| | The two-year anniversary of Attorney General Cooper's declaration that the students wrongfully indicted by disbarred former DA Michael Nifong were, indeed, innocent was on Saturday. On Monday, The Chronicle had a few articles about the case - an interview with Professor KC Johnson, some quotes from various students, and a piece called "Unkempt and abandoned, lax house still stands."
It is the latter that proved yet again that the blinders are still on about this case. Specifically, a quote from a woman who lives in the neighborhood:
"It's an interesting place to live," said the woman, who requested
anonymity because the topic is still "taboo." "I do a lot of work with
sexual assault victims, so it's kind of an interesting symbolic place.
Sometimes you look at it and you just see it as this awful site of
gender and racial violence."
Although it can be painful to look upon the property, the woman said
she does not think the house should go. She and several other neighbors
expressed fear that if the home were torn down, valuable discussions
about Duke-Durham relations and women's place in the community would be
lost in the rubble.
Valuable discussions. About Duke-Durham relations and women's place in the community.
Here's the thing - I remember some committees coming together to have some "valuable discussions" - a committee at Duke to look at its judicial system, a committee for Durham to look at its responses in the case. And as I recall, when it looked like those "valuable discussions" might lead any kind of negative consequences for or impressions about the institutions that created them, the committees disappeared. For the University, I can understand not wanting to put students blindly in the path of a deposition - but are there not others in the university community who could have examined this critical structure? For the City, it's pretty clear at this point that the City Council has virtually no interest in taking on anything remotely challenging, instead choosing to help guarantee their re-election by striking out at the easy targets - transient college students - rather than looking at ways to, say, curb violence against those college students.
Real violence.
"Sometimes you look at it and you just see it as this awful site of
gender and racial violence."
Interesting. When I pass by I see a dumpy house whose crumbing edifice and unkempt yard remind me of the ethical rot, as yet not fully examined, that had to have taken place for the DA's office and law enforcement and the judicial system to have pursued the case the way they did.
Perhaps that's just me.
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| | Posted 4/13/2009 9:19 AM - 896 Views - 2 eProps - 2 comments
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