News-Record.com

WOW... How did you learn of this interview?

A letter to the editor from someone who heard the broadcast.

It started out as a rant with the usual villians and victims, but thankfully these are educated people who were able to reach a level of objectivity. ie: #1 Imus, but this was countered by another speaker who mentioned the hip-hop artists originated and profit from the words Imus used. #2 Then one of the speakers mentioned it was not really the hip hop artists but the execs in the "corporate suites-who I guarantee don't look like me" (I guess he figures hip hop execs like Jay Z, Suge Knight, Ice Cube, Kanye West and Dr. Dre are white) who are actually responsible for this degradation of the minority community. #3 A speaker then pointed out it's terrible that a black woman would have to stoop to stripping to make a living, which was rebutted by someone who said there are many white strippers. #4 They mentioned that these hooligans who hired a black stripper are to blame. (Does anybody know, when the team hired strippers, presumably from some third party acting as an agent, did they especially request black strippers? #4 the statement was then made as noted above that the white lacrosse players don't deserve an apology, but thankfully it was conceeded that they were owed an apology by at least Nifong. (They fell short of condemning black men who we all know have never and never will have any desire to see women exotic dancers).

The program ended all too soon, but it's apparent there is enough blame to go around.

Excerpts of her remarks, and discussion the commments, here:
http://edcone.typepad.com/wordup/2007/04/president_malve.html

Ed's right; there's a robust discussion of this issue at his place.
Beyond whether you agree or disagree with what she said, I wonder if Malveaux, as a college president now versus an independent commentator, ought to choose how she expresses those views a little
more carefully.
For the record, I disagree with her.
The players are hardly heroes (the team had been, at the least, an out-of-control campus nuisance with little regard for rules) but what they had to go through based on flimsy evidence was an injustice, whether you're white or black, rich or poor. They deserve an apology not only from Nifong, but from all of us who assumed their guilt from the very beginning.

And this woman is coming to Greensboro? Great. That's just what this city needs - another race-baiter who won't let the facts stand in the way of a good story.

That cracks me up when white NPR personalities say things like "How can a SIS-TAH win?"--you know, to show that they're "down with it."

Malveaux is clearly OJed on the case: race loyalty supercedes any consideration of justice.

In many ways the speakers in the interview were practicing exactly the opposite of what they usually preach. They discussed the lacrosse players' actions and the case more generally as being symbolic of how women of color are treated by society. It's fine to discuss symbols, but it's unfair to treat people according to a steorotype or to hold them to a different standard.

The Duke lacrosse team has done little to endear itself to the community. However, whatever we think of their other actions, they should have received a fair shake from the legal system--and didn't. Their being symbols of more general forms of oppression doesn't excuse the treatment.

It's disappointing that an incoming college president does not recognize this distinction. Although she allowed that Nifong may owe the players an apology, she essentially said that the players got what they deserved in terms of other treatment. Her comments indicate that she would pick and choose which groups deserve to be treated fairly. Having seen numerous instances where college presidents unfairly threw faculty and students overboard because of bigger "social" concerns, I have to worry about how the Bennett community will fare under her administration.

Seems to me that there was a group of indignant black activists who came to protest just outside of Duke Univerity property, more or less demanding the blood of the accused Lacrosse team. Are those folks going to consider apologizing for what they did in assuming guilt outside of the judicial system?

Are we ever going to have level-headed responses to accusations of this nature, or are we just going to keep searching for excuses to be outraged at one side or another in America's racial mix?

I agree, Dave. One of Dr. Malveaux's challenges at Bennett clearly will be adjusting from a shoot-from-the-hip columnist and commentator who answers only to herself to representing an entire institution.

If you guys don't know: there is an organization in Durham, the Exotic Dancer's Equity Guild that advocates and has reached an informal agreement with all entertainment bookers and jobbers in Durham co. epecially involving the plum jobs like Duke Univ parties, that 15% of all stripping jobs will be given to women and dancers of color. So, you really can't win for losing.

Matt DeLuca
Social Chair; Phi Zsi Phi Fraternity. Duke Univ.

Wow, those are interesting comments from Ms. Malveaux, but not suprising considering what she has written before. I would say that she has a way to go if she intends to be the leader of a college.

She is convinced that "something bad" happened there. She doesn't know what it was, but the facts aren't going to stand in her way. Bad apples? Hooligans? She sounds like Mike Nifong. I suppose that we are fortunate that she will not be the new District Attorney in Durham, or those three would be returned to jail and placed on trial once again, evidence or not. I don't think that anyone holds them in regard as choir boys, but they deserve fairness under the law like anyone else. Consider that the players originally had bond set for $400,000. Tolly Carr recently had his bond set for $100,000, and he is to be tried for a felony involving the death of a person. Was such a bond for the three players fair under the law? If theire families had not had resources, the three would have spent the last year in jail while Mike Nifong diddled along with the non-existent case.

Ms. Malveaux is entitled to her opinion, but she will find that expressing it openly in such a manner may create unforeseen difficulties for herself in her new role that she hasn't imagined. The State Attorney General, after a review of the evidence and files, ruled the players innocent. It wasn't dismissed because there wasn't sufficient evidence to win prosecution, it was innocent of all charges. So, was the State Attorney General wrong or biased?

I wonder if some black college football players had such a party with white strippers, it was alledged that "something happened", and they were similarly accused with no evidence or proof, would she feel the same way? Would she call the football players hooligans and bad apples? Would she support a bond set for $400,000 each that might require them to set in jail for over one year while the trial languishes? I doubt it.

Let's face it. This whole matter is one of race to Ms. Malveaux, not a matter of law or fairness. They were rowdy, rich, white boys, so they are guilty of "something bad" as charged. Book 'em, Danno.