Three young upper middle class teens leave a club with a beautiful young woman.  She never returns
and when questioned the say that they returned her to her hotel.  They implicate 2 two black
Aruban security guards who are arrested with cameras rolling for all the world to see. even though hotel cameras show that the woman wasn't dropped off at the place where the young gents said they left her off.  Eventually the three are brought in for questioning, without the glare of the camera and with a much lower media presence, one says that "something bad" happened to the girl.  The three are still in custody but not charged, but the two security guards are still in jail. I say both race and class have entered into this, and it ticks me off.

Three young upper middle class teens leave a club with a beautiful young woman.  She never returns
and when questioned the say that they returned her to her hotel.  They implicate 2 two black
Aruban security guards who are arrested with cameras rolling for all the world to see. even though hotel cameras show that the woman wasn't dropped off at the place where the young gents said they left her off.  Eventually the three are brought in for questioning, without the glare of the camera and with a much lower media presence, one says that "something bad" happened to the girl.  The three are still in custody but not charged, but the two security guards are still in jail. I say both race and class have entered into this, and it ticks me off.


Race has been involved since Day One of this media circus.

Does anyone on this board really think that there would be a media hubbub like they are having now if Natalee Holloway were a black girl?

If instead of Natalee Holloway, a young black kid named Letitia Washington had disappeared, you would not have seen sound bite one on the story.  :(

Race has been involved since Day One of this media circus.

Does anyone on this board really think that there would be a media hubbub like they are having now if Natalee Holloway were a black girl?

If instead of Natalee Holloway, a young black kid named Letitia Washington had disappeared, you would not have seen sound bite one on the story.  :(


I completely & absolutely agree with your statement. However I must say that this girl must have been pretty naive to leave with these island guys. I have been to a teen salsa club once in Puerto Rico & had 2 guys come up to me (one of which was my dance partner) & ask me if I wanted to go across the street with them to buy a few beers. It's a common tourist trap.

It's not like it is here in the States where security is 99% certain &/or accurate. What I don't understand is---you're on a class trip wouldn't it be common sense to stay w/ your class? Well, concerning the fact that she is from a small Alabama town could make up for it...I just don't think it was wise for her to go with these men, it's not like they forced her to leave with them for Christ's sake! I believe that the choice was made on her own free will. 

On the flipside of this, I do believe race pulls into account. Coming from the United States, Blacks, especially black men are normally portrayed as predators/criminals on the news (& this is common knowledge, don't be hypersensitive & think I'm being racist here!). If it had been a black girl I'm sure there wouldn't be as much media coverage as there is now.

What are your thoughts?

They had the two Dutch brats from the influential family in custody first.  They just let them go.  Then they nabbed the Black security guards. 
We don't know the answers yet.  Maybe those ex-security guard bums had something to do with as well as the Dutch kids.  However, I think the authorities were hoping to good cop-bad cop the Black guys into some kind of confession.  I mean, the cops wanted the perps to be poor Black dudes instead of the children of a Dutch official.  Remnants of the empire.
The underlying racist current in this was humming with guys like O'Reilly and Hannity.  They weren't saying so, but the old dynamic of crime-sex-black men-white girl was at play, and it was driving those patriarchal white guys up the wall!

From the evidence I've heard, it doesn't sound like anybody slipped her a mickey.  It sounds like she was another naive 18-year-old who grew up without the sense that the world can be a dangerous place.  If anything good can come out of this, I hope it will encourage society to take more care in briefing tourists about the Do's and Dont's.  Then again, some people are just going to act stupidly no matter what you tell them.

Contrary to what the media has been saying, I don't think this kind of thing is more likely to happen in the Caribbean than right here in the borders of the USA.  Bad sh*t happens to Natalee Holloways everyday stateside!

Contrary to what the media has been saying, I don't think this kind of thing is more likely to happen in the Caribbean than right here in the borders of the USA.  Bad sh*t happens to Natalee Holloways everyday stateside!


