Monday, April 16, 2007

Resentment

While there's certainly the case to be made that the system was flawed in that there was a shitty and possibly corrupt prosecutor, otherwise Matt's take on the metaissues surrounding the Duke rape case is correct. One can sympathize with their plight without drawing the absurd conclusion that it says anything about our justice system's treatment of relatively privileged white males.

The are a few other elements, however, and one is that apparently there are lots and lots of men who are deathly afraid of being accused of rape. I'm not entirely sure why this is, though I have some theories.

In any case, I tried to stay away from writing about it because as I said at the time I think when what are ultimately local news stories get blown up into huge national controversies there's a tremendous disservice done to both the accused and the accuser. In addition, it's generally wise to avoid passing public judgment (either way) on the accused when they're otherwise basically private figures. All of us - bloggers, Nancy Grace, Drudge, the news industry generally - should think a bit more carefully about when it's okay to shine a massive spotlight on people. I don't have a clear idea of where the lines are, but increasingly I try to avoid drawing attention to stories which really should just be local stories when they involve people who are otherwise not public figures in any way.