Ahh, the Duke lacrosse case. Even after four years, I'm surprised to read such a well-written, lucid reflection on it.
I arrived at Duke as a freshman in the fall of 2006, to a community still reeling from the haranguing given it by the national media and attempting rather desperately to rebuild frayed relations with Durham. The faculty and student body had already plunged head first into almost three years of masochistic self-analysis (seriously, pick up any issue of The Chronicle from 2006 to spring, 2009), and it seemed everyone had developed a siege mentality, which I soon adopted.
This piece captures incredibly well the ambivalence most of us there felt in the aftermath: anger at a media that was virtually salivating to indict these students and, by extension, the entire campus and recognition (in my case spurred by that uniquely southern brand of white, liberal guilt) that the accusations, however untrue, revealed serious problems with our campus culture that we needed to address.
That's the tragedy of this entire situation, I think (aside from public flagellation of three innocent boys). In one-upping itself with tales of alleged atrocities committed by these privileged, white young men, the media created a lurid, national spectacle of something that could have been treated soberly, harmed relatively few people and provided true fodder for productive self-examination.
Of course, now that basketball season has started, lacrosse is the farthest thing from our minds.
On The End of the 00s: So Lax, by Katie Bakes
Ahh, the Duke lacrosse case. Even after four years, I'm surprised to read such a well-written, lucid reflection on it.
I arrived at Duke as a freshman in the fall of 2006, to a community still reeling from the haranguing given it by the national media and attempting rather desperately to rebuild frayed relations with Durham. The faculty and student body had already plunged head first into almost three years of masochistic self-analysis (seriously, pick up any issue of The Chronicle from 2006 to spring, 2009), and it seemed everyone had developed a siege mentality, which I soon adopted.
This piece captures incredibly well the ambivalence most of us there felt in the aftermath: anger at a media that was virtually salivating to indict these students and, by extension, the entire campus and recognition (in my case spurred by that uniquely southern brand of white, liberal guilt) that the accusations, however untrue, revealed serious problems with our campus culture that we needed to address.
That's the tragedy of this entire situation, I think (aside from public flagellation of three innocent boys). In one-upping itself with tales of alleged atrocities committed by these privileged, white young men, the media created a lurid, national spectacle of something that could have been treated soberly, harmed relatively few people and provided true fodder for productive self-examination.
Of course, now that basketball season has started, lacrosse is the farthest thing from our minds.