This is the same Aurelia Sands Belle who penned a guilt-presuming April 11, 2007 press release about the decision of “Attorney General Roy Copper[sic]” to dismiss all charges and declare the players innocent.
No mention of innocence in Belle’s release—merely a grudging statement that “it is always the prosecutor’s perogative [sic] whether or not to move forward with a case.” She then asserted:
The circumstances from which these charges arose – a party where women were hired to gratify young men – only served to denigrate men and women and further reinforce harmful stereotypes. The fact that underage drinking took place at this party highlights the reality that alcohol is a well-known aggravating factor in sexual assault, especially on college campuses. Rape is not sex; it is an act of violence and it dehumanizes all involved. This dehumanization is further emphasized by the differences in race, gender, and class. [emphasis added]This latter comment suggests that Belle still believes that a rape actually occurred. (Catotti obviously does, as well.)
Belle has apparently not offered a statement on whether groups of women hiring male strippers is a “well-known aggravating factor” in crimes. There were victims in the case, according to Belle—but not the three falsely accused Duke students. Rather, she asserted, “our concern is that this situation has made it more difficult for other victims to come forward for the help they need and the justice they deserve . . . The publicity around these events has served to re-traumatize some.”
Along with the fact that Belle’s organization receives more than $160,000 from the organization she is supposed to investigate, the statements above raise grave doubts about Belle’s fitness to serve. The City Council should block Catotti’s attempt to render the inquiry stillborn, and reject Belle’s nomination.
[Update, 7.21pm: To give a sense of the intellectual circles in which Belle travels, this site, by a Duke graduate student in English, has a hagiographic poem about Belle--just before a comparable poem hailing . . . Wahneema Lubiano(!).]
48 comments:
What an appalling ignoramus and bigot Aurelia proves herself to be.
This is why I am changing and voting republican. The leftist loones are just too extreme. I can't live in a country with these idiots in control. I don't care how bad the republicans are, at least they don't try to send INNOCENT people to jail. Truly Pathetic
I used to think those in power in the City of Durham were criminal. Now I know they are criminal and just plain stupid. The majority of the voters in Durham are dirt dumb.
Looks as though Aurelia is fighting hard for "jus-tiss".
Gotta keep that $160,000 coming in for the "cause".
Like so many in Durham, righteous Aurelia is "about the business of" assisting the "downtrodden"....."by any means necessary".
Aurelia "be gettin' it done"........at someone else's expense, of course.
Debrah
I agree, Belle should not be on the review panel.
I have a question, will the Nifong trial be covered by Court TV? Is WRAL going to show it in its entirety? I am going out of town and need to set my DVR.
KC's going to need a Volume II.
Only in Durham. It seems that this is a city where only lies prevail, and the truth forever is gone. One can be thankful for the remnant of decent people in Durham, but there are not many left.
HUH?????? So, no Lax friendlys, but this shill can be on this stupid dog-and-pony panel??? This just takes the cake!!!! Is there *anyone* out there who actually thinks that this is going to be fair?
Maybe we should be happy that they don't have subpeona power, because if they did, they'd probably subpeona Dave, Reade, and Collin to appear before the committee...to explain what happened (since of course, something happened)...I'm really starting to believe that that at least some people who are putting this panel together are doing so in order to try the innocent guys...where are the Feds?? I could cry...
Righteous Aurelia is an expert in the area of violence against women:
Oh_Aurelia_It_Was_Just_A_False_Alarm
Debrah
She has a B.A. in Urban Studies from some school I've never heard of.
A true kindred spirit of Duke's Gang of 88.
ROTFLM-T's-O !!!
Debrah
The individual who filed the complaint originally was an adult several years older than the young males in the house. Rather than rely on student loans and other means of obtaining income this individual chose the street in terms of making money and the life style it represented. The individual was known to the police. I have often wondered what the relationship was between this individual and the police and the sex trade industry in Durham. Two early agitators, Jackson and Sharpton, left the scene early. I can only think that they were educated in a way that others were not as to the true nature of what was happening and continued agitation was too much of a risk given both individuals' history. It all means that DPD found it easier to plow ahead in this mendacity. They have been successful in the past keeping this kind of thing under their control. The Group88, while certainly not innocent, are as naive as the young men of the lacrosse team, and few in Durham outside of the defense lawyers and the three young defendents and their team mates have stood up for what makes a community workable. This is a sad, sad story about others all the way around.
