It's dangerous to rush to judgment in any criminal case, but especially one as volatile as an alleged gang rape with racial overtones. But that's what we all did with the Duke lacrosse rape case, isn't it? Okay, let me stop dragging you all into my shit. That's what I did. Of course those rich, privileged white boys who play an aggressive, testosterone-filled sport raped that poor, black stripper, I thought. And if they didn't, well, black men have been falsely accused of raping white women for ages.

It wasn't just me — black people all over the country latched onto this story with fascination, anger, and what can only be described as eagerness. What we thought happened at Duke was a symbol of the racial inequality we still see in the South, of the insidiousness of white privilege and fraternity culture on college campuses, and of the class issues in this country that directly parallel our racial ones. When news investigations showed a number of holes in the defendant's claims against the players, we still held out hope, didn't we? Didn't I? Because at that point, as horrible as it was for that woman to have been raped, it would have been more horrible if she hadn't.

Alas, it turns out that what we thought happened, didn't. It turns out that the defendant changed her story so many times and there was such a complete lack of physical evidence that the Durham County D.A., who was hoping to build his career on this sensational case, dropped all charges against the Duke players today. I don't know if those former lacrosse players were nice, good guys. They probably weren't, if the racial slurs they hurled at the strippers that night and the violent email they sent out before that fateful party are any indication. Obviously, that's not the point. A false sexual assault accusation is not something anyone should wish on another person, even though I wished it on them. [Source]