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Thread ID: 14341 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2004-06-27
2004-06-27 21:56 | User Profile
SCANDAL IN THE SOUTH
Rape case divides town
Marcus Dixon and his white accuser's differing stories waken long-dormant racial tensions in Rome, Ga.
BY ERIN TEXEIRA STAFF CORRESPONDENT
June 27, 2004
ROME, Ga. - This story about sex, race and a flawed justice system that has divided this small, red-dirt town reads like a sad chapter of civil rights history. But it's not.
It's happening now.
A jury found that a 15-year-old white girl here agreed last year to a sexual tryst with an 18-year-old black man. When her family found out, she said the encounter was rape. A jury decided that it wasn't forced, but the man, Marcus Dixon, was sentenced to a decade in prison anyway under the state's tough child molestation laws.
Some jurors wept when they heard, insisting such a punishment was far harsher than they intended.
With the help of his longtime legal guardians - who, coincidentally, are white - public outcry soon mounted, and Dixon's plight garnered heavy media attention.
Last month, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed his conviction. Now free, Dixon, a popular high school honor student and star athlete, is piecing his life back together and plans to start college this fall.
But during the past year, while Dixon's appeal wound its way through the courts, the case that nearly derailed his life churned up long-buried racial tension in Rome, a sleepy former mill town tucked among rolling green hills near the Alabama border. It has about 35,000 residents, two-thirds white and one-third black.
Difference of opinion
Many white residents said the justice system had rightly punished an aggressive, 6-foot, 5-inch athlete who had sexually preyed on a young victim. But Dixon's defenders, who are black and white, said the case was actually about racially biased punishment heaped on a black young man caught being intimate with a white girl - a social taboo for many Southerners that, for most of American history, provoked brutal retaliations and often death.
In the debate, the town has been torn asunder. Some Dixon supporters have been harassed and threatened.
At a town gas station recently, a black homemaker who gave her name only as Sarah said, "That was just wrong the way they done that boy." But behind her in line, a white man muttered that Dixon is a "predator," eliciting nods from other customers.
Many lower their voices when they talk about the case in public. Others simply refuse to discuss it.
With its stark racial segregation and prominently displayed Confederate flags, Rome seems a universe apart from cosmopolitan Atlanta - the New South - just 70 miles away. Even as the nation becomes ever more multicultural, Dixon's case underscores how fervently many small-town Southerners cling to centuries-old racial mores.
"Marcus Dixon opened up something that's so deep, so culturally embedded about what race means," said Charles A. Gallagher, a sociologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta who has researched race issues in north Georgia. "The case taps into every bad aspect of race in the South. Every cultural taboo."
Town's denials
Many residents in Rome deny that race was a factor in the case that has dominated local headlines since February 2003, when Dixon and the girl had sex in a trailer at Pepperell High School, a 920-student campus a few miles outside town.
Newsday is not naming the girl because she is a minor.
In court, Dixon and his accuser's friends testified that after the encounter, she talked freely about it - but they also warned that her father, who in court testimony was repeatedly described as an avowed racist, would kill them both if he found out what had happened.
Kenneth T. Palmer, one of the girl's lawyers, said that portraying her family as racist is "all wrong."
Painting unflattering portraits of rape victims is a tactic often used to discredit them in court, said Palmer, a former Atlanta attorney who recently relocated to Ocean County, N.J. "It happens every day," he said.
Leigh Patterson, the district attorney in Floyd County, where Rome is located, did not return repeated calls seeking comment on the case. "Justice was not served for this victim," she told The Associated Press earlier this month.
The accuser's primary attorney, Atlanta-based Michael Prieto, also denied requests to grant an interview or issue a written statement. Prieto said through an assistant that neither the girl nor her family would speak publicly about the case.
Everyone's talking
They are practically the only ones in town not talking about the Marcus Dixon case.
Peri Jones, who with her husband Kenneth Jones has been Dixon's legal guardian since he was 10, said, "You can't walk into a store without someone saying, 'What do you think about that nigger raping that white girl?' It's everywhere."
Throughout Rome, residents are quick to offer opinions about the case.
At the local Applebee's restaurant, a white waitress said the day Dixon was released "was a pretty momentous day for us in Rome."
Yet she is still torn about the case. "I don't want to say it was wrong, but there was something committed" by Dixon.
Indeed, as free as Rome residents are with their opinions, most now refuse, like the waitress, to share their names with reporters.
For months, media outlets from the Rome News-Tribune to "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" have followed the story, and many in town insist they've been wrongly portrayed as backward racists.
"It's all been difficult on the people here," said Katie Anderson, director of the Rome Area History Museum. "They have truly been portrayed unfairly."
