A year ago, on a C-2 bus, I met a mother and son visiting Duke for the first time. She leaned over to ask the location of a particular building, and we soon started chatting about the University, why I chose it, what I liked about it.
At one point, she leaned in further and whispered, "I haven't seen many black students around. Are there quite a few?" I answered that Duke ranked high among its competitors in how many African American students attended the University. She paused, then responded quietly, "But I hope there aren't many that teach classes. Do they let them do that?"
I froze for an instant, her earnestness caught me off-guard. Was she serious? I was flabbergasted; in my heart of hearts, I wanted to yell and scream about her insular, racist questions, but I sadly accepted that no tantrum from me was going to reverse a lifetime of prejudice. I responded with the facts: we had dozens of black professors, and arguably our most distinguished faculty member of all, John Hope Franklin, was African American. He worked on that case that helped to integrate schools way back when. The conversation ended.
I hope they send your son a thin envelope, I remember thinking.
I felt helpless and frustrated that day; angry, too, that I had to pause before answering.
Identical feelings reemerged two weeks ago, upon reading that members of our lacrosse team-of our stock-allegedly hurled racial epithets at passersby. I ask myself, as I think many have, how a team that counts an African American as one of its own could have said such things without forethought or remorse?
Shame replaced confusion. Shame in the face of cameras on Main West and stories in the broadsheet. Shame that we-as classmates, as parents, as a community-had failed to help them understand the destructive legacy of those words.
Unfortunately, we have a greater share of that legacy than we'd sometimes like to think. It encompasses a party with an ill-chosen theme, a column with poorly researched claims about a culture, a sports article comparing an athlete to an animal. The sheer volume of protest, complaint, argument and defensiveness suggests the general sense that something is sick at Duke.
To respond to these issues by citing numerical diversity, as too many have done, neither does justice to the questions nor moves the conversation forward. The rhyme: one-third of our students are minorities. Great, as if the solution were as simple as meeting a quota.
To respond with top-down administrative declarations, as many have suggested, sets us up for failure. Policy change that precedes culture change is almost always a futile exercise. Harassment codes and bias response programs are not magic bullets; it is clear that scholarship and conversation-even if imperfect, interminable, frustrating-will go a longer way toward healing old wounds than any executive order.
The first step is to engage in a constructive, respectful and often uncomfortable dialogue about the problems we must confront as we move forward. Are we content to accept social arrangements that seem to prevent white and black students from breaking bread together at the Marketplace? Are we not upset that we have allowed white fraternities to dominate West Campus and historically black fraternities on Central Campus to segregate us socially and physically? Why do we charge students more money to live on West than on Central?
Cynics claim that race is either not at issue here or that racial tension is an immutable reality. They ignore decades of hard-won progress in this University, this city, the country. What I marvel at, what gives me such hope, are the people who choose to engage in this work-groups in Duke and Durham, pushing us forward step by awkward step.
On second thought, I withdraw my earlier wish. I hope the student I met on the bus was admitted. I hope his mother is made a part of the extended Duke family.
And I hope the Duke they enter is one that dissolves their homegrown beliefs. A Duke that pushes, prods, annoys, provokes, upsets and surprises. Our task, our obligation, is to make that Duke a reality-there is no greater challenge.
Jimmy Soni is a Trinity junior. This is his final column.
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