We learned nothing from the lax case except that human nature never changes. In 1931 nine black men were charged in Scottsboro with rape by two prostitutes who wanted to avoid getting into trouble with the law. Society believed them, because the stereotypes (virtuous white women, rapacious poor black men) convinced them that the accusations had to be true.
Fast forward 75 years, and change the colors. Now it was “white privileged jocksâ€Â; and merely to describe their alleged offense was enough for society to be convinced of their guilt.
In fact the accused didn’t fit the stereotype. The father of one was raised by a black family, making his putative grandparents black. The father of another was born poor, but when he made his fortune he spent a portion of it building medical clinics in Africa. The scions of such homes don’t usually turn into racially insensitive brutes. (But no matter; in some cases, as with Scottsboro, society demands a guilty verdict, “because some cases are too important for innocence to be allowed as a defenseâ€Â.)
We all need to remember that humans are too individually unique ever to be meshed into any “groupâ€Â; and that stereotypes asphyxiate both truth and justice. And that we too are too frail to permit ourselves the temptation of watching a lynch mob--because we just might succomb and join in.
R.B.Parrish
(author, “The Duke Lacrosse Case: A Documentary History and Analysis of the Modern Scottsboroâ€Â)
On The End of the 00s: So Lax, by Katie Bakes
We learned nothing from the lax case except that human nature never changes. In 1931 nine black men were charged in Scottsboro with rape by two prostitutes who wanted to avoid getting into trouble with the law. Society believed them, because the stereotypes (virtuous white women, rapacious poor black men) convinced them that the accusations had to be true.
Fast forward 75 years, and change the colors. Now it was “white privileged jocksâ€Â; and merely to describe their alleged offense was enough for society to be convinced of their guilt.
In fact the accused didn’t fit the stereotype. The father of one was raised by a black family, making his putative grandparents black. The father of another was born poor, but when he made his fortune he spent a portion of it building medical clinics in Africa. The scions of such homes don’t usually turn into racially insensitive brutes. (But no matter; in some cases, as with Scottsboro, society demands a guilty verdict, “because some cases are too important for innocence to be allowed as a defenseâ€Â.)
We all need to remember that humans are too individually unique ever to be meshed into any “groupâ€Â; and that stereotypes asphyxiate both truth and justice. And that we too are too frail to permit ourselves the temptation of watching a lynch mob--because we just might succomb and join in.
R.B.Parrish
(author, “The Duke Lacrosse Case: A Documentary History and Analysis of the Modern Scottsboroâ€Â)