating: “I can’t help but think about the different attention given to what has happened from what it would have been if the guys had been not just black but participating in a different sport, like football, something that’s not so upscale” (snip) The “what if the lacrosse players were black” counterfactual seems absurd now that the facts of the investigation are known. [As well as the example of Michael Jermaine Burch.] (snip) When the lacrosse case is over and the overwhelming evidence shows the innocence of the accused, confirming what available evidence shows already, what will current Duke students like Tiana Mack and Kristin High and others who gave similar quotes archived on the internet think? These students include James Zou--who urged his fellow students not to vote against Nifong; Shadee Malaklou—who appears to be thankful for Nifong bringing the charges even if rape did not happen; and most recently, Dan Baum—who lectured his fellow students and Durham citizens in a letter to the Herald-Sun on December 3rd that “It's time we started talking about the lacrosse case in a different, more important way…[because]…there's so little faith in our legal system that whatever happens in court, a substantial portion of our community will leave angry..[and]…a verdict isn’t going to solve anything.” Similar to what Holloway wrote, Baum seemingly argues that there is something more important than the innocence of the accused, and the tragedy of the false charges brought against them. What Baum and the rest of these commentators forget is that facts and history can be ignored or even forgotten, but they cannot be erased. Inappropriate presumptions can be tragic, but they will be ultimately exposed. When the tragedy of the lacrosse case is known by all, their words will stand available for all to see. Those of us blogging on this case can’t reverse the tragedy for the three accused players and their families. We can, and have, and will continue to make sure this history and these facts are remembered and remain part of the retrospective of Duke and Durham, hopefully for the better in the years to come. (That's why we blog. . .) |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic » |







7:14 PM Jul 10