'An old Southern city'
Still, there are signs that racial divisions persist.
Just steps from Broad Street, Rome's quaint, historic main street, the landscaped Myrtle Hill Cemetery overlooks the rushing waters of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers. In one corner stands a massive stone monument dedicated to Nathan Forrest, a former Confederate soldier who fought Union troops in Rome during the Civil War.
Forrest, a one-time slave trader, went on to become one of the Ku Klux Klan's first leaders. Yet he is revered as a town hero, said the Rev. Warren L. Jones, a local historian.
"It really is a lovely monument," Jones said. "Some folks are talking about moving it back into town."
Asked to describe the town, he said, "Rome is an old Southern city which lives in the present day world."
The Rev. Terrell M. Shields, an African-American minister with Rome's Greater Mount Calvary Baptist Church said, "This town was always divided, but it was under wraps before. Not anymore."
He added, "In the South, there's always been this thing - white girls date black boys and then they cry rape. Is that ancient history? No ma'am."
Historically, many black men in the South were jailed, beaten and murdered for having relationships with white women. Particularly during the push for racial integration, the taboo became a central preoccupation for many white Southerners and part of the cultural fabric, said Gallagher, the university sociologist .
"Fifty years ago, there would have been no questions asked," said Peri Jones, a talkative woman who spoke from her living room, her bare feet tucked beneath her. "Marcus would have been drug out and hung."
Some Dixon supporters have felt the ongoing racial tension: Shield's church suffered thousands of dollars in damage when a vandal broke windows and ransacked rooms the day after he held a rally in support of Dixon last year.
Against all odds
A week before the encounter, Dixon, a 240-pound star defensive end with broad shoulders and a huge grin, had signed on to receive a full football scholarship at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. He had a 3.96 grade point average.
Dixon had beaten enormous odds to get there.
As a child, he moved in with his grandmother after his father left the family and his mother battled a drug addiction. But his grandmother, too, struggled. At age 10, Dixon asked to live with one of his baseball coaches, Kenneth Jones, Peri Jones' husband. They agreed, and he moved to Lindale, a tiny suburb of Rome.
The Joneses both work for the local school system; she is an elementary school teacher and he is the head custodian at Pepperell High.
Dixon seemed to navigate his interracial world deftly, for the most part.
During high school, he was suspended twice for incidents involving female classmates, Peri Jones said. He allegedly exposed his genitals and another time he allegedly touched a student inappropriately. He and the Joneses deny they were serious incidents. After Dixon's arrest, local prosecutors investigated but decided recently not to press charges.
Dixon's accuser has filed a $5-million civil suit against the school system claiming officials did not properly punish Dixon in those incidents, Palmer said. The case is pending.
Dixon is described by friends and family as an outgoing class clown who loves socializing. His athletic achievements often were covered in the local media.
"There were a lot of girls who liked him," said Whitney Fletcher, 16, a classmate at Pepperell. "He was one of the most popular boys in his class."
Dixon was ultimately charged with rape, battery, false imprisonment, statutory rape and aggravated child molestation after the sexual encounter with the 15-year-old sophomore last year.
The molestation charge was added in case the rape didn't stick, Assistant District Attorney John McClellan told Bryant Gumbel in an interview that aired on HBO last year. A felony, the molestation charge carries a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and hinges on proving that an underage person who had sex with an adult suffered physical injury.
Since a medical examination determined that the girl had been a virgin, and so had minor bruising and swelling, jurors felt they had little choice but to convict Dixon of the charge, according to juror Angela Thompson.
Thompson and other jurors, who did not know the sentencing guidelines for the crime when they deliberated, protested when they learned his sentence.
"I cried," she said. "They were going to take away half his life. He might not have made it out."
Changing the rules
Now, Georgia legislators plan to rewrite the law in coming months, said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, who co-sponsored it in 1996 and rallied behind Dixon.
"The original intent [of the law] was to protect our women and children from adult predators," Brooks said, adding that the Dixon case was a "misuse" of the law.
Now, Dixon, who lost his scholarship when he was indicted, is considering other offers from several universities and is completing his last requirement to receive his high school diploma.
"I'm not angry anymore," Dixon said in a statement. He declined to be interviewed, saying he is overwhelmed with the media attention and wants to resume a normal life.
"I'll take what happened to me and become a better person," he said. "I hope some good will come out of it."
[url]http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usrome213869397jun27,0,1433907.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines[/url]
:furious: :afro: :evil:
2004-06-27 22:09 | User Profile
If it was consensual, they'd both be hung from the nearest tree in a sane and healthy society.
2004-06-27 22:16 | User Profile
You can bet the farm that had it been an 18 year old white and a 15 year old nigg*r, the white would be rotting in jail even as we speak.
