Did members of the Duke University Lacrosse team gang-rape an African-American exotic dancer? At this point, with DNA samples having been taken from everyone on the team (except from the sole black player), no one really can say, unless they were involved. That is the law, like it or not.

That hasn’t stopped elements of the North Carolina community from demonstrating and playing the race card. If the charges are true, it was a heinous and despicable act, and all guilty parties – actual perpetrators and those who allowed it to happen – should be punished.

At the same time, the fact that a black woman is involved doesn’t make it a racist act. Since she’s an exotic dancer, one assumes she must be physically attractive beyond the norm. That suggests the alleged act was one of lust, not of race. If she had been white, “yellow,’ or “red,” would things have turned out differently?

People may have forgotten the Tawana Brawley case in 1987, in which a 15-year-old African-American charged that six white men, some of them police officers, in Wappingers Falls, N.Y, had raped her. The case was thrown out by a grand jury the next year for lack of evidence.

An ex-boyfriend of Brawley’s told Newsday she had admitted making up the attack, because she’d skipped school the day in question to visit a boyfriend in jail, and feared the consequences from her stepfather.

She had no idea at the time that the publicity-seeking Rev. Al Sharpton and his cronies would intrude themselves into the situation and create a full-blown media event. They subsequently were sued and ordered to pay $345,000 for defaming a New York prosecutor as being a “racist and rapist.” The Brawley family quickly moved to Virginia, taking with them a “defense fund” of $300,000 contributed by well-wishers.

If the Duke allegations turn out to be true, this is a case of criminal, runaway libido – not racism. Were a white exotic dancer involved, the outcome, whatever it actually was, would have been the same.  Taking a note from the Tawana Brawley case, the Duke community should hold its powder until some facts emerge.

Copyright 2006 Bob Sagan