Durham's Debate: Pay Or Fight

by Anne Blythe and Matt Dees - September 20th, 2007 - News & Observer

Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, some in Durham say, are beginning to come across as greedy, more concerned about hitting the jackpot at public expense than as the champions of the less affluent they billed themselves to be.

Supporters, however, caution that such contemptuous reactions could amount to another rush to judgment of players who at the start were portrayed as hooligans and later as heroes triumphing over injustice.

". . . champions of the less affluent they billed themselves to be." I can't remember when these boys ever billed themselves as champions of the less affluent. It seems to me they billed themselves as people wrongly accused by a rogue D.A. backed by a racist community of blacks and liberals who were prepared to convict them without a trial. They were being railroaded by false accusations and rigged "evidence". Demanding that false allegations be dropped does not require that you be a champion of the less affluent. It merely requires that you be innocent.

Is $30 million too much to aks for having your life destroyed by people who were so guilty of misconduct themselves? I think it depends on who you ask.

If you ask the 88 Duke University liberal-marxist-socialist professors who declared the boys guilty in an ad they took out in local newspapers, calling them racist and expressing outrage that they were not summarily hanged, (well maybe that is a slight exaggeration . . . but not by much) the boys are still guilty and deserve nothing! Just read some of their recent comments. The professors do not believe they did anything wrong in taking out the ad. Some of them still believe the boys guilty. And some of them don't care whether they were guilty or not, they feel that white society is guilty and that therefore these boys should have gone to jail as proxys for white guilt.

If you ask the Durham tax payers (who elected the abusive D.A. Nifong) they mirror the comments of Sandy Ogburn, a former City Council member, who wants the city to take the case to court. "I am unwilling to give those boys a single penny . ."

Not a penny? Not even when they have been so obviously wronged?

This case is still about racism. Durham blacks do not think the boys should have gotten off. Guilt or innocence of the boys was never the question. Many blacks believe the white community to a man (or woman) owes them something for past racism and destroying these boys lives was never a big deal.

Our courts are not the best place to resolve this. I suspect that before this is over these boys will be demeaned again through ongoing smears by those in Durham who have been ready to condemn them since day one.

Not a penny? Wow. Now there is justice for you.