Sixty Minutes
Boy, if ever there was a textbook case of how to subtly bash the victim, it's this show's take on the Duke rape case. They hammer on and on about her 'inconsistant stories' but all the evidence they present is skewed against the victim and for the attackers. Waht might that be?

For starters, they claim that the lacrosse team is a bunch of sparkly little white boys with no history of violence or racism. How, then, do they explain the racist remarks made by the players the night of the party and the constant complaints about the house from the neighbors?

When in the past the unreliability of human memory has served to exonnerate black men convicted of crimes they didn't convict, here it is used merely to impugn the character of the victim. Also, a black man who was a Navy veteran and the victim of a prior racial assault would have had both those facts pointed out in his defense. Not here. Did they say anything about this during the part where I was yelling at the TV? People subjected to trauma do not remember all at once. People subjected to trauma often not be able to identity the person who traumatized them. And so on.

They never challenge the accused at all. They asked them puff ball questions, let the guys whine and say whatever they want. They betrayed no knowledge whatsoever of just how awful that murderous email that the one sick fuck sent out that night. Nor did they bring up the idea of how easy it is to screw with camera phones date function and so forth. Nor did they do anything to stress that there are various ways rapists might not leave DNA.

In short, they gave the attackers all the rope, and then they tightened it around the victim's neck. It was startling the amount of hearsay they permitted about her; the other stripper, the guys accused of raping her, her unnamed boss-----all those people are permitted to present their opinions of her, unchallenged. Yeah, how accurate are those opinions? Do we know anyting about these people?

IF these guys were poor white guys or poor black guys, they'd be locked up. Poor guys rape, you know. They're so easy to provoke. And poor women cannot be Navy veterans and strippers. That's too complicated. You can only be a Navy vet if you emulate men.

Every time they had a chance to present something that glared to be presented on behalf of the victim, they missed it. Every time they could shave the line for the rich white boys and make them seem downtrodden and oppresed, they did.

They're going to let these guys know, but not before they make the victim into a lying hysterical slut.

Do we know what happend? No, we don't. But I know this: the victim's story was presented in such a way to convict her, and there were glaring ommissions. There were whitewashes in the case of the attackers, who happen to be rich and white and male. And presenting pictures of the women stripping just reinforces for the public the idea that strippers can't be raped, that rape only happens in dark alleys, and that rape can't happen in five minutes----or if it does, it doesn't really matter.

Sixty Minutes just reinforced the myth of the dark alley rapist by presenting, in effect, only the attackers' excuses, and left the victim out entirely. In so doing, they also asserted the racial stereotypes of rape as well: black rapist in an alleyway, white innocent victim by attempting to slant a story with the opposite dynamic. In this country, the population of women most likley to be raped are black women, while the ones least likely to report it are....black women. Sixty Minutes just sent a familiar and bitter message to them and to other women: make sure you don't get raped by a bunch of rich white boys. It'll be their word against yours, and three outnumbers one.