A call for outrage

A 27-year-old student at North Carolina Central University in Durham was allegedly raped, strangled and pummeled with racial slurs at a house owned by three captains of Duke University's prestigious lacrosse team. And, quite frankly, I want you to be angry about it -- outraged, in fact.\nAcknowledge that she had been invited to the residence to dance but be angry when people suggest her occupation as an exotic dancer somehow justifies a violation against her.\nThis divorced mother of two, who told reporters she worked for an escort service to pay for school and support her children, arrived at the house with another woman. They were expecting to entertain a bachelor party of five on the night of March 13, but were confronted by a rowdy crowd of dozens, including several lacrosse players.\nThe women tried to leave after being hit with racial remarks, but members of the party apologized for their aggressive behavior and convinced the pair to stay. That's when one woman says she was forced into a bathroom and physically and verbally assaulted for a half an hour.\nExcluding the team's one black player, all 46 lacrosse team players have provided DNA samples to police. Aside from a one-paragraph statement about their innocence, however, these men have remained silent. Two weeks passed before the team was suspended from playing. \nIn that time, they've provided no insight as to why the woman might have exhibited rape-related trauma as confirmed by an area hospital nurse and physician. No one has offered any ideas as to why the dancer's false nails, makeup bag, cell phone and identification had been found at the house.\nLike so many of history's suspects, the team appears to be standing behind the veil of white privilege, male privilege and wealth privilege, not available to people like this alleged victim.\nDuke has asked students to remain patient while police continue investigating. \nI talked with Duke law student and IU alumna Crystal Brown about what's happening on her campus. Brown says, all things considered, she's impressed by the university's reaction. She was there during the nearly four-hour long Take Back the Night vigil where she says marcher demographics defied the boundaries of race, gender and class that have become so painfully obvious in this rape case.\nPainfully obvious, may I repeat. This rape case pits one just-getting-by woman against a team of well-to-do players. She's black. They're white. \nSpectators are protective of the players and skeptical, if not condemning, of her.\nAnd quite frankly, I am outraged. I'm outraged because these matters of racialized rape -- these unacceptable categorizations of the lascivious black woman and her forgivable white rapist -- should be left to the textbook criticisms of our nation's intolerable past. I'm outraged because we're seeing yet another case that shows we've allowed our intolerable past to surface in our already racially rocky present. Understand, this case has the power to taint our future. We are called to be outraged -- more importantly, however, we are called to be gravely concerned.