You’d think the “adults” at Duke would be wiser to rape hoaxes and “hate-crime” hoaxes by now. Remember this?
At Duke University last November [1997], a group of students hanged from a tree a black doll bearing a sign that read “Duke hasn’t changed.” They also covered with black paint the nearby Class of 1948 granite bench. The site of the mock lynching was the gathering place for members of the Black Student Alliance, who had been planning a protest outside the office of Duke President Nan Keohane.
The identities of the perpetrators — evidently white racists –were unknown for nearly a week, and the campus reaction to the incident was one of horror and dismay. The Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper, published a letter from undergraduate Stephen Poon denouncing the episode as a “racial crime.” Members of the BSA claimed that it showed how tense race relations were on campus.
Several days later the truth was out: the perpetrators were not racist whites, but blacks looking to create an impression of racism on campus. Instead of being condemned, the guilty parties were unconditionally defended by their ideological kin.
See if this rhetoric doesn’t sound familiar:
“The idea behind the act,” wrote Worokya Diomande in the Chronicle, “is being overlooked (as is usually the case). The University has not changed. Blacks are allowed to be enrolled here, but the idea is the equivalent of the transition from field slave to house slave.”
