Before we can provide any kind of service to any outside community, we need to serve our own communities and human interactions. If we want to contribute to any greater social change, we need to rethink just how we are working towards that change.
When we are so busy servicing other communities, we fail to recognize that it is often our very own community that needs servicing. Sure, we all know that-- "Think globally, act locally." We did it in high school; it shined on our resumes. And we keep on volunteering, and being activists, starting new organizations, new campaigns, new paper-thin relationships with those we meet. We pat ourselves on the back for starting a new program about the hottest cause. Build a house in Durham and help build a roof for the homeless of the world. Tutor children and help teach the world to read. Free Tibet. Free Palestine. End sweatshops. End the drug war.
Wonderful. But where is it going to get us in terms of permanent social change? There are two issues that work against real change: charity and the division of interest groups. First, the issue of charity. It is so easy to talk about those in need, those we can help and those less fortunate than us, but it is a challenge to talk about how we need to serve our own communities. On the surface we look quite fortunate with our wardrobes, endless food supply, laptops, jewelry--our prized possessions. But what is lacking in our human relationships that makes us see all of these monetary things as signs of our privilege?
Of course, there are essential human needs that we have that others do not. But if we continue focusing on the struggles of other individuals, we put ourselves in a dangerous position of thinking that our situations are ideal. We stress out about a Chem lab; others stress out because they do not have dinner. We throw up food, take drugs to get our minds off of our sources of depression and drink coffee and Diet Coke in gallons. Beautiful privileged lives.
I am not trying to undermine the way that community service can positively impact individuals and communities, but we need to seriously address the way that we interact and build our own communities. We all joke about those fake freshmen friendships, but we all know that so many of our interactions as upperclassmen are just as superficial. How many times have we avoided events if we knew that we would be the only person there of a certain race or sexuality? And how many times do we turn ourselves away from relationships because we know that our interests won't match with certain individuals', or we never break the false barriers that we put up between ourselves and our acquaintances?
We talk about self-segregation, but act as if we are not the ones who are doing the segregating. There aren't signs pointing to the left and right sides of the Marketplace. We are the ones who choose the Sigma Nu party over the Alpha party, join BSA and not Hiwar, Diya and not Mi Gente. The divisions and gaps are much deeper than that, and we are only going to continue dividing ourselves if we do not start changing how we interact with one another.
A week ago, I returned to Duke from the Common Ground retreat mentally and emotionally drained, but with elation and a deep connection to 50 people that I had never met before. More than 50 Duke undergraduates, intentionally representing a diverse demographic spread of the student body, spending four days on the beach three hours outside of Durham. Sounds like the premise to an '80s horror movie. But all my expectations were surpassed more than I ever thought would happen in one weekend. In four days, we formed an intensely intimate community.
We set ourselves out to address race, gender and class relations without holding anything back. We knew, and continue to remind ourselves, that we are all infused with certain ideologies and forced to claim certain identities. We were honest and attentive and refused to accept the ways that we are taught to interact and communicate. Through programs that challenged our innate stereotypes and human classifications, to personal discussions about our own prejudices and privileges, to not sleeping at night and hanging out together, we became a cohesive and inclusive community.
It was not surprising that our emotional levels raised and lowered in extremes when we returned; if Duke was the sort of environment that fostered these communities, then Common Ground would not have been necessary.
What is it about our campus, about us, that resists these interactions? We turn ourselves away from the battles that need to be fought in our lives directly and focus solely on the problems of those outside of our communities. I am not calling for an end to community and group solidarity, but the changes that we want to see happen in the world need to start with our own human interactions and ideas of how we should relate.
There are so many layers to making change in our communities. Instead of starting our own narrowly focused interest groups so that each one has three members, why don't we combine groups to make the movement stronger and to challenge the way we are taught to make supposed changes?
Emily LaDue is a Trinity sophomore. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
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