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DUKE CASE, IN BLACK AND WHITE

WHAT WAS LOST IN THE RUSH TO ACCUSE

THE QUESTION is not whether or not three Duke lacrosse players actually raped Crystal Gail Mangum back in March 2006.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said yesterday that they didn't, and dropped all charges against the players accused of sexual assault. The question is whether your reaction to the news can be completely unfiltered by your race.

That is: If you're black, can you think about this case as anything but the same old story: That whites get a better brand of justice than blacks, and that Ms. Mangum not only got raped but screwed?

And if you're white, can you think about this case as something other than a witch hunt, driven by a prosecutor hungry for re-election who exploited the fact that the three accused were privileged athletes at a white school who thought they could get away with rape?

Add the additional filter of gender and class, and it's a case in which the facts become loaded. But according to the attorney general, the facts are that the accuser in a rape case provided conflicting and inconsistent testimony, including the point that one of the people she originally accused was miles away at the time of the alleged incident. The prosceutor in the case was running for election and took short cuts that resulted in an ethics inquiry, including burying DNA evidence that exonerated the three accused.

The attorney general cited a "tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations."

But beyond the face value of the facts is a long history of "otherwise": cases in which crimes against blacks are buried under the rug; in which privileged white athletes get a set of rules just for them, and in which radio personalities can call black women "hos" and (so far) get away with it.

You'd have to be blind to ignore this history.

That's why the tragedy in this case is that the person we must rely on to be blind - the prosecutor in charge of bringing justice in this case - wasn't.

And as a result, our ability to see the world in terms not loaded by race, gender, class or even politics, becomes more elusive than ever.

Which means the truth of that night - hard-partying college boys who escaped trouble, or a troubled woman who lied and brought a world of hurt to others - will always remain out of reach, even though the case is now closed. *