Privileged Lacrosse Culture Failed Yeardley Love

Rich white people blind to dangers in their midst
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 6, 2010 12:42 PM CDT
Privileged Lacrosse Culture Failed Yeardley Love
University of Virginia men’s lacrosse player George Huguely, in his police mugshot.   (AP Photo/ Charlottsville Police Department)

In assessing the death of UVa student Yeardley Love, Jamie Stiehm unloads on the insulated world of lacrosse in privileged white neighborhoods. Love and suspected killer George Huguely emerged from tony suburbs where rich kids grow up with lacrosse sticks and go on to play at all the right schools. "So locked is this group within its own gated culture that they can fail to recognize signs of trouble among their youth—because of the pervasive sense that nothing like homicide or suicide could happen here," Stiehm writes at AOL's Politics Daily.

"If the entire lacrosse culture around Love had activated to protect her from a threat of violence, even if it came from someone from posh Chevy Chase, then she would be alive today,' writes Stiehm. "The young woman's teammates, roommates, coaches, university officials—not to mention the men's lacrosse team—failed to protect her from the danger right in their midst."
(More Yeardley Love stories.)

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