Crystal Mangum, Where Are You?

I'm not one to beat a dead horse, but this horse a'int quite dead.

I'm wondering a lot lately about the whereabouts of Crystal Mangum. Remember her? Of course you don't. That's because the mainstream media never mentions her, not by name anyway. They like referring to Crystal as the "Duke Rape Case Accuser", never mind that her accusations turned out to be about as true as weapons of mass destruction lying around Baghdad.

The lives of a group of young men were destroyed in their final college year, an iconic Lacrosse coach fired from his job, his career now in shambles; I'm still not sure why. A team's season suspended like the students accused of a horrible crime against poor Crystal. Promising job offers with Wall Street firms rescinded. The fallout was horrible and, had those guys been guilty, so very much deserved. But they weren't.

Today all seems quiet in Raleigh-Durham and in the national media where that case is concerned. Sure, the whacked out D.A. will likely lose his job and his license to practice. Sorry guys, that isn't enough.

Where is Crystal Mangum?

Where are the ambush interviews 60 Minutes is so fond of, generally conducted against white rich guys and possible-crooked televangelists? Gone are the marches lead by the likes of Jesse Jackson and the Rev. (?) Al Sharpton and their sound bites on Fox News and CNN and CBS and NBC and MSNBC and ABC. And the protests, remember those? Thousands of college students, mostly female, black and white, protesting and holding candlelight vigils in front of that infamous house, decrying the injustice which we all thought had been made.

All is quiet but where are the vigils for the real victims of the crime? A single female, pointing a single finger. A powerful finger when attached to a woman. A finger raised which, as if magic, resulted in immediate arrests and accusations and public lynching in the verbal hysterical sense against three or four men innocent of the charges made. Where are their vigils? The marches? Where are reverends Al and Jesse on that injustice? Where are those college women and their candles? Will no one hold vigil for the men, wrongly accused? Will no one speak of the injustice?

And what of the lack of charges filed against Crystal? Where is the outcry on that lack of justice? Do local community and religious leaders, whom were all too willing to be part of the first wave of activism, not speak up for Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann?

Crystal Mangum, not all of us have forgotten.

Posted by JD on June 1, 2007 5:41 PM