This is the text of a comment I put on the LieStoppers.com‘s forum. The LieStoppers community has been in the forefront of support for the Duke lacrosse players who were indicted by Durham DA Mike Nifong, and its faithful retinue deserves much praise. However, there is a strain of Durham bashing that I finally had to say something about, being a longtime Durhamite and all:

I must say I find the Durham bashing on this forum tedious. If some people on this forum were to be believed, all of us who marched on Feb. 4 should be recuperating from gunshot wounds by now. I’ve lived in Durham since 1981 minus 18 months in Richmond and, for all its faults, enjoy it here. I raised three children here, bought a house and have lived in Trinity Park a total of 25 years. I like walking up to the Brightleaf area in the spring and summer to get burger at Devines, a pizza at Satisfactions or a Guinness at the James Joyce. I like going to Duke lacrosse games in the spring and seeing some of the best teams in Div. I. I like running into former “Good Morning America” host David Hartman on Sundays at Starbucks. He CHOSE to retire here, by the way.

People from Chapel Hill and Raleigh put Durham down in the meanest terms and yet still come to watch the Durham Bulls, eat at the Magnolia Grill, Nana’s and Bullock’s, work in the RTP, shop at the Streets at Southpoint, enjoy the American Tobacco Campus, Brightleaf Square and 9th Street, and attend the performances of the American Dance Festival each summer. Soon they’ll be coming here to a new performing arts center downtown, and they’ll still look down their noses as they drive back to their — by comparison — dull towns. Everything mentioned in this paragraph, by the way, is located in what a previous poster colorfully called “crap.”

Yes, we’ve had our share of incompetent and corrupt public officials, but if that disqualified a city from consideration as a place to live there’d be no one in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, or New York City. Bash Nifong all you want. He deserves it. Bash my former employer, The Herald-Sun, too. They deserve it. But don’t generalize your dislike of them to our entire city and, by implication, all in it.

As I said on the forum, respectfully submitted, of course.