Sporting a slick dark suit and polished dress shoes, Blake Stanfill exuded an air of class and sophistication as the beat of smooth jazz filled the dimly lit Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture. He twirled his telltale white and red fraternity cane with one hand while the other gestured in conversation with sophomore Keith Cornelius.
The two are brothers in the historically black Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., which co-hosted a Valentine's Day-themed Jazz Night with the Mary Lou Williams Center. Fully decorated with red and white streamers and balloons, the event attracted a diverse group of students to engage in a night of good music, good company and good conversations.
The dozens of students from different races and backgrounds that gathered at the center that night seemed to contradict the rumored stereotype of the divide between black greek organizations and other groups on campus.
Soon after arriving on campus last August, freshman Deidre Alexander found herself in a completely different atmosphere than that of her elite-mostly white-New York City prep school. Although in high school she was friends with everyone in her graduating class, at Duke she has found herself consistently spending time with the same core group of black students. Only 9 percent of the Class of 2009 identified themselves as black upon matriculation, but Alexander estimates that 75 percent of her friends are black.
Alexander is just one example of what some say is a common path followed annually by minority students during the transition stage to college life. Due to a variety of factors-which many people debate-some black students end up interacting almost exclusively with each other. But what's the cause?
Stanfill, a senior and president of Kappa Alpha Psi, believes that the outreach programs offered to new undergraduates are part of the reason for the much-debated self-segregation within the University.
"Self-segregation is indoctrinated in the minds of Duke students," he says. "It is just a byproduct of the environment from day one.. Everyone is ostracized."
Yet is that explanation too simple? Senior Lorenna Lee-Houghton, president of the historically black Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., takes a different approach. She ascribes racial polarization to "the level of comfort" and "feeling of community" that come with associating with people from similar backgrounds.
She recalls that the school initially felt so large to her that she naturally gravitated toward the smaller cultural groups.
"As a freshman, you can easily be put into situations where those are the only people that you meet," she says. "Socially, you can definitely immerse yourself in nothing but black social life."
For senior Ade Wise, social life revolves around events run by the six on-campus historically black fraternities and sororities. But those organizations can differ greatly from the Inter-Fraternity Council fraternities and Panhellenic Association sororities. Each chapter has the option not to recruit members every year, for instance, and membership is generally not open to freshmen.
"I personally feel that it's important to stay closely knit within the black community because people care about the same things you do," says Wise, a member of Kappa Alpha Psi.
"It's about more than just a good party that you happen to go to," says senior Brandi Stewart, president of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, which governs the black sororities. "The beauty of them is that they're rooted in activism and awareness," she explains, labeling the sororities as "active groups, not academic or social in particular."
Black fraternities and sororities have a notoriously intense initiation process. Four years ago, national media caught on when two prospective members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. drowned while allegedly performing sorority exercises.
"They're just the only ones that got caught. People do that kind of stuff all the time," Alexander says.
Lee-Houghton admits that the black organizations have reputations for being hard on their members. But she attributes the tradition to their groups small sizes and close-knit nature.
"There's nothing extreme here," she says. "We have more sense than that."
The jury's still out on whether the black greek scene contributes to campus segregation. Stanfill notes that when promoting his organization's events he strives for inclusiveness. "We put up the same flyers as [IFC fraternities do]-they don't say 'black only'."
There are other social outlets developing for those looking for more options. Some minority students, such as sophomore Steven Sunmonu-member of an IFC fraternity-do choose to join IFC or Panhel organizations and do not participate in the black greek social scene.
"I'm not part of the group-I feel like I'm supposed to be there but I'm not," he says. "Sometimes the black community has a stigma for me but at the same time I don't really care."
The need to be associated with a group, whether it be a greek organization or an ethnic group, seems to be ingrained in the University's social atmosphere.
"Honestly, the Duke scene is just a microcosm of the world," Stanfill said. "I don't think things are going to change too much until there is a conscious effort. Until people step out of that comfort zone, America is going to be the same, and Duke is going to be the same."
Despite such skepticism, students have recently made an effort to fight racial stereotypes. Since last year, the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture has been transformed into a trendy jazz club almost every Wednesday night. As the event grew in popularity through word of mouth, more students from diverse backgrounds gathered to dress up (or dress down) and sip wine on Food Points out of plastic cups. As a jazz quartet filled the room with its smooth beat, the mix of faces mingling suggested that nearly half the audience was not black.
In the end, it all boils down to choice. Alexander, for one, isn't worried that most of her friends are black; she thinks that self-segregation is normal.
"I don't have a problem with the fact that most of my friends are black," she says. "It's only when you're making decisions who to talk to based on skin color that it becomes a problem."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.