2004-06-27 22:59 | User Profile
If this Newsday hack describes the largest city in north Georgia as a "small, southern town," I wonder how it would describe the hundreds (thousands?) of smaller communities in the South. Slightly smaller Dalton would be a wind-swept crossroads, no doubt.
Rome to me is an interesting case, in that it has become tri-racial. Mestizo invaders have flocked there for jobs in the near-comatose textile industry--the "international trade" version of bringing the mountain to Muhammed. They also fill the manual labor employment that the Negros and semi-Negros are too stupid/lazy to do. Consequently, large sections of ghetto are being converted to barrio, as the Mestizo workers and their tax-draining dependents displace the Negros. It's the neo-conservative dream. That's the real story, not some mild grumbling by a few White niggerball addicts who have become momentarily aware of their dispossession.
BTW, how come any Mulatto that calls itself a "reverend" is treated with reverence by the Jewish press? Oh nevermind. . . (I bet Newsday ran a piece about the righteousness of Israelis killing babies and bulldozing Palestinian olive groves, right next to this "evil Southerners" thing.)
On a positive note, you can still see This is Wallace Country stencils around Rome, much to the chagrin of the "New South" types. :)
2004-06-27 23:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE=James Henly Thornwell]If this Newsday hack describes the largest city in north Georgia as a "small, southern town," I wonder how it would describe the hundreds (thousands?) of smaller communities in the South. Slightly smaller Dalton would be a wind-swept crossroads, no doubt.
Rome to me is an interesting case, in that it has become tri-racial. Mestizo invaders have flocked there for jobs in the near-comatose textile industry--the "international trade" version of bringing the mountain to Muhammed. They also fill the manual labor employment that the Negros and semi-Negros are too stupid/lazy to do. Consequently, large sections of ghetto are being converted to barrio, as the Mestizo workers and their tax-draining dependents displace the Negros. It's the neo-conservative dream. That's the real story, not some mild grumbling by a few White niggerball addicts who have become momentarily aware of their dispossession.
BTW, how come any Mulatto that calls itself a "reverend" is treated with reverence by the Jewish press? Oh nevermind. . . (I bet Newsday ran a piece about the righteousness of Israelis killing babies and bulldozing Palestinian olive groves, right next to this "evil Southerners" thing.)
On a positive note, you can still see This is Wallace Country stencils around Rome, much to the chagrin of the "New South" types. :)[/QUOTE]
Yea, and those "New South" types were all upset a few months ago when the death of Lester Maddox overshadowed that of that fat, currupt mulatto, Maynard Jackson. It gives me hope and encouragement that just maybe my fellow white Georgians have semblence of moral clarity left anyway. Lester was a man of great moral courage and character, and the anthisis of the evil elites that are out to destroy our race today. We shall not see the likes of him again.
2004-06-28 00:03 | User Profile
I have no connection with the management of this forum, but I think it would be in better taste not to say nigger in thread titles. I say this for two reasons.
Cleaner titles will make the forum look more credible rather than just a forum of trash-talkers. The high-brow content of OD has contributed greatly to this forum's success.
If you really want to insult 'em, call them African Americans. I mean, isn't it the African American who is the rapist? Associate your attacks with their own label. When someone says "African American", you want everyone to think "rapist." The reason blacks stopped wanting to being called coloreds is because white racists adopted the word.
Anyway, if my own boy behaved like this African American predator, I'd say "You're 18, get lost." If I were just the guardian, he'd already be out of my house. But, noo, that white trash defends the animal (and probably did their share of raising him to be an animal, although, I don't know how long they had him).
Notice also that the black church defends the negro. He's only guilty of being a moral reprobate, statutory rape, adultery, etc. In Bible times, that was worthy of an execution. But, being black covers a multitude of sins, heh. Notice also that the black minister sees "racism" as the only reason why someone wouldn't defend the punk.
2004-06-28 01:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=confederate_commando] Now, Georgia legislators plan to rewrite the law in coming months, said state Rep. Tyrone Brooks, who co-sponsored it in 1996 and rallied behind Dixon.
"The original intent [of the law] was to protect our women and children from adult predators," Brooks said, adding that the Dixon case was a "misuse" of the law. [/QUOTE] How is punishing an 18-year old man for preying on a 15-year-old girl a 'misuse' of the law?
2004-06-28 12:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Happy Hacker]
If you really want to insult 'em, call them African Americans. I mean, isn't it the African American who is the rapist? Associate your attacks with their own label. When someone says "African American", you want everyone to think "rapist." [/QUOTE]
This is actually a very good idea. Considering the fact that the media uses "African American" exclusively in-between phrases and/or words like "bright (AA) students" or "this bustling (AA) community", it would make him what he truly is.
