I knew it was a big deal when my mom asked my thoughts on the Duke lacrosse scandal.

For those of you "not in the know," I'll try to provide a concise summary. There is a school here in Durham called Duke - it's considered the "Ivy League" of the south (I personally call it the "Ivy League Washout" school... zing!). The school is predominantly white and rich - the neighborhoods around it are predominantly black and poor.

At the end of March, a party was held on a university-owned off-campus house by members of the Duke men's lacrosse team. A stripper from NCCU (a predominantely black university) was hired for the party. The stripper alleges that three white men from the party (all allegedly members of Duke's lacrosse team) raped her.

Duke University benched the team from the rest of the season (they then forfeited the season outright). The coach of the team resigned soon afterwards, but the University remained silent besides that. Protesters started showing up on campus, demanding the guilty men turn themselves in. Meanwhile, the men's team hired pricey lawyers and kepts silent.

Meanwhile, Mike Nifong, the District Attorney of Durham, started making a lot of ruckus. It's election year from him, and he was looking for some publicity!

Because this is hard to express in facts, I will just have to say that the general undertone for everything I read and saw was these these boys were guilty. There was an assumption of guilt from the start ...

Now, I've had my fair share of run-ins with jocks and jerks, and there's a good chance (given some of the history about these boys' personal lives released) that these kids are world-class jerks (they hired a stripper at a party for Chrissakes), but to assume guilt before any facts had come out ... it was appalling. I specifically stayed away from writing about it or talking about it with anybody until all the facts came out.

A few days ago the DNA testing came out ... and none of the samples matched. Now it seems that the tide has shifted and a smear campaign is being initiated against the accuser.

Now I read stories about the accuser being drunk, having bruises from before arriving at the party, and way more facts about her personal life than I care to know. Lawyers are congregating in Durham for what I don't doubt will be a slew of defamation cases.

What really irks me about this whole case is I can't find a victim anywhere. The boys (jerks, no doubt) and the woman have both been scrutizined... their personal information and their histories published everywhere. They deserve much better than this. Both parties have been tried in a court of public opinion before any of the facts were even released! Even now, I read more and more shit everyday that's completely irrelevant to the case - why is every lawyer so interested i speaking with the press here?

This issue was described at today's Blogger's Meetup as "the perfect storm." I mean, look at the issues:

• Rich vs. poor
• White vs. black
• University vs. town
• Sports stars getting preferential treatment
• Women vs. men

Personally I'm so VERY tired of every issue turning into a "me vs. them" issue. I remember back in college there was a huge issue in the Asian-American community when Abercrombie and Fitch made a t-shirt that said: "Two Wongs can make a White." (Read an example of what Asian-American writers wrote about the issue:

Credit Asian-American students from Stanford, who reacted to the T-shirts first. Within a day, nearly every Asian American online had received at least one e-mail on the subject. (I got several.) Protests and pressure ensued. The store pulled the shirts.

First off, were the shirts offensive? I didn't think so. My friends and I thought they were pretty funny. But that point aside, I distinctly remember the email forward I got was filled with this "us vs. them" mentality ... almost like white people were conspiring to "get" Asian people with this shirt.

Even in this Duke case, the next day I was watching TV and saw a ton of black people protesting this case. Why is race such a big issue still? Why is it that the victim was black matter at all? If a white sorority chick had accused the boys of rape, would the outcry have been as loud?

This whole "us vs. them" mentality - or the way it was projected in the media made the issue seem like it was black vs. white. There are delicate ways to handle situations with racism - and the minority always seems to pick the nuclear option - "LETS MAKE IT WHITE PEOPLE VS. MINORITIES." Smooooooth. I'm not a mediator, but I would imagine drawing a line down the center isn't the best way to solve problems.

How is this helping race relations at all? I'm not saying we should ignore racism, but we're all on an equal legal playing field now. Why do people keep expecting handouts? I remember talking to my good friend Potter in high school about how ridiculous the anti-whiteman backlash was ... I had so many offers for scholarships and summer programs for "minorities" than he did ... because I was born with genes from Asia. How ridiculous is that?

The best way to combat racism is to take individual responsibility in our lives - when minorities hang out with just other minorities (I'm guilty of this) and close themselves off to other cultures, it just perpetuates the myth that everything is a "us vs. them" issue. Affirmative action ... everytime I read something, I can just see the wedge being driven between minorities and whites. Sometimes I wonder if minorities are just taking complete advantage of the sins of generations past for their own benefit. In fact, I'm nearly convinced this is the case now.

That's not to say race isn't an issue at all today - it is. The whole Elizabeth Smart / Natalie Holloway situations show the media places an emphasis on cute white girls, but that's fine by me. The majority of people who consume CNN care about that - there's nothing I can do about that. Some people may disagree, but I don't believe there is a conspiracy in the media to forceably underrepresent minorities in the media.

When I was younger, I was best friends with one of the only black kid in my elementary school; it's funny that when you're young, it didn't even matter to me. I then moved down to North Carolina in the 4th grade and experienced my fair share of racism. Looking back, I also realize that the system really seemed stacked against black kids. I remember in 4th grade (I believe), there was this black kid in our class who always got called out by our teacher and disciplined ... I remember that I thought some of the white kids were worse than him, but my 4th grade teacher would always make the black kid sit by himself. I guess that's what "setting somebody up to fail" really means.

Personally, since elementary school, I've never experienced the "hateful" racism - I've run into a few of the ignorant type of racism, but no harm was ever meant. I've met probably hundreds, if not thousands of different people ... if I were to meet somebody who was hatefully racist, I would probably be sad, but it wouldn't change my viewpoint on things.

To me, the bigger issue today is the growing disparity of wealth between socioeconomic classes; this is a significant issue in my mind, and you can see examples of this in news everyday. Unfortunately, I think this struggle gets unintentionally tied to the race - certain economic classes have a tendency to be overrepresented in certain tax brackets which I think, along with the "us vs. them" herd mentality, makes every issue a sparkpoint. If groups wouldn't get so emotionally tied to the issues at hand, I really think things would progress more nicely.

Not everything is based on race.

I hope this rant, which concluded nothing in particular, has not infuriated you. I just had to vent out some of the ramblings going in my head. I also hope me being open will lead to some open comments - I know a lot of people who read this journal are minorities. If you're afraid of sounding PC, feel free to post anonymously with comments. Don't be afraid to attack anything I've said either ... I know some of you are probably itching to tell me how wrong I am :)