That’s how Anthony Dick describes the outcry over the Duke lacrosse rape allegations.
In the latest National Review, Dick writes:
Driven by an obsession with identity politics and “oppression,” wide swaths of society have rushed to condemn three young white men as rapists — largely because of their race and social status.
Dick criticizes Duke President Richard Brodhead for the open letter to the Duke/Durham community, in which he downplays the specific facts of the case to focus on broader “social issues.”
And Dick explains why many in the Duke community were willing to follow Brodhead’s lead, speaking for “social justice” instead of justice in the individual case:
This method of penance makes white liberal guilt quite distinct from self-loathing. In fact, the entire posture is infused from top to bottom with self-righteousness: Its very purpose is to establish moral superiority. By acknowledging one’s “privilege” and then striving to combat it through the conspicuous endorsement of radical political change, it becomes possible to dissociate oneself from the reactionary mainstream. Railing against the status quo thus facilitates the reconciliation of radical beliefs and bourgeois lifestyles.
