Our story

Last semester, after three and a half years at Duke, I felt exhausted. I was overwhelmed every time I found out that one more person I knew had been sexually assaulted. I was disgusted every time I heard the word “fa—ot” being used as an insult. I was frustrated every time I saw a whiteboard in my dorm drunkenly scribbled over with racialized comments. Most of all, I was angered that most people didn’t seem to notice or care that these problems existed at Duke. The cancellation of Tailgate had students passionately protesting, so why wasn’t something like the prevalence of rape on campus garnering the same reaction?

I resolved to thinking that some people will never understand, so there was no use in continually bringing up conversations about privilege—granted societal advantages or entitlements each of us has—whether they be related to race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, religion, or ability. It’s a lost cause—a battle not worth fighting. After reflecting on my own time at Duke, though, I realized that I didn’t understand most of these issues until I came to campus.

I grew up in an upper-middle class family in a happy suburb of Raleigh with neighbors who lived a very similar lifestyle. I was never forced to think about having been denied an opportunity because I couldn’t afford it. I was never forced to think about gender dynamics because all the women I knew led what I considered well-balanced, successful lives. I was never forced to think about race because my high school was mostly white and my ethnicity was only part of the conversation when people talked about Asians being smart.

Then I came to Duke, and the comforts slowly began to disappear. It started with the realization that being opinionated and being a woman meant I was a b—. I had to ensure that I wasn’t seen on campus with people of the same skin shade, because doing so would make me that self-segregating minority. Adding to the unease of fitting in on campus was the lack of designer labels in my wardrobe that could scream, “Hey, I’m worthy of being a part of the elite social circles!”

These discomforts were only the tip of the iceberg. As I began meeting different people on campus, I realized the world was much more complex than I had known. I became increasingly uncomfortable that my peers had not only been called names, but been physically beaten for identifying as LGBTQ on campus. The realization that rape wasn’t just a statistic took months to digest. Learning that several friends had considered suicide because they felt so alienated on campus was something I didn’t know how to deal with.

A part of me wanted to blame these problems on a larger Duke culture—on what I felt was the adamancy of many students to ignore the affects of their actions on others. The doggedness to be unaware of a world outside of our own, though, is such a blissfully easy perspective to live with. It is hard to recognize the privileges each of us has because being part of the majority often means taking the comforts we get for granted. It means having our actions go unquestioned. We can easily shut our eyes to the experiences that exist outside our own, especially when they’re a result of something so large and seemingly out of our control. Racism, sexism, classism, homophobia—these words invoke systematic oppressions, but we fail to realize that systems are a creation of individual movements which we are all a part of.

Duke, though, grants each of us the privilege—a different kind—of understanding how our differences, our individual haves and have-nots, at times create barriers. But the bigger opportunity is the chance to open our eyes and see how, despite the differences, we all have commonalities that bind us together. The beauty of Duke is that it creates an ever-growing space for each of our stories to be created and heard. These stories, a result of the privileges and lack of privileges each of us has been granted, often define our roles and identities in the cultures and communities we inhabit. Duke is especially abundant with these stories, and being part of this community brings an individual responsibility to understand how our stories intertwine, and how our thoughts, words and actions affect others.

Last semester, my conversations—or often lack thereof—left me disillusioned with Duke. Now, I feel grateful and fortunate in knowing that my four years here have allowed me to understand myself and others in a much different light than I had ever imagined. I never knew the world as being such a complex place—so messy, yet so beautiful—where each individual has the power to impact another. I’m leaving Duke knowing that many of these problems will likely exist for decades to come, both on campus and in the outside world. I also know that we will realize over time that I don’t simply have my story and you have yours, but we also have a collective one. So what will you make of ours?