Duke/Durham snapshots

(A few “snapshots” that may help bring “the big picture” into focus.)

I was talking the other day with a friend who’s a Duke A&S faculty emeritus. He’s recently back from living and researching overseas since early June. He said he hadn’t followed the case while away but was hearing about it again from colleagues.

“So what are you hearing?” I asked.

“Well, when I we left they were all guilty. Now everyone tells me they’re innocent.”
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On the phone the other night, a friend from out of state said he hadn’t been following the case very closely but it seemed to him Nifong’s case was “very weak.”

“Do you think he really has a ‘smoking gun?’” my friend wondered.

His question got me thinking about the last time I’d heard anyone in Durham bring up “the smoking gun?”

Even during the recent election campaign, I can’t recall a single Nifong supporter mentioning it.

I heard a lot of “if Mike believes you” and some of the even more nonsensical “we need a trial so the community can come together,” but nobody told me Mike would be producing “the smoking gun" anytime soon.
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I have “a big pile of snapshots” from last Spring of Durham folks who call themselves “rights advocates.” They all have very pained looks on their faces. That’s because as “the shutter snapped” they were saying things like: “I can’t tell you what it does to me every time I think of what she must have endured.”

I also have “a big pile of snapshots” from this Fall of those same people. And they all have the same pained looks on their faces, only in the Fall they’re saying things like: “Well, maybe it didn’t happen, but …..”

Not one “rights advocate” I’ve talked with in Durham has said anything like: “I feel better now that I realize it didn’t happen.”

You just can't please some people.