Clearly, BOTH race and class are at work here, as others have said.  No question.

Also, clearly, bad stuff happens everywhere, every day.  I think the difference is that when people are on their home ground they know the rules, dangers, and expectations better than when they are in an "exotic" vacation local, especially for the first time, and especially if they are young and naive.  For such a person, a "fling" with an exotic stranger might seem more romantic and safer than a roll in the hay with a classmate, who might 1. expect more of the same after the trip, and 2. might spill the beans at home.  And I might add that Ms holloway might not be/have been such an innocent young thing as is being made out.  Coverage of this in my local paper is rather short on details - FE it gave the impression that 2 of the three boys/men she went with were black and were in the front seat while she was "petting" with the white guy in the back seat.

Who says she was naive? Maybe she's one of those suburban girls who actually believes that nothing will ever happen to them? Or, what if she's the "Girls Gone Wild" type. I do think it's unfortunate that whenever a white girl goes missing, the hounds are called out. How many Asian, Black, Latino, and Native American girls/women go missing each day? Do they receive the same media treatment? No.

While it's disheartening that she's (or anyone for that matter) is missing, but the media has to give equal time to missing persons of all classes and races.

Tanya

Who says she was naive? Maybe she's one of those suburban girls who actually believes that nothing will ever happen to them? Or, what if she's the "Girls Gone Wild" type. I do think it's unfortunate that whenever a white girl goes missing, the hounds are called out. How many Asian, Black, Latino, and Native American girls/women go missing each day? Do they receive the same media treatment? No.

While it's disheartening that she's (or anyone for that matter) is missing, but the media has to give equal time to missing persons of all classes and races.

Tanya

I agree.  I can't emphasize enough: crime-sex-black men-white girl.  That is the media fascination!  What the patriarchal white-male dominated media dreads most is the idea she might have gone willingly with those men.  Maybe she wanted to learn to play the clarinet.  That's nervous and twitchy undercurrent you can sense under this unsolved case.

Who says she was naive? Maybe she's one of those suburban girls who actually believes that nothing will ever happen to them?

This was sarcasm... right?  :P

This was sarcasm... right?  :P


Maybe, maybe not. I've know countless girls that thought like that and still do. Don't you know the phrase known through media outlets, "I never thought it would happen here."?

Tanya

I agree.  I can't emphasize enough: crime-sex-black men-white girl.  That is the media fascination!  What the patriarchal white-male dominated media dreads most is the idea she might have gone willingly with those men.  Maybe she wanted to learn to play the clarinet.  That's nervous and twitchy undercurrent you can sense under this unsolved case.


True. Thankfully, they have been released.

Tanya

I agree. I can't emphasize enough: crime-sex-black men-white girl. That is the media fascination!



Like OJ.  But you're a racist when you say race came into the public fascination and coutrage.  Of course murder is terrible, but nobodies blood curdled over Robert Blake and Phil Spector.  They think it's wrong, and that they should be convicted, but it doesn't really get them riled up.  10 years later, people are still frothing at the mouth about him and "that jury".

Like OJ.  But you're a racist when you say race came into the public fascination and coutrage.  Of course murder is terrible, but nobodies blood curdled over Robert Blake and Phil Spector.  They think it's wrong, and that they should be convicted, but it doesn't really get them riled up.  10 years later, people are still frothing at the mouth about him and "that jury".


So true! It's unfortunate that he's painted as the only "wife killer" when domestic violence occurs everyday. Does anyone care about that as much as they did that case? NO!

Tanya

They finally have freed the two security guards fingered as the culprits by the culprits themselves.  Even
Natalees mother said that they should be let go.  Now they can concentrate on the real villains.

