Everybody remembers where they were when it started. Some were stood on the steps of the Chapel. Some were strolling through the Gardens. DSig sat in their section attempting to score more than three points with a single word in Scrabble. A dozen Kappa girls stood around a Central Campus apartment, desperately trying to wrap their heads around the concept that mason jars could contain something other than mediocre white wine. And then it happened. The silence began. The hush descended.
Clocking in at a whopping 0 decibels, President Price began the single most deafening silence in the history of the entire world. It has been nine whole days since student protesters hijacked a ceremony where old white people were about to receive their very important awards for being old and white, demanding a list of policy changes from Duke’s administration. Since then Price has remained quieter than Taylor Swift live in concert—if that concert took place in the vacuum of space. Many had initially hope Price’s enthusiasm for open dialogue and a more progressive Duke would lead to him openly addressing the protesters and having a dialogue with the larger student body. However, as Price has spent more and more time at Duke’s helm, it seems his zeal has faded and the bureaucracy of his peers has set in.
Price has become like that one friend that’s super keen on housing reform at Duke: they seemed great at first—sure, a little weird, but mostly pretty cool—now it’s all become terribly confusing, and you stay up at night Googling things like “how to know if my friend is in a cult” and sadly wondering where they lost their way in such a tangled web of baffling policies.
For those of you unclear on what a “deafening silence” is, it’s when someone’s silence speaks far louder than anything they could say ever would. It’s an oxymoron—a pair a of two contradictory words or phrases such as: a “wise fool”, a “relevant PiKapp” or an “ethical DUSDAC” (shots fired...over what? Who knows, but I’m calling for an immediate investigation).
The “Most Deafening Silence” world record was previously held by Duke’s very own Tallman Trask who spent weeks lying low after he decided to carry out a fun-filled hit-and-run (complete with a bonus edition shouting of the n-word!) on a parking attendant and then proceeded to intentionally lie to the Chronicle about it.
Trask—somehow still Duke’s Executive Vice President and the reason Black Panther doesn’t have a 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes—had only this to say: “I really wish that meddling Monday Monday would stop reminding the world about my disgraceful scandal. If anyone else—like an lowly student or professor—pulled that kinda stunt, they’d never get away with it the way I did!”
To the protestors. First off: it is painfully inconsiderate and shameful that you would interrupt alumni weekend the way that you did. You should take a long, hard look in the mirror and think about what you’ve done. Seriously—alumni weekend? You’ve had three months of this semester to do something like this and you sat idly by and waited. For three months I have endured and painstakingly written this column week after week without a single scandal to cover. Last week I had to write a column where I ranked EVERYTHING AT DUKE; do you have any idea how desperate you have to be to write a mediocre kale-based joke roasting Jarvis?
I take it deeply personally that you waited so long, depriving me of such anything to write on before casually handing me this pile of juicy material. That said, I shall find it within myself to forgive you since what you guys did took some Grayson Allen-sized balls (except you guys actually sank the jumpshot).
To the administration: as for punishing the students for speaking up, I don’t think I’ve heard of anything more stupid and cowardly in all my time at Duke. That’s like shooting a seal in the face for flopping onto a BP oil rig and saying “Hey oily bois! Uh you guys are kinda sorta pumping millions of gallons of toxic oil into my ecosystem. Can we not do that? Can we fix that?” Or arresting someone for interrupting dinner in the first class section on the Titanic for saying “I know I ordered my double whiskey ‘on the rocks’ but I just spotted a XXXL ice cube we should probably do something about!”
The protestors mean well. They hope to shed light on an issue that, clearly, you are not handling with the necessary degree of urgency. Hate what they say, disagree with their opinions, but don’t wield your power to shut down the debate and intimidate students into silently accepting the way things are at Duke. That’s just a colossally terrible idea. Trust me, I wrote a column where I ended up roasting Jarvis. F**king Jarvis. It was woeful. I know a bad idea when I see one.
We have all become used to seeing laughable leadership from the White House, but we hoped for a little more from our very own Allen Building. Sorry, that got pretty deep for a second there; I’ll end on a light-hearted joke instead:
What’s the difference between Sigma Nu section and a cactus?
The cactus has pricks on the outside.
Promo announcement: Duke Barbershop is doing a $15 special where you can get a full haircut and shave while listening to back-to-back Mike Pence speeches about “whether or not we should have to bake cakes for the gays.” What a class act! Thanks for being yet another reason why no one ever visits the BC any more, guys!
Correction: There were no Nobel Prize winners this week? Why? There are literally no departments left for me to skewer. I feel like Shia LaBeouf after Transformers 3; I’ve achieved the one thing I was put on earth to do - there’s just no point going on with this empty existence any more.
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