Today’s WSJ has a masterful review of Until Proven Innocent by Abigail Thernstrom.
Here is the killer line: “Messrs. Taylor and Johnson make it clear that the Duke affair — the rabid prosecution, the skewed commentary, the distorted media storyline — was not some odd, outlier incident but the product of an elite culture’s most treasured assumptions about American life, not least about America’s supposed racial divide.”
Exactly. For all the hysterics about “issue of race, class and gender,” the truth was that it was all imaginary. The one black player on the lacrosse team got along perfectly well with his teammates. The strippers were glad to make some money. The lacrosse players didn’t prey on women. The campus was in an uproar over nothing.
Ah, but there is a lesson about America here. It’s that public officials won’t hesitate to use their power for personal advancement even if it means inflicting injustice on innocent people. Fortunately in this case, the tables were turned and condign punishment has been meted out to the miscreant. Often, though, officials get away with it. The real problem in America is the abuse of power and it cuts across all the supposed lines of race, class, gender, etc.
