Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire: How the Duke Rape Victim Duped America

A comedian once defined chutzpah as a youngster killing his parents and then throwing himself on the mercy of the court by virtue of the fact that he is an orphan.

Think about it: The liberal left regards every minority group imaginable as the victims of oppression. Palestinian suicide bombers are exalted for their courageous opposition to the "Zionist occupation." African-Americans are exempt from having to identify themselves to police officers because they suffer from the enduring legacy of slavery and segregation, the latter having ended some 40 years ago.  Muslims are being hounded by the horrors of Islamophobia because not everyone agrees with their decision to build a mega-mosque two blocks from the ashes of 2600 Americans. Women are being all but stifled under the heels of misogyny and chauvinism, as evidenced by the fact that we have never had a female President. (Of course, Margaret Thatcher served as Prime Minister of Great Britain for eleven years - but she was an evil conservative and so she doesn't count. And Golda Meir served as Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974, but we would never want to discuss that despicable Zionist.)

In our society, most minority groups are given the status of victimhood, and their community leaders do everything in their power to reinforce the victim mentality. But what happens when one of these so-called "victims" commits a horrible crime?



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From the Associated Press:

The woman who falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of raping her in 2006 was charged Monday with murder in the death of her boyfriend. Crystal Mangum, 32, was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder and two counts of larceny. She has been in jail since April 3, when police charged her with assault in the stabbing of 46-year-old Reginald Daye. He died after nearly two weeks at a hospital.

An attorney for Mangum and officials in the district attorney's office did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Mangum falsely accused the lacrosse players of raping her at a 2006 party for which she was hired to perform as a stripper. The case heightened long-standing tensions in Durham about race, class and the privileged status of college athletes.

The district attorney who championed Mangum's claims was later disbarred. North Carolina's attorney general eventually declared the players innocent of a "tragic rush to accuse."

Prosecutors declined to press charges for the false accusations, but Mangum's bizarre legal troubles have continued.  

Last year, she was convicted on misdemeanor charges after setting a fire that nearly torched her home with her three children inside. In a videotaped police interrogation, she told officers she set got into a confrontation with her boyfriend at the time — not Daye — and burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.

Friends said Mangum has never recovered from the stigma brought by the lacrosse case and has been involved in a string of questionable relationships in an attempt to provide stability for her children. Vincent Clark, a friend who co-authored Mangum's self-published memoir, said he hopes people don't rush to judgment — echoing one of the oft-cited lessons of the lacrosse case itself.

You hear that? Crystal Mangum is an alleged murderer, and a friend of this alleged murderer is telling people that they shouldn't rush to judgment.

The chutzpah! The nerve! The unmitigated temerity of this low-life telling the public to avoid a rush to judgment!

Where was this bleeding heart Vincent Clark when three lacrose players were falsely accused of rape in 2006? Where was Mr. Clark when three lacrose players were threatened with the possibility of expulsion, incarceration, and ruin for a crime they did not commit? Why did he not advise the public to avoid a rush to judgment then?

Why did we not hear about the presumption of innocence then - then, when three innocent men faced the prospect of ruin at the hands of a mendacious stripper? Where were the cries of the leftists - the Al Sharptons, Jesse Jacksons, Jeremiah Wrights, and Louis Farrakhans - about how all people are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law? Why did they not side with the victims of a false charge?

No, the liberal left condemned the lacrosse players, screaming about the gross injustice of "white male privilege."

Here is an interesting letter written to the Duke University Administration by a raving leftist. (I am re-publishing it in full, with emphasis on the most fascinating parts.)

Television screens tuned in to MSNBC on the morning of March 29, 2006 broadcast a headline in bold red: DUKE RAPE? At the bottom right corner of the front page of The New York Times on the same day was an article about the rape allegations roiling Duke University. How is a Duke community citizen to respond to such a national embarrassment from under the cloud of a "culture of silence" that seeks to protect white, male, athletic violence and which apparently prevents all university citizens from even surveying the known facts? How can one begin to answer the cardinal question: What have Duke and its leadership done to address this horrific, racist incident alleged to have occurred in a university-owned property in the presence of members of one of its athletic teams?

The alleged crimes of rape, sodomy, and strangulation of a black woman at a party populated in some measure by the Duke lacrosse team reportedly occurred on March 13. University administrators knew about and had begun to respond internally within twenty-four hours following the incident. But Duke University citizens had no public word from our university leadership until President Richard Brodhead called a press conference on March 28. Two weeks of silent protectionism left all of us vulnerably ignorant of the facts. Receiving emails and telephone calls of concern from friends nationally and internationally, we have been deeply embarrassed by the silence that seems to surround this white, male athletic team's racist assaults (by words, certainly - deeds, possibly) in our community.