2004-07-14 04:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=confederate_commando]SCANDAL IN THE SOUTH
Rape case divides town
Marcus Dixon and his white accuser's differing stories waken long-dormant racial tensions in Rome, Ga.
BY ERIN TEXEIRA STAFF CORRESPONDENT[/QUOTE]
A cucarachita, no doubt.
[QUOTE]In the debate, the town has been torn asunder. Some Dixon supporters have been harassed and threatened.[/QUOTE]
Those filthy racist crackers. Why can't they be more like those gentle "African-Americans"?
[QUOTE]With its stark racial segregation and prominently displayed Confederate flags, Rome seems a universe apart from cosmopolitan Atlanta - the New South - just 70 miles away. Even as the nation becomes ever more multicultural, Dixon's case underscores how fervently many small-town Southerners cling to centuries-old racial mores.[/QUOTE]
You no like, greeeser? Tough teeety.
[QUOTE]"Marcus Dixon opened up something that's so deep, so culturally embedded about what race means," said Charles A. Gallagher, a sociologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta who has researched race issues in north Georgia. "The case taps into every bad aspect of race in the South. Every cultural taboo."[/QUOTE]
The hebes never fail to find one of these social "scientist" race traitors to give the Enlightened Analysis in such cases. There should be enough rope & lead to deal with all such scum when the time is right.
[QUOTE]For months, media outlets from the Rome News-Tribune to "Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" have followed the story, and many in town insist they've been wrongly portrayed as backward racists.
"It's all been difficult on the people here," said Katie Anderson, director of the Rome Area History Museum. "They have truly been portrayed unfairly."[/QUOTE]
Par for the jewcourse. Screw 'em.
[QUOTE]'An old Southern city'
Still, there are signs that racial divisions persist.
Just steps from Broad Street, Rome's quaint, historic main street, the landscaped Myrtle Hill Cemetery overlooks the rushing waters of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers. In one corner stands a massive stone monument dedicated to Nathan Forrest, a former Confederate soldier who fought Union troops in Rome during the Civil War.
Forrest, a one-time slave trader, went on to become one of the Ku Klux Klan's first leaders. Yet he is revered as a town hero, said the Rev. Warren L. Jones, a local historian.
"It really is a lovely monument," Jones said. "Some folks are talking about moving it back into town."[/QUOTE]
No doubt the mestizo troll thinks they should replace my statue with one of Quetzlcoatl.
[QUOTE]Historically, many black men in the South were jailed, beaten and murdered for having relationships with white women. Particularly during the push for racial integration, the taboo became a central preoccupation for many white Southerners and part of the cultural fabric, said Gallagher, the university sociologist.[/QUOTE]
Notice that the turd doesn't point out the ways in which the miscegenation warnings of the segregationists have been proven unfounded in the years since.
[QUOTE]"Fifty years ago, there would have been no questions asked," said Peri Jones, a talkative woman who spoke from her living room, her bare feet tucked beneath her. "Marcus would have been drug out and hung."[/QUOTE]
You probably would've been too, nigger-lover.
[QUOTE]Some Dixon supporters have felt the ongoing racial tension: Shield's church suffered thousands of dollars in damage when a vandal broke windows and ransacked rooms the day after he held a rally in support of Dixon last year.[/QUOTE]
Quick, muhfugga - call Bill Clinton!
[QUOTE]The Joneses both work for the local school system; she is an elementary school teacher and he is the head custodian at Pepperell High.[/QUOTE]
An elementary school teacher who says "hung" instead of "hanged". No wonder the ape had a 3.96 GPA.
[QUOTE]Dixon seemed to navigate his interracial world deftly, for the most part.
During high school, he was suspended twice for incidents involving female classmates, Peri Jones said. He allegedly exposed his genitals and another time he allegedly touched a student inappropriately. He and the Joneses deny they were serious incidents. After Dixon's arrest, local prosecutors investigated but decided recently not to press charges.[/QUOTE]
Yep, that's pretty damn "deft", alright. How dare they even imagine that this fine, turdcock-flashing paragon would ever rape a White girl?
[QUOTE]Since a medical examination determined that the girl had been a virgin, and so had minor bruising and swelling, jurors felt they had little choice but to convict Dixon of the charge, according to juror Angela Thompson.
Thompson and other jurors, who did not know the sentencing guidelines for the crime when they deliberated, protested when they learned his sentence.
"I cried," she said. "They were going to take away half his life. He might not have made it out."[/QUOTE]
"And we wouldn't have been able to watch him play! Just thinking back on it makes me.......oh God, p-please give me a m-moment.....(SNIFF!)"