The Uptown paper of record usually runs Kathleen Parker’s stuff. Sometimes I agree with her take, more often not. She penned one today, however, that’ll have a hard time making it past the gate-keepers down on Tryon for tomorrow.
First, the headline: Nifong’s legacy, feminism’s shame. Doubt that floats.
But then check out this rif:
It is tempting to convince oneself that Nifong’s banishment means that all is right in the Dukedom. Doubtless, many among Duke’s faculty and administration, as well as random race-baiters, campus feminists, various reporters, commentators and assorted armchair prosecutors would prefer that no one remember their roles in advancing the Nifong farce. (K.C. Johnson, Brooklyn College history professor, has it all on his Durham-in-Wonderland blog.)
But they shouldn’t get off so easily. All were participants in the scurrilous witch hunt that unfolded during the past year. All were congregants in the PC Church that sanctifies certain groups as unassailable victims (all minorities and females) and others as condemnable perps (all males, but especially descendants of history’s white oppressors).
From the beginning, when an African-American stripper — alternately known as a “working mother and college student” — claimed that three lacrosse players had raped her, few questioned whether she might be lying or that the men might be telling the truth.
Hmmm, and a certain North Carolina paper immediately dispatched three reporters to cover the story in great detail — except for the angle that Crystal Gail Magnum was lying.
Maybe I’ll get a big surprise and Parker’s column will be offered to local readers as a form of apology for past missteps. But I’m not counting on it.
Update: I love surprises. The column appears today, albeit with a softer headline. “Feminists” is now “some feminists.” Close enough.
