5A
OPINIONS/triie Qaclotte ^08t
Thursday, June 22,2006
Time to get to the
tmth in Duke
lacrosse case
Court of public opinion won’t
serve the interests of justice
We are devastated that, once again, the word of a young
black woman has been casually dismissed by some media,
a woman who according to the grand jury indictment was
violated in the most heinous way.
We are devastated that, as we wait for the indictment
men to stand trial in court, we must watch her on trial in
the media. In 2006, this is unacceptable.
People of color have experienced hlame the
victim’ tactics for centuries when they
accuse the powerful. These same tactics
j are routinely used against survivors of sex-
; ual assault-women of all colors. Sexual
i assault must be a civil rights .priority for all
' people of goodwill.
Only 40 years ago. Blacks in America
were dying for the right to be treated equal
ly and then, as now, in many parts of this
nation the press was used as a tool to dis
tort truth, and to defame our leaders and
innocent citizens. Yet it was in this same time that the
courage and determination of the press to record truth
helped awaken the conscience of this nation. We call now
upon the media to reject spin and report truth. Tbday, as
then, the truth will set us free.The indicted men have hired
the best lawyers and PR men money can buy.
There’s a reason that the defense doesn’t mention the
racial slurs that define this case, or the extraordinary vio
lations of civil rights and liberties, or that the survivor’s life
has been damaged forever. But there is no excuse for our
media to be silent about these realities. This case does not
need spin; it needs truth.
When the Coalition of the Concerned here in North
Carolina opened the ourheartsworld.com website dedicat
ed to supporting the assault survivor and millions of other
survivors of sexual violence, hardly a drop of ink was spent
on the story. When the defense team announces its cherry-
picked pieces of evidence, throngs of reporters, cameras
and pens in hand, scramble to repeat carefiilly crafi;ed
announcements as if they were objective truths. The
heavy scrutiny of the nation has successfully been divert
ed fix)m the actions of the white privileged men to the
moral purity of the survivor. The media calls her “the
stripper”; She is a US Navy veteran, a mother of two and
an accomplished student at North Carolina Central
University.
We are not called to the offhand condemnation of people,
but to the righteous hatred of sin. Where is the chorus of
moral condemnation against holding beer parties for 44
mostly under-aged men, starting at two on a Monday
afternoon?
Where is the chorus of condemnation about an appar
ently common varsity team practice of hiring female enter
tainers?
Where is the chorus of condemnation of men brandishing
a broomstick at women?
Where is the chorus of condemnation against racial slan
dering overheard by a neighbor, “Thank your grandpa for
my nice cotton shirt?” ^
Don’t let this case be decided by innuendo, money, guess
work, superstar lawyers, or community speculation. Take
it to the courts. These allegations are too sad, sinister, and
sadistic to be trivialized. We may not know everything that
heis happen, but we must insist that the judicial system
work and that there is a fair fight and a level playing field.
Duke was once called Trinity College. In this case, there
are triune challenges of racism, sexism, and classicism. In
this crisis is the ugly trinity of human failure, humanity
deprivation, and human exploitation. The only way out is
a triune response. We must face the evidence; face what
ever truth this reveals; and face whatever justice
demands.
REV. WILLIAM BARBER is president of the N.C. branches of the
NAACP.
Where is the chorus of
condemnation against
racial slandering
overheard by a
neighbor, Thank your
grandpa for my nice
cotton shirt?”
Our responsibility is
to protect children,
not firearms
Is protecting our children important to us as a nation? On June
12, the Children’s Defense Fund released our annual report on gun
violence against children, “Protect Children Not Guns.”
The report shows that the 2,827 children and teens who died
from gun violence in 2003-just one year-is higher than the number
of American fighting men and women killed in hostile action in
Iraq fix)m 2003 to April 2006-three years.
In some U.S. cities, children and teens are in as much daily peril
as they would be if they were walking the streets of Baghdad. The
bodies of young gunshot victims are streaming into urban hospital
trauma centers on the front lines of an undeclared
war on America’s children.
The children who die every year from gunshot
woimds come from all racial groups and are all
T ages. Some of them are too young to start kinder-
garten: in 2003, 56 preschoolers were killed by
firearms while 52 law enforcement officers were
killed in the line of duty. '
When it’s more dangerous to be a preschooler
than an on-duty police officer, we know something
is seriously wrong in our society. The deaths of
thousands of children each year are morally
obscene for the world’s most powerful nation,
which has more resources to address our social ills than any other
nation.
The Protect Children Not Gims report is being released as a
number of U.S. mayors across the country are demanding action
from the White House and Congress to staunch gun violence. In
April, 15 mayors gathered for a summit on gun violence led by
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas
Menino. I strongly applaud Mayor Bloombei^s statement that “It
is time for national leadership in the war on gun violence.” But
sadly, for tens of thousands of children and teens, long overdue
leadership in the war on gun violence vrill come too late.
Here are a few more of the deadly facts outlined in CDFs new
report on the toll gun violence is taking on America’s children:
More 10- to 19-year-olds die from gunshot wounds than from any
other cause except motor vehicle accidents. Almost 90 percent of
the children and teens killed by firearms in 2003 were boys. Boys
ages 15 to 19 are nearly nine times as likely as girls of the same
age to be killed by a firearm.
