They were a group of athletes, verbally brutalized, stereotyped, blasphemed, treated horribly by a sometimes insane system and arrogant, bullying media.

No, I'm not talking about the proud and wonderful women from the Rutgers University basketball team.

Life has changed forever for Reade Seligmann, David Evans and Collin Finnerty. (AP)

I'm talking about the Duke University lacrosse players.

We have seen the justifiable outrage over the wronged Rutgers players who have displayed their intellectual prowess and stiff upper lip in front of an entire nation.

But where is the outcry?

Over the white guys.

Indeed, they have demonstrated an even tougher resolve after being called rapists and racists, and when sexual assault charges were dropped Wednesday afternoon by a legal system that suddenly grew a conscience, you practically heard crickets chirping.

We often think of ourselves in this country as so advanced when it comes to issues of race. Of course we have traversed far from the days of racial restrictions, marginalization, murdered men and shattered dreams.

Yet if you want to see how far we have not come, just examine the particulars of two important stories over the past 48 hours, stories that one day will be possibly seen as almost culture-changing, and certainly, as cautionary tales.

Donald Imus spews his hurtful and hateful words, using the airwaves as a verbal noose, and an army of people mobilize.

He played on pedantic and ancient stereotypes of blacks as unkempt and unattractive.

In the Duke case, there was stereotypical stereotyping as well. Many people, including myself -- and this is a hard admission to make -- quickly assumed the Duke kids were guilty.

Many of us, almost an entire country, played on stereotypes of white men as abusers of power, flaunting their wealth and credit cards and societal advantages, and stated: Yep, those bastards did it.

They were Duke kids, rich kids, befriending strippers and partying hard. They were punks to us. Yep, those bastards must have done it.

The Rutgers women are of high moral character; I don't see them hiring strippers for a party, so the Duke players are cads in that regard.

Still, when it was revealed the Duke men were innocent of such ugly charges, their freedom coming after months of slowly twisting in the racially charged winds, there should have been worldwide apologies, an entire America wiping the mud off of their bodies and legacies, the stories of their innocence sitting Shiva on the front page of every newspaper and leading the cover of every website.

In other words, the Duke men should have gotten the Imus and Rutgers treatment. They've gotten far from that. Far from it.

The Sharptons and Jacksons and black civil leaders on and around the Duke campus should approach these men and say: We know what it is like to be falsely accused. It has happened to our people for hundreds of years. No one knows what it is like to be abused by the legal system like us. We'd like to offer our support. What can we do to help?

That should occur, but you know it never will.

Every black person who thought they were guilty as hell should now look at them and sympathize. Maybe even, in whatever way possible, apologize.

There should be a great expression of outrage from blacks who were lied to and manipulated by a both a woman who made up false tales and a prosecutor suckered by her.

These players will never get their names back. Any type of normalcy is over for them. Their only recourse will be some sort of civil remedy, but to some, they will always be the Duke rape guys, no matter who they sue or how much money they might be awarded some day.

Two stories, two entirely different reactions, a nation thinking it is more racially advanced than it truly is.

Sports is not the mythical melting pot, either. More like a boiling one.

There are subtle differences, of course, in the two cases, but if we were as racially smart as we claim to be, there would be blacks lining up to sympathize with the Duke guys and millions of white listeners refusing to ever listen to Imus or Stern or the other racial shock jerks ever again.

We're so smug when it comes to race, we're so smart. We think we know all about the topic. We think we have the riddle solved.

We're all full of crap. We're full of it because the CBS SportsLine.com message boards at the bottom of this column will be lit up with racial slurs and various stupidities. My e-mail box will overflow with letters from grand dragon wanna-be's as well as blacks accusing me of being an Uncle Tom.

We're full of crap because just how many steps have we taken since Al Campanis, Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, the dope Fuzzy Zoeller, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Richards and Michael Irvin?

Round and round we go on this little racial merry-go-round like those cute little hamsters in a cage.

Two different cases, two different reactions, one still racially confused America.

And it will be that way, unfortunately, for a long time to come.

Until we all grow up.