“It really turned our world upside down.” Said they’d always been respected on campus and got along with teachers. “Everyone looked at you differently. It was a different look.” Then it became “nobody really wants to talk to you and teachers look at you differently.” Says “it was the loneliest feeling you could imagine.”
Now discussing the protests, the “Castrate them” signs. “We were, in their minds, completely guilty.” Now showing a video from WRAL. About the people marching from East to West Campus. 300 people walking in the “Take Back the Night” annual march. Report: attendees talk about a rape culture at Duke, “someone needs to pay,” also discussed Duke President Richard Brodhead’s plan to have a breakfast with black leaders.
Says “everyone assumed they knew who we were,” that we went from being athletes to being rapists. Talks about being the only white member of his African-American history class and when allegations came out the girl sitting next to him, who he’d always gotten along with, and “when Mr. Nifong started making his comments…she had written an article in the editorial section [of the Chronicle] saying the lacrosse team was bringing Duke back to the Jim Crow South.” “For me that was the clearest example of people’s mindset” after Nifong’s began making statements.
