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Nifong, the obsessively determined prosecutor, fed the stereotype in his initial flurry of media statements.

"The contempt that was shown for the victim, based on her race, was totally abhorrent," he said. "It adds another layer of reprehensibleness to a crime that is already reprehensible."

Jesse Jackson weighed in:

"Black women; white men," he wrote for Tribune Media Services. "A stripper; a team blowout. The wealthy white athletes -- many from prep schools -- of Duke; and the working class woman from historically black North Carolina Central. Race and class and sex ...

"The history of white men and black women -- the special fantasies and realities of exploitation -- goes back to the nation's beginning and the arrival of slaves from Africa. The patterns associated with this history arouse fears and evoke too many bad memories."

The New Black Panthers Party rallied just off the Duke campus, vowing: "We will defend our black women."

Even Duke faculty members -- dozens of them -- joined the chorus, condemning a culture of white, male power and privilege they saw prevailing throughout society and on campus.

Now, of course, the picture looks altogether different. Nifong has dropped rape charges, and the rest of his case rests precariously on the credibility of an accuser whose story keeps changing. With his own conduct under scrutiny by the State Bar, he's likely to end up in more legal trouble than the defendants.

The damage, however, will linger long after this drama finally ends. It's stirred anger and resentment and possibly widened divisions of race and class -- all needlessly.

If only everyone had waited for the facts before rushing to judgment about guilt and racism, before making strained connections to injustices of long ago. By what stretch of any reasonable imagination is Duke University a 21st-century "plantation" and its white, male students sexual aggressors used to having their way with poor black women? Yet that's the "truth" many were quick to believe.

The same attitudes seem to exist here in Greensboro, when allegations of "intolerable racism" are cast about in response to school suspension numbers, the firing of a county manager who happened to be black, police department turmoil, wage scales or other issues that, on close examination, may not amount to racism.

The Duke lacrosse players aren't without blame. A beer-washed party featuring hired strippers, with at least one participant spewing racial insults, convicts them of loutish behavior. Criminal allegations, however, should be backed up with evidence before anyone draws sweeping conclusions about a culture of racial and sexual exploitation.

In a letter to the Duke community Monday, university President Richard Brodhead noted: "One thing that has made this event so difficult is that particular charges against individuals have tended to be conflated with larger community issues of race, gender, privilege, and respect."

It was never fair to do that. From the start, the criminal case wasn't constructed on a firm factual foundation and now is soon to collapse. The social and political grandstanding the incident incited was reckless and irresponsible. Shame on everyone -- media included -- who gave it life.

But Nifong did succeed in shifting the view of Durham. Now it's seen as a place where a dubious but racially charged criminal case can get a district attorney elected.

Doug Clark can be contacted at dgclark@news-record.com and 373-7039.