The "poems" are funny in their cluelessness (and there's one about Karla Holloway too), but aren't as drop-dead hilarious as the unforgettable "afraid of indigestion" opus from the Day of Truthtelling video (still viewable on Youtube.)
The tired mantra....."rape is not sex" is like saying cannibalism does not provide a meal.
Of course rape is sex; and given the degree of physical attractiveness of some of the women who cry "RAPE"....it might also be a coup for them.
Yes, that was intentionally misogynistic.....a dose of much-deserved combative misogyny toward some of these politically correct, harmful, and clueless parasites.
Debrah
Wouldn't a few libel/slander suits right now illustrate how corrupt Durham really is? Some of the people suggested for the panel would have to defend their libelous and slanderous statements in a federal court. The discovery process would be illuminating. This panel is part of the continuing hoax/frame.
Debrah,
I think I love you.
TO 8:47PM--
Think?
You mean you're not sure?
(Grin) :>)
Debrah
Debrah,
Please. I'm thinking, I'm thinking!
Right now it's a maybe - no it's a perhaps - no it's kinda...I'm thinking, I'm thinking.
O.K. Polanski, admit it, face a face, you're in love with Debrah
Being nominated doesn't mean Belle will necessarily be accepted> does it?
Anonymous 7:04 said...
...This is why I am changing and voting republican. The leftist loones are just too extreme. I can't live in a country with these idiots in control. I don't care how bad the republicans are, at least they don't try to send INNOCENT people to jail. Truly Pathetic
::
Now-Now. No need to be THAT drastic
Small problem here.
The poets are running the ship over in Durham and they don't know how to remove the barnacles from the hull of the U.S.S. Duke. The bottom of the boat needs support.
The Alums need to put on their farm boots and scrapers and get over to the Durham dry dock soon.
Removing those barnacles could be the first large project for DukeEngage.
::
GP
A bit off topic but sometimes judges do go to the slammer:
Judge who fixed divorce cases sent to prison
NEW YORK (AP) -- An ex-judge who accepted expensive gifts in exchange for helping fix divorce cases and a former state lawmaker convicted in a scheme to shake down a judicial candidate were sentenced to prison Tuesday.
...
Earlier in the day, former state assemblyman Clarence Norman Jr. surrendered in the same Brooklyn courtroom to begin serving a two-to-six-year term.
The Garson case arose from a broader investigation into allegations that civil judgeships were being bought and sold for up to $50,000.
---------------------
I'm kind of amazed that in the age of the internet, that people still try to get away with this stuff.
I think that this is what makes the behaviour of Duke, DPD, Nifong, City Council, etc. so bizarre. They don't seem to be able to see that others can see what idiots they are.
I assume that Nartey is a fairly sharp guy and I'm surprised that he doesn't put his story out there in the public admitting that he rushed to judgement and that he's deeply sorry that he sent the two emails to Pressler. Instead, when someone googles his name, they see all of these posts about him on Liestoppers and Durham in Wonderland and assorted sports sites.
I should imagine that the Democratic party in Durham may well have some worries come voting time after this stupid nonsense?
TO Michael--
Aren't you getting it yet?
The reason so many of us have been shocked by all of this?
People like Nartey are happy that they can help serve a dose of "cosmic justice" along the way.
Their goal is not anything as rational as "Oops! My bad." Unfortunately, some of us who really lived and believed the "equality for all" bullshit, have been met with a disgusting underbelly of the PC crowd and so very many in the black community who really wanted....and still want.....Reade, Collin, and David to pay.....for something. They can't articulate any longer just what, but "something happened".
It's a disgusting mess in America. And I will paraphrase Ed Koch when he commented on the outrageous glee and Schadenfreude exhibited when OJ got away with a double murder:
Most in the black community are hanging themselves with this irrational behavior. They show us all that it's not equality they want, just revenge......even as they have ridden a free AA train for decades. There is no end to the gigantic suction of expectation.
Debrah
With A.S. Belle already on board, why not fill the two black male slots with Chan "Convict them Even if They're Innocent" Hall and Solomon "Kill Whities" Burnette?
And of course, no slots for the only victims of the hoax: white males who are on the wrong side of a badge.
Now that's funny! (9:59)
Or not -- sigh :(.
Back when the Herald Sun was a solid and balanced newspaper.....when Bob Wilson was running the editorial pages....Greg Childress was there.
Greg was a very gracious and rational person then every time we had a conversation. He was working on the editorial page then as he is now....being retained by the bottom-feeding Paxton Media Group who bought the paper and have since destroyed it.
