Monday, January 15, 2007

Pundit: In Duke case, facts trampled

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarance Page says t in the Duke case “emotions over race trample facts” He continues:

Too many facts can ruin a good story for folks who already have made up their minds.

The Duke players should be prosecuted "whether it happened or not," a student at North Carolina Central University, a mostly black college, told Newsweek a few weeks after the March incident. "It would be justice for things that happened in the past."

No, it wouldn't. It would be racial reparations run amok and morphed into mob justice.[…]

However the Duke case plays out, it offers some valuable lessons about rushing to judgment. Nifong's questionable statements and actions should remind law-and-order hardliners that prosecutors are not always right.

Our long history of injustices has made black Americans particularly sensitive to the rights of the accused black, but we also can't forget the rights of suspects who are not black. After all, if institutional racism still holds any power at all, then rights that are denied to whites today can just as easily be denied to blacks tomorrow.

And, while the accuser's media image doesn't look very sympathetic these days, she too has rights. We can still feel for her. What we don't know is all of the facts.
I often disagree Page but he’s informed and reflective. Unlike columnist such as Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman who are predictable, partisan, and frequently wrong on their facts, Page is a centrist with an independent steak who gets the facts right. He often points our things other pundits miss. He’s got a nice writing style, too.

Page's entire column is here.

Hat Tip: Duke News

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Page is a typical black writer. Slavery is long gone - the movement was forty years ago. The blacks have got to get over it and take advantage of the American dream. Stop getting pregnant out of wed lock is a good place to start. Don't let those men take advantage of you.

craig said...

Where did that comment come from? What does it have to do with Page's column.

Anonymous said...

Craig: i think "anon"s comment was in the fact that blacks continue to harp on slavery... continue to beat that hammer. all peoples have been repressed. ALL.
life goes on. people recover, rebuild and move on. but it has been especially slow for the blacks in this country who have been given (yep, i said given) sooo much. we are lucky to be here. shut up and live.
Lee

Anonymous said...

correction: i meant beat that 'drum'...