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Any way you look at it, woman’s situation was tragic

Elizabeth A. Weiss, Correspondent

When I heard about the rape accusations against members of the Duke University men’s lacrosse team last weekend, something changed for me.
As a young woman living in Durham, I felt personally affected by the accusations alone. I don’t know if all women feel as though something tears within them when they learn of that kind of assault — an assault on something sacred. But that is what it felt like for me.

I don’t know how long it will be before I can look at a young, white male strolling around Durham and not think for a moment, “Could he be a rapist?”

This is close to me. I am not black, and I am not an exotic dancer, and I am not yet a mother, but that is where the differences end, and I don’t think those are important differences to begin with. The woman who came forward was a student, in her twenties, lived in Durham, worked for a living, and cared about how her father would take what happened to her.

But even our similarities are superficial, just as superficial as the fact that she was at the party that night to dance — a fact that seems to be of great importance for those looking for a reason to discredit her.

The moment I heard the circumstances, that she was there as an exotic dancer, I became even more empathetic, not because rape is any more or less tragic depending on one’s profession, but because she was put in that situation out of necessity, as a worker. It is a risky profession, I know, but so is working construction.

Honor and virtue are more determined by how you treat other people than how you support your family. I imagine that profession allowed her to provide for her two children and attend N.C. Central, and I realize that not everyone starts out in life on the same playing field; I do not judge her for working for an escort service.

I felt connected to her because I somehow understood, based on pure instinct and imagination, how hard it must have been to talk to the Durham police that night.

It is odd how strongly I winced internally when I heard the details, having never experienced anything like that. Yet somehow I felt pain and sadness — and anger. I don’t know when I’ll stop thinking about what that must have been like every time I drive past the Kroger on Hillsborough Road where she felt safe enough to stop.

I understand that no charges have been filed. The DNA tests will come out next week, and as of now, the Duke men’s lacrosse team is only issuing statements proclaiming their “unequivocal denial” of her allegations. It would be nice to learn that a young woman was not tortured in a pretty house in a lovely neighborhood by a group of smart young men.

But as a woman, I cannot imagine making those accusations unless they were true. More than half of the sexual assaults in this country go unreported still, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey. And some of the details resonate too strongly for them to be conjured.

Many of the details of this situation are incredibly charged. Race, class, gender, all of those hot issues swirl together in this story and are possibly clouding the judgment of some.

So I ask you to consider the situation, but with a few minor details reversed. What if it was a white exotic dancer making these allegations against a men’s sports team at NCCU? Or a Duke student? Or what if it was someone who wasn’t a dancer at all reporting the assault? It should not make a difference, and yet it does for many.

I hope I will never be in the same situation she was, walking into a house, to perform for a group of men. And yet I can’t stop thinking, what if that were me? What did that feel like? How will she feel safe again?

This drama will play out amid a dark cloud of voices, some powerful, some righteous, all fighting one another.

Let us hope that a just light prevails.

Elizabeth A. Weiss can be reached at [email protected].

[People and jews retreat to generalities when the specifics work against them. As each new fact emerges, the reported story becomes less tenable. The ideologue jews come out of the woodwork to begin the at-leasting and the raising-issues. No woman would write and no editor would print a piece discussing one’s feeling unsafe around all blacks after a rape accusation against one. This, too, is jewish media control.

Already linked.

Well look at the name. Enough said. It appears she has a touch of Down’s Syndrome.

nigger theft + jewmedia filter = ‘privileged’ white gang-rape