(Shout out to Krista Summitt for passing this to me!)

An African American woman was allegedly raped, assaulted, and racially terrorized by members of the Duke University Men’s Lacrosse team. According to Saturday’s Raleigh Observer, the woman and a friend were hired as exotic dancers for a bachelor party with 5 men. Upon their arrival, however, there were more than 40 people in the house. Soon after they began their performance, the men became aggressive and began to scream racial slurs at them. (At one point in the evening a player was heard saying “thank your grandpa for the cotton in my shirt”) Scared, the women began to cry, collected their things, and left. Soon after, someone apologized and coaxed them back into the house to perform again. Moments later, one of the women was dragged into a bathroom where she says she was beaten and raped by at least 3 players. Police have requested DNA samples from 46 players in order to break the “wall of silence” that is quickly developing around the tragedy.

I’m interested to see how this incident plays out on the national stage. Particularly, I want to see how the media and the university will make it seem that this is an isolated incident completely disconnected from a history of white male abuse of black female bodies. I’m also waiting to hear the inevitable blame-the-victim discourses that will develop because the sisters were strippers. Lastly, I fully expect no one to problematize the “wall of silence” that is developing in terms of its relationship to the “stop snitching” movement that has developed in hip-hop.

Most important, it’s critical that we keep our eyes and ears open about this story, lest it be swept under the media rug in favor of something less important.

The whole story can be accessed at: http://www.newsobserver.com/680/story/421799.html