The Media Double Standard

I'm not going to call this racism, or media bias. I will let you decide. You will see, as I do, further evidence why (unfortunately) Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will always find work in America. More importantly I will demonstrate to anyone willing to think critically and analytical that 400 years since Jamestown, over 50 years the US Supreme Courts historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision and nearly 30 years since Andrew Hacker published the revealing : Two Nations : Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal; we still have a long way to go.

Unless you live under a rock you are aware charges have been dropped against David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, the three Duke lacrosse players who were accused of raping a stripper. The three young men spent almost 400 days under a cloud of suspicion of the most heinous of crimes. They had to endure stares and whispers while attending classes and living their daily campus lives. In the end though, in an unprecedented move, though there was never a trial the three were pronounced "Innocent" by North Carolina's Attorney General Roy Cooper at a nationally televised press conference.

The ordeal had ended. But is the story over, not if 60 minutes (they are up first) and the rest of the media have anything to say about it. The boys will tell their story and how they have been affected on the popular CBS news program this Sunday.

This reminds me of the story of the Ford Heights Four. Who are the Ford Height Four? Sorry, they didn't get a 60 minutes special or a national news conference. Let me bring you up to speed.

In 1978, Kenneth Adams, Dennis Williams and Willie Rainge were convicted of gang-raping and murdering a twenty-three year old woman and murdering her fiance. The main evidence in the case was the identification testimony of a witness who claimed she saw four men commit the crimes. A fourth man, Verneal Jimerson, was also later convicted. The four young men convicted were to become known as the Ford Heights Four and were sentenced to 75 years (Adams), life without parole (Williams) and death (Rainge and Jimerson) . Each served between10.5 - 18 years of his respective sentence until DNA and other evidence allowed them to be set free thanks to the Innocence project.

Eventually, DNA testing exonerated all four men and implicated three other men, two of whom confessed and pleaded guilty to the crimes in 1997.

The prosecution's star witness later recanted her story, saying she made it up because she felt pressured and threatened by the police. Governor Jim Edgar granted pardons (not proclamations of innocence) to all four men, who were released from prison in 1996.

America didn't get to hear their stories. There was no nationalized pronouncement of their innocence. There has been no 60 Minutes special report. Now, three privileged men with families able to afford the best lawyers, not to mention Duke University, have some how been "scarred for life"? Should the Duke students have been lied about, falsely accused and aggressively (maybe even criminally) prosecuted? No. Does their "ordeal" warrant a 60 minutes special? No.

I am not excusing the accuser but have we let's have some perspective here.

These three All-American boys weren't at the library that faithful night. They were at a party, with a stripper, drinking (two of which would have been underage at the time. Is it me or is something wrong here? One day I would like to send Rev Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson into retirement with Don Imus, unfortunately is doesn't seem that it will be any day soon.