Hmmmm..... Community

This Duke case is getting more and more interesting. Although it has taken Duke a lengthy time to produce comments and sincerity about the community issues that are at hand, I must say that I am happy that the underlying issue of race and class are being taken seriously.

Reading different articles about this case I came across the word "community" a lot. In most cases it's referring to this rich white community in the center of a poor black community. So now that a black woman has been allegedly raped by these white men, it seems that the university wants to take a communitarian aprroach in handling this case. They now want to look at the differences that surround them and incorporate them into an unfortunate incident.

My question is why does something awful have to happen, in order for this realization to take place?

Brodhead, in his reunion remarks, said a conversation that had touched him most profoundly was with the head of the North Carolina NAACP, who told him, "If you ever want someone to come and stand by you and talk about the damage that can be done by prejudging, by judging people because of a group they belong to and some theory you have of that group rather than actual evidence, you come to me.'" Brodhead added. "And actually, there has been so much prejudgment in this case. It has been a powerful lesson in how deep the passions of prejudice run, all kinds of prejudice--prejudices against athletes, prejudices against the South, have been very, very visible in the Northern media all through this."

It seems to me that what the head of that chapter of NAACP was trying to infer to Brodhead is that the Black community goes through prejudice everyday, nonstop. If the communitarian approach to life itself in this Duke/Durham community had been used prior to this incident I believe that the troubles and hardships of the media and this case could have been avoided.