Not So Crystal Clear: Crystal Mangum's Comments on America's Flawed Legal System
Up until this point, I have left it to the boys to do all the blogging for CR Daily, but last night when everyone else was watching the SDS idiots make a mockery of our University, I was watching Crystal Mangum make a mockery of our legal system (again) at an event in the Stone Center, and I think it is important to share the content (or lack thereof) of Miss Mangum’s discussion with CR Daily readers.
The event purported to discuss the “harsh reality of minority treatment” in the media and in the legal system. It was in reality a gripefest for Crystal Mangum, who is an embodiment of what is wrong with our legal system and should thank the Lord every day that she is not sitting in a jail cell for her heinous lies. Instead, she complained bitterly that CNN and NBC did interviews with her and then did not publish them, although she admitted that it was because they did not believe her.
Vincent Clark, the man who helped her to write her book and who seems to handle all of her public relations, spoke also, complaining about the time that they had put into the interviews and the fact that the interviews had not aired, claiming that it was the executives of the news companies who had refused to show Crystal’s side of the story in a conspiracy to “bury her” and “make sure no one will ever believe her.” If the news stations legitimately stopped believing her story, as Crystal was prepared to concede, would it not seem reasonable to assume that they felt it a violation of journalistic integrity to publish interviews in which they knew, or at least had reason to believe, that Crystal was lying through her teeth?
Crystal stated, “They were not protecting me by not showing [the interview] – I believe they were protecting other people.” Vincent Clark referred to the Lacrosse players and the media as a “well-oiled machine.” The premise of her entire speech was that the media had refused to give her a fair shake. However, if the media knew or strongly suspected that she was lying, how would it have behooved her to have them show interviews with her which they would then be immediately forced to discredit as a pack of lies or risk losing credibility?
Interestingly, after Crystal left, Clark’s true opinion of the situation came out. Almost as soon as she exited the room, he leveled with the audience (at which point I became apoplectic with rage): “Say she is lying – what of it? Does she not deserve to finish college and go on with her life? Haven’t you ever done something you’re not so pleased with?” The fact is that for Vincent Clark and Crystal Mangum, the truth is the last thing that matters. They merely want to perpetuate the culture of victimization which has developed everywhere it is tolerated.
Crystal went on ad nauseam about how “every day is a struggle” for her, as it is for all (real) victims of sexual assault, even claiming that she suffered through PTSD. Her grandstanding and unwarranted self-pity was an unspeakable insult to every woman who has actually been a victim of rape, and her invitation to rape victims to come to her in confidence if they fear speaking out honestly made sick. She acknowledged that “because of the way [her] case went, that made it harder for others to come forward.”
She’s right about that, at least, although it is not because she was a victim of injustice; the fact that her case was brought and pursued and then proved to be comprised of falsehoods did indeed make it much more difficult for people who are victims of sexual assault to come forward. The fact is that when people like her lie about being sexually assaulted it increases the burden of proof necessary for women who have actually been raped to prove the veracity of their accusations, and that is the biggest travesty that has resulted from her indescribably selfish and utterly reprehensible actions. The fact that she held an event to speak about the “injustices” perpetrated against her after making it harder for actual rape victims to come forward and to be believed is incomprehensible.
The event planners’ idea of trotting out victims of false accusations at the end of the presentation to juxtapose with Crystal Mangum’s bald-faced lies as examples of the “harsh reality of minority treatment” was just embarrassing because Mangum’s case is an exemplification of the harsh realities of the antithesis to the subject being discussed: false accusations and injustice against non-minorities. In fact, Mangum herself single-handedly proved that minorities are not the only victims of failings in our justice system by leveling and pursuing false accusations against the white Duke Lacrosse players. Hearing the stories of minority victims of prosecutorial misconduct only put me in the awkward position of sympathizing with the Duke Lacrosse players, who are certainly no angels, but who were also victims of overzealous prosecution at the hands of Mike Nifong and at the behest of Crystal Mangum. It is an intolerable irony that Miss Mangum is now claiming to be an expert on the “injustices” of the legal system because the fifteen minutes of fame she bought with the reputations of the Duke Lacrosse players had almost come to an end.