Greg is now working with Bob Ashley and Ron Landfried. FYI, Landfried makes Dennis Kucinich look like Tom Delay.....so the editorial pages of the paper are now a joke.
This lacrosse case has uncovered the true character of so many. Perhaps that will be its legacy long after Mike Nifong has been dealt justice.
After years of pretending to be a cool, objective guy, Greg Childress was the person who said to me...."Countless black men have been falsely accused in the past. What's such a big deal about these lacrosse players?".....when I complained about the Herald Sun's loony editorial after the "60 Minutes" segment.
So, you see......if you want to know why Reade, Collin, and David...as well as their families....have been sent through this long ride in hell, it's because of the gross, gluttonous, outrageous, and greedy-spirited need for a segment of people in this country to continue dancing on the graves of their ancestors....for their own personal aggrandizement.
Debrah
No doubt, Bill Bell will go along with this, and we will have a document that says the DPD was the Seeker of Truth, and the "Something Happened" that night at 610 Buchanan Ave.
One would hope that the powers that be in Durham would understand that everyone with half a brain knows they are nothing but liars. Truly disgusting people.
The panel cannot be independent if someone from DCRC is on the panel. According to their website, they help train DPD officers and Duke Medical Center personnel in interviewing victims, etc. So, the training DCRC provides -- and that the department receives from them --will surely be a subject of the investigation.
If they are going to have a sexual assault counselor on the panel, that person should come from another part of the state.
I can only hope that Willis Whichard will see the conflict as insurmountable and refuse to chair the panel if a representative of the DCRC is on it.
One would hope that the City would see that if it Commissions a truly independent investigation and asks the panel to a thorough job, it might head off action from some other investigative bodies, such as the USDOJ. However, if the feds see that another whitewash is in the works, it may encourage them to step in.
Ken Duke
Durham
Didn't I hear back in the days of this 'investigatory commission' that it was to be an INDEPENDENT commission?
How can it claim to be any such thing when one of its proposed members receives a share of the $160,000 paid by the very institution it's supposed to be independent of?
Ms. Catotti is cynically flouting the 'independence' principle, and if the Judge who's the head of the investigation doesn't preach a little common sense against this scam, the whole inquiry is rotted before birth.
Hmmm... Aurelia Sands Belle is Catotti's poison pill, no more or less.
This so-called panel is a joke. It's time for some attorneys to step forward and suggest legal avenues for citizens to take. Another travesty of justice should not be allowed. Stop Catotti. Stop Baker. Stop Durham corruption.
Diane Catotti is 46.
Her husband is 73.
What does she know about sex?
11:09
That's a good point. So many of these loudmouths seem to live vicariously.
Jealous of the poetry written for Wahneema, Aurelia, and Karla, I too, have composed some lines:
Durham haiku
Truth raises a lump -
Catotti puts ice on it.
Her hands are freezing.
-I call this next one
Thud
One…two…Ubuntu
what have they
done to you?
dancing, indigestibly
Wahneema!
Duke graduate student in English, has a hagiographic poem about Belle--just before a comparable poem hailing . . . Wahneema Lubiano(!).]
Boy, talk about sucking up for a grade ... but it really needs a weird performance art dance thing to be complete.
11:46
That's pretty good!
The Wahneema poem is even more lame and illiterate than the one for Belle.
"glass cielding"?
you guys need to face it: many people in durham both white and black still believe something happened and that Cooper is full of crap. that is why they are manuevering the way they are on this panel. the panel is going to hold their own mini-investigation and the results are going to be quite interesting. also Nifong is going to be disciplined but not disbarred by the Bar. count on it.
But something did happen that night and a crime *was* committed!
-- A stripper false accused others of rape.
To 1:58 AM:
Mike,
Isn't it past your bedtime? Did you foget to take your meds again?
As I pointed out in the Levicy related threads feminists have so politicised issues surrounding sexual abuse that rational debate or solutions have become impossible.
Emmy said...
I'm really starting to believe that that at least some people who are putting this panel together are doing so in order to try the innocent guys...where are the Feds?? I could cry...
No question. They simply cannot accept that the record will reflect that a rape didn't occur. Their revisionism and attempts to obscure the truth begin.
"Rape is not sex; it is an act of violence and it dehumanizes all involved. This dehumanization is further emphasized by the differences in race, gender, and class."
I'd read Belle's statement before, but this is the first time I noticed one thing that it says--the dehumanization of rape is "further emphasized by the differences in . . . gender." So, apparently she is saying that heterosexual rape is inherently MORE dehumanizing than homosexual rape? Wow.
