Time for Another Gratuitous Media Circus

Since the Scott Pedersen trial ended, our poor media has been latching onto arrogant celebrities in an attempt to avoid the job they are supposed to be doing as the watchdog over unscrupulous elected public officials. Oddly enough, having been a member of the media, I understand their avoidance given the fact that our current political state seems to be overrun with elected officials who are interested in enhancing their own wallets rather than serving the public interest. However, it was only a matter of time before the next big wife murdering, school shooting, mysterious disappearance, inappropriate behavior case would open the floodgates for a bonafide media circus resulting in months of boring news analysis, at least a half dozen book deals, and endless diatribes from Nancy Grace and Gloria Allred.

Welcome to Duke University, one of the most elitist schools in the United States where old money and a family pedigree can get you in way quicker than stellar grades and an uber-high SAT score. A few weeks ago, the snotty-assed lacrosse team held a wild party, paid a couple of strippers to come in and perform for them, then a few hours later, rape allegations surfaced. You could almost see media whores salivating at this one, because early on it had the makings for a perfect circus: power, privilege, money, sex, and the two strippers were black, so the race thing was an added bonus.

We are a good, solid month into this story, and everything is going along as predicted: the lacrosse players who were identified by the young woman hired top-notch, expensive legal representation, the other stripper who didn’t get raped has already put herself front and center into the mess in an attempt to cash in, the lefties on the Duke University campus have gone ape shit holding “solidarity vigils” and “non-denominational group prayers”, and the upper crust spin doctors are looking for any reason to prove that a rape never took place in order to save Duke’s long-standing reputation as a haven for future Wall Street robber barons.

The circus went into a full three-ring affair this past week when Jesse Jackson got involved, and Rush Limbaugh referred to the rape victim as a “ho”. I think we should make these two opportunists fight to the death Thunderdome style for our viewing pleasure, because that’s one reality TV program I would actually watch.

If you take away all of the hoopla and freakshow that the media is trying to make of this situation, this scenario is unsettling for one main reason: the elite of this country are born internalizing the separation of themselves from those they consider “lower class”, and based on that separation, believe they have the right to do whatever they want. When the media interviewed students at the other, more reasonably priced, campus near Duke University, they were resolved that even if a rape trial did happen and there was evidence against these preppy fuck lacrosse players, they would get off with no more than a slap on the wrist, if that. Although this may be a defeatist attitude, I understand where it’s coming from.

We live in a country where money and influence can buy you anything, even the presidency, so it’s no surprise that a bunch of Little Lord Fauntleroys got horny watching some sisters get their groove on, and decided to fuck them whether consent was granted or not. Apparently, even though lacrosse looks like kind of a faggy sport, it is the shiznit with the blue bloods (i.e. the earth-bound version of rowing, if you will). Ivy League lacrosse players are the big guys on campus and the desire of every white bred, future high society, Prozac addicted wife, so they’ve got tons of women offering themselves as potential pussy all of the time. When no one in your life places a barometer of what is acceptable behavior and what is deviant, and then you top that off with money, bad shit is going to happen, and it will likely happen to a woman, and that woman will likely be poor, and to this particular set, poor people don’t matter.

There are so many established, respectable people already rushing to the defense of these snot-nosed bastards talking about what fine students they are, and what good, upstanding young men they are with bright futures ahead of them. I wouldn’t be surprised if their socialite mothers were more upset at the fact their boys stuck their dicks in a black woman, rather than being pissed about the idea that they raised men with the mindset that they have the right over everything they want any time they want it.

What is bound to get lost in all of the media hype is the fact that there is a woman who was raped. She is 27 years old, and a single mother of two trying to make money stripping in order to support her kids and pay her way through college. She is an honor student who went to work one night to do a simple two-hour job and was violently beaten and forced to the ground in a bathroom while three guys did whatever they wanted to her.

Now she has to go home every night wondering whether she and her kids will be safe from the media or members of the general public who want to call her a whore and vindicate their beloved lacrosse players. She will have to try and come up with a way to explain to her kids what happened to her without scaring the shit out of them, and spend the next year or so wondering if someone is trustworthy or just wants to sell her out to make a quick buck.

There were several college students and community members holding prayer vigils after this story broke claiming that those prayers were for the victim. Although I’m well aware that a lot of it was politically motivated and staged for the media, I can only hope that at least a few of those prayers were sincere, because mine were.