Solomon Burnette, son of former Durham City Council member Brenda Burnette, served more than a year in prison in 2000-01 for robbing two Duke students at gunpoint and violating his probation. Now he’s mugging the three exonerated Duke lacrosse players in a column in North Carolina Central University’s Campus Echo newspaper titled “Death to all rapists.” Echoing what seems to be a widely shared view on the NCCU campus, he writes:

The ‘facts’ of the case should not matter to us because even if we are unsure of sexual assault, these supremacists have admitted to sexually, racially and politically denigrating these women. Strippers or not, this must be addressed.

And then there’s this:

I am not surprised at the outcome of the case. As a son of Africa, I know that American law is not worth the paper it is written upon. We all saw L.A. Gestapo beat Rodney King only to be acquitted. We were dismayed when the assassins of Amadou Diallo, who laced his area with a forty-one shot spectrum, were also acquitted. These injustices reflect the current disequilibrium in the American justice system.

He concludes with this:

The only deterrent to these legally, socially and economically validated supremacist actions is the fear of physical retribution.

Black men, stand up. Black women, stand up. Black children, stand up. We have been at war here with these same white people for 500 years.

The time to fight, whether intellectually, artistically or physically, has always been now.

If he keeps writing this kind of nonsense he’ll be the next celebrated hip-hop thug intellectual with tenure on a major college campus. He’s already got the street cred of jail time on his resume. What more could an Ivy League institution seeking diversity ask for?

For the record, NCCU Chancellor James Ammons released a statement distancing himself and his school from Burnette’s ravings.