It’s rather difficult to reconcile the McSurely memo, McSurely’s repeated condemnation of the defense attorneys, the state NAACP’s call to gag the defense attorneys, and the assertion next to Barber’s face of the lacrosse players committing “crimes and torts” with a description of Barber as a figure who urged “people to withhold judgment on the accused and accuser until the legal process played out.”
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
On the Rev. Barber
Amidst the lacrosse case, more-than-occasional comparisons
occurred to the Tawana Brawley rape hoax. The cases, in fact, don’t seem to me
all that much alike: there was no prosecutorial misconduct in the Brawley case
(if anything, there was the reverse), and there was nothing like 88 Columbia or
Fordham or NYU professors taking out a full-page ad to proclaim something “happened”
to Brawley.
But there is one similarity between the two cases—the eventual
mainstreaming of advocates for the false accusers. In the Brawley case, of
course, the highest-profile such figure was Rev. Al Sharpton, who has evolved
from a charlatan to a Democratic presidential candidate (2004) to host of a talk show on which many Democratic politicians appear.
In the lacrosse case, the best example of mainstreaming
comes with the Rev. William Barber, head of North Carolina’s NAACP. Since Republicans
captured control of the state’s legislature in 2010 and then governorship in
2012, Barber has assumed a high-profile role in the state’s politics. In 2012,
even as the state’s African-Americans favored marriage discrimination by a 20-point
margin, Barber led the opposition to Amendment One; its passage made North
Carolina almost certainly the last state to add an anti-gay amendment to
its state constitution. And last year, Barber again marshaled protests against
what election law expert Rick Hasen has termed one of the most
restrictive voting laws in the nation, a measure that will disproportionately
affect the very poor, minorities, and students.
Those who followed the lacrosse case, however, should recall
a very different image of Barber than a figure who courageously stands up
against majority sentiment on behalf of civil liberties and civil rights. Instead,
his organization rivaled the Herald-Sun
and the Group of 88 in serving as the biggest local cheerleader for Nifong’s
case.
That’s not the image, however, a reader would have gathered
from Anne Blythe’s recent profile of Barber. Blythe (whose reporting on the
lacrosse case I generally admired) wrote
the following: “In
2006 and 2007, he frequently weighed in on the Duke lacrosse case, highlighting
issues of racial disparity while urging people to withhold judgment on the
accused and accuser until the legal process played out.”
I suppose it’s true that Barber’s remarks at the time could
be seen as “highlighting issues of racial disparity”—though since the events
involved a prosecutor exploiting the case to maximize his share of the black vote, Barber should have emerged as a fierce critic of the race-baiting Mike Nifong, something that most definitely did not occur.
Suggesting that the reverend wanted people to withhold judgment,
in any case, is hard to square with Barber’s record. It’s true that—unlike the
Group of 88—Barber was savvy enough to toss in a line about withholding
judgment to most of his public remarks. But everything
the NAACP did in the lacrosse case presumed guilt.
To review:
The State NAACP presented an 82-point “memorandum of law” in August 2006. Riddled with factual errors—all
of which tilted the presentation in favor of Nifong’s case—the “memorandum of
law” falsely claimed that: “the only Black [lacrosse] player, a
freshman, left the party before the dancers arrived”; “the lacrosse team member
asked the women to dance and simulate sex acts between them, similarly to
scenes from a book and movie that several of the Lacrosse team members enjoyed
reading and talking about—American Psycho”; “after about three minutes
of dancing . . . there were racial remarks made”; and perhaps most outrageously,
a simple invention of facts to make Reade Seligmann look guilty: “around 12:20,
some men who saw the vulnerable Ms. M returning to the house called their
friends who had taken cabs and gone to get some cash from an ATM. Some
returned. Sometime between approximately 12:21 and 12:53, Ms. M has stated she
was kidnapped into the bathroom, beaten, robbed, choked, and vaginally and
anally raped.”