Word on the street (or on the beach, if you will) is about a spoiled rich kid with a rage problem.  The situation harkens back to the "preppie murder" of 1986.  Robert Chambers got violent during a drunken encounter with Jennifer Levin and ended up killing her.  Chambers was a young playboy with a history of violent tantrums and petty crime.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/not_guilty/park/4.html?sect=14
There are similar allegations about this Van Der Smoot kid.  He has a way with the young ladies and loves to party it up.  He supposedly videotaped a gangbang a while back in which he and his buds had sex with a fourteen year old girl.  He hobnobs and parties in the Aruban upper crust and his misdees are concealed by privilege.  Can anybody say Michael Skakel and Marth Moxley?
I'd wager Van Der Smoot and Holloway were going at it in the shrubs, there was some kind of altercation, VDS lost his temper and somehow killed her in a fit.  He and his friends and family hoped they could keep the whole thing under wraps.  Maybe Holloway's vanishing would remain a mystery, maybe they'd find the body and never figure out who did it, maybe somebody else would get blamed.  Unfortunately, things got complicated!

I'd wager Van Der Smoot and Holloway were going at it in the shrubs, there was some kind of altercation, VDS lost his temper and somehow killed her in a fit.  He and his friends and family hoped they could keep the whole thing under wraps.  Maybe Holloway's vanishing would remain a mystery, maybe they'd find the body and never figure out who did it, maybe somebody else would get blamed.  Unfortunately, things got complicated!



What got complicated was they thought they could place the blame on a couple of security guards and
get away with it while those security guards... well the hell they and there families must have gone through,
and would have had to go through, had their ploy worked is unthinkable.

I smell a great lawsuit! Of course, those boys have something to do with it. One actually did it and the others either hid her body or covering up what they know.

Tanya

I smell a great lawsuit! Of course, those boys have something to do with it. One actually did it and the others either hid her body or covering up what they know.

Tanya


It's been two and a half years...case still not solved. Or maybe...it has?

...I still have my doubts.

No doubt in my mind the boys did it, with Van der Sloot the primary player.  No doubt in my mind he will never go to trial.

No doubt in my mind the boys did it, with Van der Sloot the primary player.  No doubt in my mind he will never go to trial.


You're probably right, but without any conclusive evidence there's no case. I doubt if this "breaking news" is really gonna make a difference ... Even if it's true, Van der Sloot will deny all of it. In fact, he's already stated that he made the story up...

Makes me sick to my stomach. 8-P

Van Der Sloot did it.  That kid ain't too sharp either. 

Rule #1: Always keep your mouth shut.
Rule #2: Never rat on your friends.
Rule #3: Any confusion on rule #2, see rule #1.

So he said he lied about all that stuff because he thoug it's what his friend wanted to hear? 

Maybe it was a case of the tell-tale heart; his conscience was driving him insance.  I think more than likely he's like a high percentage of criminals who get busted a two years later--he couldn't keep his mouth shut!

Nail his hide to the wall.

I was just saying in the other thread about FOX News: Give the kids from posh neighborhoods misbehaving...
::)

Van Der Sloot did it.  That kid ain't too sharp either. 

Rule #1: Always keep your mouth shut.
Rule #2: Never rat on your friends.
Rule #3: Any confusion on rule #2, see rule #1.

So he said he lied about all that stuff because he thoug it's what his friend wanted to hear? 

Maybe it was a case of the tell-tale heart; his conscience was driving him insance.  I think more than likely he's like a high percentage of criminals who get busted a two years later--he couldn't keep his mouth shut!

Nail his hide to the wall.

I was just saying in the other thread about FOX News: Give the kids from posh neighborhoods misbehaving...
::)


You forgot about the fact that he couldn't keep a story straight even if his life depended on it.  He told about four different version of what happened.  A lot of contradictions.

You forgot about the fact that he couldn't keep a story straight even if his life depended on it.  He told about four different version of what happened.  A lot of contradictions.


If he's tried, he will be tried in the Dutch courts, which is going to make Greta Van Susteren's viewers mad.  No death penalty and he might be out before he's forty!
>:(

Nice Dutch name, Greta Van Susteren.