There were more than nine times as many suicides by guns
among white children and teens as among Black children and
teens. But despite white youths’ higher rate of gun suicides, gun
violence still disproportionately affects black children.
The firearm death rate for black males ages 15 to 19 is more than
four times that of white males the same age. More black children
and teens have been killed by firearms over the past six years than
aU the black people of all ages we lost in the history of lynchings.
Where is our voice? Why don’t we care and protest when our chil
dren are being killed and killing others? It’s time for us black
adialts to get our act together.
The seven states that recorded the most firearms deaths among
children and teens in 2003 were California, Tfexas, Illinois, New
York, Permsylvania, Florida and North Carolina. The U.S. has the
immoral distinction of having the highest rate of child firearm
deaths. The rate of firearm deaths among children under age 15 is
far higher in the U.S. than in 25 other industrialized countries
combined.
“We have many more handguns and much weaker gun laws
than any other country,” says Harvard Professor David
Hemenway, who has worked to develop strategies to combat ille
gal firearms.
What can we do to change this? CDF calls for the support of com
mon sense gun safety measures; Congressional passage of legisla
tion that closes the gun show loophole requiring criminal back
ground checks on those purchasing guns from unlicensed dealers;
and renewal of the ban on assault weapons. Parents should
remove guns from their homes; organize nonviolent conflict reso
lution support groups in their congregations and communities;
monitor what their children watch on TV. and listen to in our vio-
lence-h3qied culture; and refuse to buy video games and other
products for their children that glamorize violence or make it
socially acceptable or fun.
Community leaders should turn schools and places of worship
into venues of quality summer and after-school programs for chil
dren as positive alternatives to the streets and with positive role
models. They should also adopt proven programs like Ceasefire
Initiatives that bring families, faith groups, social service
providers, and the police together to halt the MUing of teens by
other teens. It’s imperative that we work together to make our
homes, our streets, and our communities safe from firearms now
for the sake of our children.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN is president and founder of the Children’s
Defense Fund and its Action Council.
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President Bush’s
feeble effort to
isolate Cuba
It never ceases to amaze me that logic and ratio
nality are completely absent from President Bush’s
foreign policy. Despite no evidence of either a terror
ist threat or threat of weapons of mass destruction
from Cuba, the Bush administration continues its
senseless and rabid efforts to overthrow the interna
tionally recognized government of Cuba.
The most recent effort is one that is getting very lit
tle attention in the U.S. media. The Bush group is
allegedly pressuring the European Union to reverse
course away finm diplomatic engagement with Cuba
and move in the direction of isolating
Cuba, including the possibility of eco
nomic sanctions. Such a reversal
would be largely unprecedented
given the long history of relations
between European nations and
Cuba, including European govern
ments that have been quite conserva
tive (the right-wing dictatorship of
the late Spanish leader Francisco
Franco even had diplomatic relations
with Cuba!!). Nevertheless, in these days of open
international bullying by the U.S., all bets are off.
This bullying is really going over the top, I should
add, and is not limited to the Bush attitude toward
Cuba. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John
Bolton, was so upset at a criticism leveled by a top
U.N. official regarding the attitude of the U.S.A
toward the United Nations that Bolton, in essence,
threatened the United Nations demanding that UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan repudiate these com
ments...or else???.
Reading the statements attributed to Bolton, one
finds it nearly impossible to believe that they are not
the ravings of a 15- year-old whose high school colors
were challenged. Yet, the combination of the new
roimd of coercion directed at Cuba, along with the
threatening posture toward the United Nations is
integrally linked. From the standpoint of the Bush
administration there is only one foreign policy that
any nation can follow and that is the one that is deter
mined by the Bush administration.
As much as the Bush administration attempts to
carry out spin-control and improve its image with the
world’s peoples, public relations efforts, such as those
by Undersecretary Karen Hughes, are doomed to fail
ure. Fundamentally, there is nothing there. It is diffi
cult to assure the world that the U.S.A. is committed
to acting as a responsible global partner when each of
its actions demonstrates the opposite.
Thus, one returns to the question of Cuba, a light
ening rod for Bush foreign policy. Irrespective of any
overtures by the Cuban government toward improv
ing relations with the USA, e.g., its offer to assist
Katrina simdvors in the aftermath of the disaster,
the Bush administration displays contempt, and
worse, implies or threatens the use of outside inter
vention—and quite possibly the use of military
force—if the Cubans fail to cave.
One cannot take for granted that the Bush admin
istration will leave Cuba alone or that the adminis
tration is simply engaged in rhetorical saber-ratthng
for pohtical piuposes. The exhilaration and self-right
eousness of the administration when it comes to
threatening Cuba (and other perceived antagonists)
reminds me of someone who has been using PCP.
God help us but that they are the ones with their fin
gers on the button.
Should it surprise us, then, that most of the world
is more worried about the Bush administration than
they are A1 Qaeda? What a damning conclusion; a
conclusion too many of us are prepared to dismiss
because it does not correspond with the manner in
which we would rather see ourselves, or see the pres
idency of the United States of America.
BILL FLETCHER, is a long-time tabor and international
activist and writer. He is thefonner president ofTransAfrica
Forum. He can be reached at papaq54@lwumil.com.
Should it surprise us,
then, that most of the
world is more worried
about the Bush
administration than
they are Al Qaeda?