Spreadin' Love

I'm chore-girl today. Busy ticking off haircuts, birthday gifts, food, and folders off the to do list. I really hate doing this stuff, because it never goes away. I get the kids' hair cut and then it grows and I have to do it all over again. I'm considering getting electrolysis for their heads and a sensible wig.

A proper post later tonight. In the mean time, some links.

Fun chat at Burke's blog about the university admission process.

For more talk about hot polygamous love, read the Times, Dooce, and Vindauga.

Morgan Spurlock has more than Big Macs in his mouth these days. Now, he has inserted his foot, as well. Read Joanne Jacobs to hear more about Spurlock pissing off parents of kids with disabilities.

The lacrosse team at Duke raped a black stripper. Completely disgusted. Read New Kid and Rachel from Alas, a Blogand the Times and Chris Lawrence who has the inside Duke scoop.

Comments

[dave s]

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries is all over the Duke story. It is revolting. Odious. Players mostly from private schools in the DC area (which fits, that's where lacrosse is big). Confirms me in my notions that I want my kids in public school. That, and $25000 per year per kid difference...

http://margaretsoltan.phenominet.com/

[Laura]

State schools for my kids, too. Those places are breeding grounds for smug, self-centered, assholes who think the world was created for them. All the competition for them among the top schools and the insulation of the college campus makes it worse.

It's interesting how different bloggers react to the story. Some see it as an example of how men are assholes, for others it's all about race. For me, I see class.

One of the Duke assholes actually said to the poor woman who was giving him a lap dance, "Thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt." Who would say something like that? Who would think something like that?

[Amy P]

But don't star athletes at state schools get away with a lot, too?

[Chris Lawrence]

Laura, I have to say that while there are quite a lot of stuck-up kids at Duke, there were just as many at Ole Miss (which is public). Granted, that may be atypical of state schools, but I think a lot of "flagship" schools attract the same types of kids. And there's something to be said for teaching kids who may be stuck-up but at least have the brains to match it--plenty of undergrads at Ole Miss thought they were better than everyone else, but many were also a lot dumber than everyone else too. The most down-to-earth kids I have taught were at Millsaps, which is selective and private.

Even then, though, the preppies and ego hounds are outliers. By far the vast majority of the students I've taught in my career have been simply great kids, including the athletes (and at least one member of the men's lacrosse team), although I can't speak to most of their demeanors outside the classroom (except at Millsaps, where I had more out-of-class contact with students). If that hadn't been the case, I'd have given up on teaching before finishing my degree.

[Laura]

Okay. Over reaction on my part. I'm sure that there are a lot of great kids at Duke, Harvard, Yale.

What these guys did reeks of supreme arrogance. They hurt this woman, because they thought that she was worthless and they were untouchable. Where did those feelings of superiority come from? Gender, race, class? All of the above?

I do have to wonder if the private college atmosphere, which does fall all over these golden boys, was one contributing factor.

[Amy P]

Laura,
Don't forget alcohol on your list of contributing factors!

[Laura]

Sure, alcohol. But I've seen lots of drunk people (and been there myself many times), and I have never heard of anyone making a comment about their cotton shirt to a black woman and then raping her. Being drunk just releases whatever aggression and arrogance that is already in a person.

[dix hill]

"Where did those feelings of superiority come from? Gender, race, class? All of the above?"

Yes.

As awful as this is for the victims, it's kind of stimulating being at Duke during this furor. Hopefully Duke will be better for it. Durham is essentially a blue collar town, and largely African-American and Hispanic, and Duke students are mostly white, well-to-do, and from out of state. There are big town-gown problems here, including chronic complaints from the neighborhoods near campus, usually involving not violence but drunken boorishness. And this controversy goes straight to the heart of all those tensions.

Having been in and around fraternities and jocks in my student days, there's a group psychology thing that happens. Young men who are pefectly decent when you meet them individually become beyond obnoxious in groups of their own kind. I don't have the link handy, but the Duke Chronicle (the student paper) has a piece reporting that the lacrosse players were seen being drunk and rowdy in public SINCE the scandal has broken. Clueless.

[I'm a staff person at Duke -- I don't know you, Chris, but Hi.]

[Chris Lawrence]

Hi Dix! "All of the above" does seem to cover it; the NCCU president called it the "perfect storm" and I think he's right.

Frankly, though, I think the town-gown problems would be a lot better if the police and code enforcement actually did anything in Trinity Park. The frat morons get away with the boorish behavior because the city, by and large, lets them, instead leaving it to ALE (the state equivalent to ATF) to go and break up parties every once and a while. And ALE always manages to screw up the technicalities of the searches and arrests, so everyone beats the charges at trial or plea-bargains to zero punishment.

A bit of proactive "broken windows" policing and these problems off East would largely go away.

[Laura]

The town-gown problem at Duke was on the front page of the Times today.

[Amy P]

Another possible issue is pornography--I expect that the criminal investigation is going to reveal a vast and vile collection in the homes of the suspects.