Probably that is not what she meant, or if it is, she just wasn't thinking about the implications of her statement. But could some of these people who are so ready to opine piously at all times maybe just once think about what they are saying?
1:58
Wrong, Wrong, And wrong again.
Nifong's ass is going to be disbarred if he doesn't resign and walk away from his and Mangum's high crimes.
It seems quite clear that this appointment to the board conducting the 'investigation' is a sham designed to validate the DPD's methodology in rape cases. After all, as another wrote, stacking the deck with people who have such obvious conflicts of interest (e.g., funding for the 'training' of law enforcement and justice personnel in the feminist dogma that was a main contributor to this mess, etc.) is most certainly going to be a poison pill vis-a-vis the findings. After all, it was the training that feminists like Aurelia provide to law enforcement and the judiciary that caused the approach of 'women never lie, so the men must be guilty of at least something' and subsequent rush to judgement, therefore, we can't have anybody pointing this obvious fact out, now can we? Why, it might make people pause and consider whether or not providing funding for such activities is really a good idea, and that just isn't acceptable.
The only adequate response is to send the Feds in to sort this out.
Federal investigation is certainly needed. This case is a civil rights disaster. Unfortunately, the only way to get the G-88 and their toadies and lickspittles like Broadhead and the entire board out of power is to put economic and legal pressure on them. This will not be easy or inexpensive. If those who believe in a just society of laws want justice, they are going to need the litigation by people with a good case, like the wronged players and the coach.
I can't blame Coach Pressler for reaching a settlement so he and his family can get back to some semblance of a normal life. I hope the players and their parents sue, but they have to decide what is best for them. Duke administrators and trustees realize that open court is the last place they want to settle the cases.
That leaves us with trying to educate the Duke alumni and supporters to stop donating until substantive changes have been made. That is not going to be easy, but I think we should recognize that an economic and enrollment boycott of Duke is probably one of the few ways to make these merciless folks like Steel and Broadhead consider change.
Folks, the lunatics have taken control of the asylum long ago. Broadhead, Chafee, Deutsch and the rest at Duke are not alone. Consider the events at Harvard, or the case of Ward Churchill at Colorado. Ideologues have replaced scholars on campus long ago, the few honest academics like KC Johnson and Bill Anderson are outnumbered by the ideologues and their gutless enablers.
"our concern is that this situation has made it more difficult for other victims to come forward for the help they need and the justice they deserve..."
Although this point may have been brought up a number of time before, it bears repeating again and again: one should absolutely never underestimate the capacity of this concern to thoroughly trump all others in the minds of some who claim to be social activists. Especially a subset who have secure middle-class incomes or background (or tenure) and who claim to carry within themselves the hopes and aspirations of the downtrodden. The concern expressed above is always considered more important than the actual facts of a specific case.
People of this vanguard mindset, in my experience, not only appoint themselves as agents for those they see as socially downtrodden but also assume the role of a public advocate for an accuser who fits the description, whether or not this role has been requested.
As a result, they will attempt to speak as if they are an aggressive lawyer acting on behalf of the accuser, rather than as a citizen seeking to objectively determine the actual facts of the matter. Among some -- but certainly not all -- activists, there is an ideological construct in their minds to push forward the interests of an individual member of a group that has faced social discrimination, no matter what the specific circumstances. This happens on the political left, as the Duke mess endlessly demonstrates; the right also includes some who mirror this kind of behavior, though in their own ways and with their own psuedo-narratives (i.e., various "wise use" property rights activists, to name one example).
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"you guys need to face it: many people in durham both white and black still believe something happened and that Cooper is full of crap"
Back in the day, I saw the BBC's (April 1, 1957) report on the damage created by frost conditions affecting Swiss spaghetti tree orchards near harvest time. In the aftermath, not only myself, but many here in the Midwest of all classes, races and genders viewed the subsequent hoax claims as being nothing more than just crap. Like many British citizens at the time the report aired, we have sought to obtain the seeds to grow these fine trees in our own yards, -- if only the hybrid seed corporations (the deniers) will let us have them.
Something did happen.
"One would hope that the powers that be in Durham would understand that everyone with half a brain knows they are nothing but liars."
They know. They also know that they've been getting away with it for a long time - why should that change now?
"I should imagine that the Democratic party in Durham may well have some worries come voting time after this stupid nonsense?"
Probably not - see exchange above:
"...This is why I am changing and voting republican....
::
Now-Now. No need to be THAT drastic"
Which is why the Durham city government feels no need to change anything in the aftermath of this mess.
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