Apologist round-up

With the news of indictments for sexual assault being handed down to two members of the Duke Lacrosse team (with a third possibly pending), the apologist train has left the station and is barrelling full bore down the tracks. Luckily for our team, we have a crack blogger duo ready to call them on their bullshit.

First off, mcjoan at dKos takes Naomi Schaeffer Riley of the Wall Street Journal to task:

Naomi Schaeffer Riley, The Wall Street Journal's "Taste" editor, weighs in on the Duke rape story. Is it an examination of the racial and social tensions in Durham between residents and students? Is it a thoughtful look at how race, class, and privilege play out in college towns across the nation? Dream on. Here's her title: "Ladies, You Should Know Better: How feminism wages war on common sense."

If you have attended college any time in the past 20 years, you will have heard that if a woman is forced against her will to have sex, it is "not her fault" and that women always have the right to "control their own bodies." Nothing could be truer. But the administrators who utter these sentiments and the feminists who inspire them rarely note which situations are conducive to keeping that control and which threaten it. They rarely discuss what to do to reduce the likelihood of a rape. Short of re-educating men, that is.

Why do we have to hear again that women have more culpability in rape than men? What are you possibly adding to the discourse on rape, Ms. Riley, by trotting out once again the old saw that feminists have caused rape by telling women that they have the right to as much freedom as their male counterparts? What in the hell is wrong with re-educating men, Ms. Riley?

Next, the inimitable TBogg (who has in a short time become my favorite blogger) puts it to Baltimore Sun columnist Gregory Kane in words he can understand:

These guys chose two black women. But before black folks start talking about how, at the very least, Duke lacrosse players obviously don't hold black women in very high esteem, we'd better ask ourselves where they got that notion. Could it have been from those black rap artists who feature black "exotic dancers" in their videos doing the same thing those two black women in Durham were probably doing at the lacrosse team's party?

Respect for black women should start at home. Before we get angry at Duke lacrosse players who may only be guilty of excessive boozing and ogling, we should call into account Jay-Z and Ludacris and 50 Cent and fill-in-name-of-black-male-rapper-here for how black women are portrayed in their videos.

It is very simple; if you're stupid enough to take your behavioral tips from 50 Cent, you're too stupid to attend Duke. Gregory Kane gets to have it both ways; he can defend black womanhood while at the same time excusing poor simple white boys who should have spent the evening playing GTA: San Andreas before going on a harmless carjacking spree.

The fact that it's 2006 and we're still blaming everybody except the fucking rapists boggles my mind.