The Duke lacrosse case: Gender bias? Yes. Political bias too

Kathleen Parker’s latest column isn’t just another Duke lacrosse piece.

Take a look:

"We don't know all the facts about the alleged Duke lacrosse rape, but ..."

That's more or less how commentators have introduced their remarks on the case that has reduced the Durham, N.C., community to prayers, tears and recriminations.

Let me interpret the code for you: Men are bad.

Even though we don't know what happened, we're not going to let the absence of facts interfere with our indictment of a team, a coach, a school, but more to the point - of boys.

About the only thing to emerge with any clarity since a black exotic dancer claimed that three white lacrosse players raped her last month is our willingness to believe the worst about males. ...

Our willingness? It's only some of us who are willing to believe the worst about males.

Now let's move on:

[Believing the worst about males] is all the more rewarding if the males happen to be white, as well as athletes, and especially if they're perceived to be privileged. If there's one thing we can't bear in this country, it's spoiled white boys who think the world owes them a good time. ...

True unless those spoiled white boys happen to share our social ideology and politics.

Examples: Remember the Good Friday 1991 escapades of Sen. Ted Kennedy, his son, Patrick, and his nephew, Willie? First drinking into the wee hours at a strip joint; then taking two women back to the Kennedy’s Palm Beach compound.

The woman later made multiple accusations, including ones that led to a rape trial with Kennedy’s nephew as defendant.

The Kennedy’s hired dozens of lawyers and investigators, including some whose job it was to search out the women’s backgrounds and make information available to friendly media. NBC and the New York Times even published the name of the woman who made the rape charge despite Florida having a rape-shield law.

How much outrage did we hear then from the same people and news organizations now crying class, race, privilege and fairness?

When Sen. Kennedy recently pounded Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for his brief membership while an undergrad in an organization that barred women, we heard a lot about white males and privilege.

But when shortly thereafter The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student newspaper, disclosed that “the liberal Lion” had been for more than 50 years a member of the exclusive eating and drinking Owl Club which bars women, we didn’t hear much about spoiled whites and privilege, did we?

Many people first ask “Who is it?” before they decide to attack white males, spoiled, athletic, or otherwise.

That may be nothing new but we shouldn’t forget it.

And we shouldn’t forget where most of the angry anti-male attitude in this country is housed: on the political, academic and media left. Hence, not so much outrage when a Kennedy, Clinton or Jackson is involved.

But white, male, Duke lacrosse players? That’s another matter. They sound Republican.

I agree with most everything else Parker says, especially her closer:

While we wait to hear more on the case, we might turn our harsh judgment inward and recognize that the anti-male groupthink that permitted a presumption of guilt in Durham is little different than the lynch-mob mentality that once channeled rage against blacks.

Obviously, no woman deserves to be raped for any reason, under any circumstances. But nor do men deserve to be presumed guilty just because they're men.

Parker's column is here.

Hat Tip: Mike Williams