It is virtually inconceivable that representatives of Duke University's Athletic Department would allow its lacrosse team to engage in regular underage drinking and out-of-control bacchanalia. It is difficult to imagine a competently managed corporate setting in which such behavior would be tolerated (and swept under the rug), or where such a "team" would survive for more than a day before being tossed out on its ears by security. Moreover, in a forthrightly ethical setting with an avowed commitment to life-enhancing citizenship, such a violent and irresponsible group would scarcely be spirited away, or sheltered under the protection of pious sentiments such as "deplorable" - a judgment that reminds us of Miss Ophelia in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, saying that slavery was "perfectly horrible." Such timorous piety and sentimental legalism, in the opinion of the author James Baldwin, constitutes duck-and-cover cowardice of the first order.

There is no rush to judgment here about the crime - neither the violent racial epithets reported in a 911 call to Durham police, nor the harms to body and soul allegedly perpetrated by white males at 610 Buchanan Boulevard. But there is a clear urgency about the erosion of any felt sense of confidence or safety for the rest of us who live and work at Duke University. The lacrosse team - 15 of whom have faced misdemeanor charges for drunken misbehavior in the past three years - may well feel they can claim innocence and sport their disgraced jerseys on campus, safe under the cover of silent whiteness. But where is the black woman who their violence and raucous witness injured for life? Will she ever sleep well again? And when will the others assaulted by racist epithets while passing 610 Buchanan ever forget that dark moment brought on them by a group of drunken Duke boys? Young, white, violent, drunken men among us - implicitly boasted by our athletic directors and administrators - have injured lives. There is scarcely any shame more egregious than one that wraps itself in the pious sentimentalism of liberal rhetoric as though such a wrap really constituted moral and ethical action.

Duke University's higher administration has engaged in precisely such a tepid and pious legalism with respect to the disaster of recent days: the actual harm to the body, soul, mind, and spirit of black women who were in the company of Duke University lacrosse team members as far as any of us know. All of Duke athletics has now been drawn into the seamy domains of Colorado football and other college and university blind-eying of male athletes, veritably given license to rape, maraud, deploy hate speech, and feel proud of themselves in the bargain.

Many citizens have weighed in, and one hopes all departments, programs, and concerned members of our university community will speak out forcefully for swift and considered corrective action.

But of course, it is not exclusively our academic administration that seems to have refused decisive and meaningful action. The most deafening silence - and, quite possibly, duplicity (which is to say, improbable denial) - has marked, in fact, Duke's Department of Athletics. Where was Joe Alleva before Tuesday's press conference called by President Brodhead? Where now is the commercial charisma of Coach K, who could certainly be out front condemning Duke athletes who call people out of their name from the precincts of university-owned housing? Why aren't such stalwarts of Duke athletics publicly and courageously addressing the horrors that have occurred in their own domain? We remember the very first day of our new President's administration - how he and Coach K shared the media dais, and the basketball magnate was praised for his bold leadership. It all seems rather like an Indonesian shadow play at this moment of crisis. All a show.

What is precipitously teetering in the balance at this point, during weeks marked by inaction and duck-and-cover from our designated leaders is, well, confidence.

It is very difficult to feel confidence in an administration that has not addressed in meaningful ways the horrors that have occurred to actual bodies, to the Durham community of which we are an integral part, and to our sense of being members of a proactive and caring community. Rather, gag orders and trembling liberal rhetorical spins seem to be behaviors du jour from our leaders.

There can be no confidence in an administration that believes suspending a lacrosse season and removing pictures of Duke lacrosse players from a web page is a dutifully moral response to abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence, and drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us.

How many mandates concerning safe, responsible campus citizenship must be transgressed by white athletes' violent racism before our university's offices of administration, athletics, security, and publicity courageously declare: enough!

How many more people of color must fall victim to violent, white, male, athletic privilege before coaches who make Chevrolet and American Express commercials, athletic directors who engage in Miss Ophelia-styled "perfectly horrible" rhetoric, higher administrators who are salaried at least in part to keep us safe, and publicists who are supposed not to praise Caesar but to damn the unconscionable ... how many? Before they demonstrate that they don't just write books, pay lip service, or boast of safe citizenship ... but actually do step up morally, intellectually, and bravely to assume responsibilities of leadership for such citizenship. How many?