If he's tried, he will be tried in the Dutch courts, which is going to make Greta Van Susteren's viewers mad.  No death penalty and he might be out before he's forty!
>:(

Nice Dutch name, Greta Van Susteren.


He wanted the Dutch Courts because if he was tried in the U.S. being that the victim was a U.S. citizen he'd get no less than life.  Doubtful he'd end up on Death Row.  If tried in Aruba he's screwed, there he might get the death penalty.  Dutch Courts would have the lightest sentence, besides it's much easier to appeal if you're in your native country.

if it were my daughter, those young men would end up missing and never found  ::)
and the slimy former judge/lawyer dad too  >:(

if it were my daughter, those young men would end up missing and never found  ::)
and the slimy former judge/lawyer dad too  >:(



Where do you get a large vat of acid for such an occasion?  I know acid is too merciful of a death.

Let's hope it never happens.

if it were my daughter, those young men would end up missing and never found   ::)
and the slimy former judge/lawyer dad too  >:(



Part of the problem is we celebrate intoxication. Partying is an integral part of youth.  It's also potentially deadly for young women.  Don't raise your daughters to be partiers.

Where do you get a large vat of acid for such an occasion?  I know acid is too merciful of a death.

Let's hope it never happens.
I must sound pretty vengeful for a Christian, don't I  ::)      but when I see tragedy like this, and a sociopath smiling in victory, my protective fatherly instincts kick into high gear.
:o    dang girl! you'd make a awesome executioner.  8)  Vat of acid would be fine by me.  I like the way you think.

Part of the problem is we celebrate intoxication. Partying is an integral part of youth.  It's also potentially deadly for young women.  Don't raise your daughters to be partiers.
we do celebrate it & it's well known that using alcohol and drugs to take advantage of young girls happens a lot, but sad and tragic when it ends in the disappearance or death or a teen like Natalie. I never dreamed we'd see the frenzied, glorified, visual extravaganza partying scene lifestyle on display on tv with little concern by the networks like it's shown almost daily these days.

BREAKING NEWS: Scientists have reported that their seismographs have detected an earthquake registering 4.5 on the Richter scale in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon further investigation, they determined that this was not caused by any seismic activity but instead was the result of Nancy Grace having an orgasm in the CNN studios after she heard the latest developments in the Natalie Holloway case.

Part of the problem is we celebrate intoxication. Partying is an integral part of youth.  It's also potentially deadly for young women.  Don't raise your daughters to be partiers.



I would say the bigger problem is raising sons to be Joran

BREAKING NEWS: Scientists have reported that their seismographs have detected an earthquake registering 4.5 on the Richter scale in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon further investigation, they determined that this was not caused by any seismic activity but instead was the result of Nancy Grace having an orgasm in the CNN studios after she heard the latest developments in the Natalie Holloway case.


That is a mental image I could have done without. :D

That is a mental image I could have done without. :D


I know, like, dude, barf me out!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/08/puke.gif

Oh dear God Al B wasn't kidding.


http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc151/datdarnkid/nancy_grace_018.jpg

http://www.compumess.nl/daf/smileys/sm1/schrik.gif

known that using alcohol and drugs to take advantage of young girls happens a lot, but sad and tragic when it ends in the disappearance or death or a teen like Natalie. I never dreamed we'd see the frenzied, glorified, visual extravaganza partying scene lifestyle on display on tv with little concern by the networks like it's shown almost daily these days.