Lest there be any doubt of Barber’s
connection to the memo, written by NAACP legal advisor Al McSurely, here’s a screenshot
of the NAACP’s then-webpage, with Barber’s photo alongside the memo.
Note that the webpage also leads with the wild claim—right next to Barber’s face—about “Crimes and Torts [no withholding judgment here] Committed by Duke Lacrosse Team Players on 3/13 and 3/14.”
It’s rather difficult to reconcile the McSurely memo, McSurely’s repeated condemnation of the defense attorneys, the state NAACP’s call to gag the defense attorneys, and the assertion next to Barber’s face of the lacrosse players committing “crimes and torts” with a description of Barber as a figure who urged “people to withhold judgment on the accused and accuser until the legal process played out.”
It’s rather difficult to reconcile the McSurely memo, McSurely’s repeated condemnation of the defense attorneys, the state NAACP’s call to gag the defense attorneys, and the assertion next to Barber’s face of the lacrosse players committing “crimes and torts” with a description of Barber as a figure who urged “people to withhold judgment on the accused and accuser until the legal process played out.”
The State NAACP also appointed a legal “monitor,” NCCU
professor Irving Joyner, to observe the case. Joyner spent most of his time
apologizing for Nifong’s conduct in a manner that might have made William D.
Cohan blush. Over the course of 2006, Joyner and McSurely repeatedly
took pro-Nifong stances that contradicted longstanding positions of the
national NAACP; their (and Barber’s) silence about the rigged photo array was
particularly outrageous given past NAACP work on the question.
Barber himself traveled to Duke Chapel as Nifong’s case
imploded, and delivered
a sermon widely interpreted as attacking the character of the lacrosse players.
In 2008, he offered
a wildly misleading account of his and his organization’s role in the case in a
WRAL chat. And, even after the legal process ended with AG Cooper’s report,
there was some talk from the NAACP of a new (what could now be called
Cohan-esque) investigation into the case.
Barber deserves praise for opposing state government discrimination
against gays and lesbians, the poor, students, and minorities. But simply because
he’s redeemed himself in recent years is no reason to ignore (or misleadingly
portray) his record in the lacrosse case.
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8 comments:
KC :
The link to the 82 point legal brief didn't work for me.
Thanks--fixed the link!
Rev Barber had his '14 Point Agenda' back in 2006, a mish-mash of the usual talking points, demands for reparations, etc. Curiously, it ended with 'Bring Our Troops Home from Iraq Now'.
How much better it would have been had Barber included suggestions for reforming NC's justice system, using examples that the DukeLAX hoax revealed in their glaring worst. Among them:
- DA controls docket, allows delays / judge-shopping
- No PC hearing after Grand Jury
- Grand jury secret, not recorded
- No speedy trial law
These are just a few of the big ones.
Cohan, Coleman, and even KC have said that Conservatives didn't 'stick around' to somehow assist in effecting changes in the system.
I submit that it was up to the locals to do so - it's their state, and their 'persons of color' who bear the brunt of the abuses.
Back during the hoax, the State leg was overwhelmingly Democrat, the change to R has happened only recently.
I was in attendance at Duke Chapel the day Barber delivered one of the most shameful, racist, deceit-ridden speeches I have ever heard. No, it was not a sermon. It was a tirade, clearly aimed at those "rich white boys". I sat through it all....and watched some people get up and walk out in shock.
Barber may support equal marriage rights but, under all that puffery about gay rights, Barber remains a mouthpiece for the race-gender-class crowd, forever blaming "whites" and "white privilege" for every malady in our world from hangnails to global warming.
I think it would surprise most whites just how deep and broad is the resentment in the black community in this country
Probably not since half the whites (at least) resent what the rich corp. (mostly white) folks have done to destroy this country, other countries, and the planet as well.
Is William Barber a Communist?
5/14/14, 3:34p:
Maybe, but not in my little community of Clemson. My friend is the troop leader of a mostly white group. He knows everyone in town and enjoys their respect. Lowes where we end up everyday has a racially mixed workforce. Everyone is happy all the time.
M.T. Maloney
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