How soon will confidence be restored to our university as a place where minds, souls, and bodies can feel safe from agents, perpetrators, and abettors of white privilege, irresponsibility, debauchery and violence?

Surely the answer to the question must come in the form of immediate dismissals of those principally responsible for the horrors of this spring moment at Duke. Coaches of the lacrosse team, the team itself and its players, and any other agents who silenced or lied about the real nature of events at 610 Buchanan on the evening of March 13, 2006. A day that, not even in a clichéd sense, will, indeed, always live in infamy for this university.

A responsible, and in many instances appalled - and yes, frightened - citizenry of Duke University is waiting ... and certainly more than willing to join considered actions by bold leaders to restore confidence in a great institution and its mission. Today I polled my class whose enrollment is predominantly women and white. All said that nothing had happened in terms of this university's response that had left them anything but afraid. The shame of this is unconscionable. Still, these women will surely sleep better this evening than the black woman injured at 610 Buchanan Boulevard by the white lacrosse team's out-of-control violent partying will ever again rest in her life.

[Signed]

Houston A. Baker, Jr.

George D. and Susan Fox Beischer Professor of English

Editor, American Literature

Let's see: "white male privilege," stereotypes about athletes - hell, the author even managed to invoke slavery. And, of course, the wonderful statement about there not being a rush to judgment.

But where are you now - Mr. Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Beischer, and all the others who denounced these innocent players? Where are you now that your heroine stands accused of homicide? Where are you now that this so-called "victim" has been exposed for her lies? Where are you now - the hithertofore loquacious leftists, the race and gender warmongerers who have infested college campuses with their cultural Maxism?

What do you have to say for yourselves?  Will you condemn this perjuring murderer, or will you instruct people that they shouldn't rush to judgment now that Crystal Mangum is sitting in a jail cell, awaiting trial for the most despicable of crimes?

Many years ago, American women suffered from the cult of domesticity. Ms. Mangum, however, suffers from the cult of victimhood, the entitlement mentality that comes with being a minority. Do you still feel sorry for her, just like you feel sorry for the child who butchers his own parents and throws himself on the mercy of the court by virtue of the fact that he is an orphan?

Have you apologized to the lacrosse players now that the falsity of Ms. Mangum's allegations - and yours - is clear for all the world to see?

In your letter, you expressed concern over Ms. Mangum's sleep. But where are you now, that she is sleeping in a jail cell? Why aren't you concerned about her comfort now? Why aren't you defending her against charges of homicide and child abuse? Do you really care about Ms. Mangum, or did you just seize upon the opportunity to condemn a bunch of lacrosse players for who they were - white, male, rich, and successful?

Will you apologize to them for YOUR racism and sexism in helping to perpetuate a false charge? Are you concerned about their sleep in the aftermath of this devastating scandal that has forever harmed their pysches?

Ah, the silence of these scumbags speaks for itself.

It seems that Crystal Mangum has outlived her usefulness, and has now been discarded by her defenders - abandoned in the hour of her most pressing need, cast aside as she was being cast into a jail cell. She was never regarded as a human being by those who claimed to be on her side, but as the personification of a cause - the cause of social justice. And, boy, was she  used! But the hoax fell through, and now she is no longer needed. The professors and politicians who claimed to be Ms. Mangum's friends will let her rot in jail along with all the other single, black mothers and fathers who have been let down by the liberal left.

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And, so, let me continue with my harangue about the Bakers, Beischers, Wrights, Sharptons, Jacksons, Farrakhans, and other asorted cretins.

You condemned the lacrosse players not because they were rapists, but because they were white. You assumed that their race made them criminals; you terrorized a group of entirely innocent people for the crime of having been born white and male.

Since you had the chutzpah to compare these lacrosse players to slaveholders, let me say this. You - you, Mr. Baker - are no different from those who made up blood libels to terrorize Jews in medieval Europe. You are the real racist, the real sexist, and the real offender - and you ought to be ashamed of your despicable deeds.

And to appease you and your politically correct ways, the prosecutors refused to bring charges of perjury against Ms. Mangum. They let her off with a slap on the wrist after she perpetrated a fraud on the whole country, after she terrorized three innocent men with the prospect of utter ruin.

But now, a man is dead - and he died at the hands of this lying low-life. Perhaps he would still be alive today if Ms. Mangum had been incarcerated for perjury. Perhaps he would still be alive today if Ms. Mangum had been incarcerated for arson.

Now, nearly five years later, she is finally sitting where she should have been all along - in jail - but an innocent man has perished by her hand. This is what it took to put a lying low-life where she belongs.

Need we any more proof that political correctness is a deadly scourge?