This point of view gets little support from feminist groups, which I find discouraging.  The prevailing attitude is a young woman should be able to let guys do Jell-O shots on her midriff and be accorded utmost respect at the same time.  Time was people with self respect did not partake of such behavior.  You would see this sort of thing only in brothels and biker bars.  Heck, I never took advantage of an intoxicated woman.  It's not the right thing to do.  On the other hand, hotties like Natalie Holloway think guys like me are dorks.  Wouldn't party with us anyway.  They like flashy rich azzholes like Urine vander Snoot or whatever tf his name is.  You dance with them that brung ya!
::)

This point of view gets little support from feminist groups, which I find discouraging.  The prevailing attitude is a young woman should be able to let guys do Jell-O shots on her midriff and be accorded utmost respect at the same time.  Time was people with self respect did not partake of such behavior.  You would see this sort of thing only in brothels and biker bars.  Heck, I never took advantage of an intoxicated woman.  It's not the right thing to do.  On the other hand, hotties like Natalie Holloway think guys like me are dorks.  Wouldn't party with us anyway.  They like flashy rich azzholes like Urine vander Snoot or whatever tf his name is.  You dance with them that brung ya!
::)


My Mom would say if you're advertising you must be selling.  She has a point.  To say that a woman is never the least bit a fault for something that as you have said should only happen in a biker bar or brothel is ridiculous.  Don't be so hard on yourself Max.  Dorks are actually the latest accessory for blond hotties.  :)  Come on that was supposed to be an ego boost . . . work with me here.

This point of view gets little support from feminist groups, which I find discouraging.  The prevailing attitude is a young woman should be able to let guys do Jell-O shots on her midriff and be accorded utmost respect at the same time.  Time was people with self respect did not partake of such behavior.  You would see this sort of thing only in brothels and biker bars.  Heck, I never took advantage of an intoxicated woman.  It's not the right thing to do.  On the other hand, hotties like Natalie Holloway think guys like me are dorks.  Wouldn't party with us anyway.  They like flashy rich azzholes like Urine vander Snoot or whatever tf his name is.  You dance with them that brung ya!
::)
it makes a person wonder  ???  Maybe because it may give an appearance of pointing the finger at women also and making them just as much responsible, other than that I don't know what the agendas are.  :-\\

I will admit back in the 70's, using alcohol to get weaken a chicks resistance was a proven technique, not proud of it and that's something I'd change if I could go back. I'd use cocaine instead  ;D        ok, that wasn''t funny especially now at 51 with a 18 year old daughter wanting to move out of the dorms when she becomes a sophomore and get an apartment with roommates. I have to hope that she's got excellent survival instincts and not easily swayed and that she makes good choices on friends. I am happy that she has not been attracted to the party scene which is good becasue i did enough for us both.   
Max, some hotties like dorks, but you gotta have something they want or need. wealth is good $$$  :)

My Mom would say if you're advertising you must be selling.  She has a point.  To say that a woman is never the least bit a fault for something that as you have said should only happen in a biker bar or brothel is ridiculous.  Don't be so hard on yourself Max.  Dorks are actually the latest accessory for blond hotties.   :)

Gee...thanks!
Your Mom was right.  I'm not advocating a return to the repression of the 1950s, just learning sensible behavior and practicing it.  I'm not letting men off the hook either.  I'm not the one with the double standard.  The party boys are.  They're the ones who want every female in college to be a slut and then expect the woman they marry to be a virgin and a saint!
::)

Oh and it's "Natalee" not "Natalie."  I'm showing my age again!

Gee...thanks!
Your Mom was right.  I'm not advocating a return to the repression of the 1950s, just learning sensible behavior and practicing it.  I'm not letting men off the hook either.  I'm not the one with the double standard.  The party boys are.  They're the ones who want every female in college to be a slut and then expect the woman they marry to be a virgin and a saint!
::)

Oh and it's "Natalee" not "Natalie."  I'm showing my age again!



Trust me.  I've seen it happen more than once.  Guess it makes them seem smart.  Of course this leads to dorky girls staying home on Saturday nights. :\'(  It's like in Great Britain when the Government adviced that if young woman are going out drinking that they were pants.  Sensible behavior is looking at a situation and realizing that things could go wrong and preventing that from happening.  Double standard wanting to date a Marilyn Monroe yet wanting to Marry a Jackie Kennedy.  Natalee, that is so "rich college girl". :P