news you need to know.

i am just getting up to speed today on the Duke lacrosse team rape case. if you haven't heard, police are collecting dna from 46 out of 47 members of the duke lacrosse team, which has refused to cooperate with an investigation into an alleged rape of a stripper at an off-campus party hosted by the team.

the story, unsuprisingly, is pretty horrific, and the feminist blogosphere has been working to keep the pressure on in terms of public attention for the case. as many have pointed out, race and class are huge factors here - the 46 team members being investigated are white, and the woman is a black student from a nearby college who was dancing to pay her way through school. some salient points:

rachel: "The race/class/gender dynamics of this whole case are really scary, and they reveal a great deal about out power structure inthis country. This young woman ended up in the vulnerable position of being a sex worker because she was trying to better her family and her education. The two young women left the party after the racial slurs began and they feared for their safety, but I can't help wondering if they were thinking about how they were going to pay their bills or feed their kids when they went back in, something most of these young men don't even have to think about."

barb: "Just like the world doesn't notice that a lot of young black women go missing as well as white ones...I think this country will treat these women who were raped in the same way: they'll talk about it for a bit, portray as just the typical antics of fratboy atheletes, blind themselves to issues of race and class involved here and then forget about it."

cinnamon: "I'm appalled by the alleged behavior of these men. And I say alleged solely because not saying it could get me sued if they're able to hire well-strung lawyers and get off. And I could go off about it, but instead I'm going to tell you how appalled I am by the headlines...After going through three screens of headlines on Google News, I come across 2(!) headlines that actually place the accusation of rape as the subject of headlines. The rest are all about how the Lacrosse team doesn't get to play until more information comes out during the investigation."

i'd urge you all to follow this case, and speak up about it. i know that i'm going to.