Everyday fight against discrimination

In yesterday’s editorial, we discussed the Duke administration’s response to the noose incident. For many students, constant racism is a daily reality. Racism and micro-aggressions often take different forms, moving in and out of campus dialogue. Why does it take an event as abhorrent as a noose for us to have last week’s conversation?

Part of the issue is the recent history of Duke and its scandal-focused culture. Since the 2006 lacrosse case, every piece of bad news is sensationalized to a “scandal,” whether it truly is or not. The model has become reactionary: Where a “scandal” occurs, a response is formed by students and the administration and, eventually, the University redirects its attention elsewhere. The loose narrative of this script is followed to the point where students are annoyed that “yet another scandal” has occurred. This has created a hostile environment in which to discuss the issues underlying the scandals. Many students become desensitized to the reasons why the scandals are problematic in the first place and ignore the hurt and genuine emotion other students are often feeling. This lack of validation can emotionally exhaust students, faculty and administration who are dealing with the incident themselves and addressing it with the community.

The issues that marginalized members of the community face on a daily basis are already significant. At Tuesday’s faculty-run discussion of the history of lynching and racism, sociology department chair Eduardo Bonilla-Silva described trends against people of color in ID requests from University police, invalidating banter about affirmative action’s role in their admissions and the offhanded brushing off of racist acts as jokes. There have also been past issues with our own faculty members. In many ways, constant smaller acts of racism drain students just as overt acts of racism do. It is often easy to deride the egregious forms of racism while ignoring the more elegant structural forms that are ongoing.

So how can we begin to address these issues? The first step is to change our approach by altering the lens through which we view these issues. Our campus is segmented in a number of different ways, and social groups often become homogenous. We encourage students who are not hurt to look toward the other side and imagine another perspective. Settling for asking for more dialogues and conversations to be held is a weak response when the Black Student Alliance and the Center for Multicultural Affairs regularly hold conversations on race and other issues. A common follow-up concern is that students who are not typical attendees would be received antagonistically. Without dismissing these feelings or concerns as invalid, we suggest that students look to understand that some black students do not feel comfortable as soon as they step onto campus. The ability to avoid uncomfortable spaces is a privilege often not afforded to marginalized groups. Being uncomfortable is a critical component of learning.

Students need to attend the conversations and dialogues that are already occurring and to continue to educate themselves in other fashions within their regular circles. We also need to make sure to challenge racism in all of its forms, especially the micro-aggressions that occur every day. Many of us are more than capable of engaging these issues, and the cost to do your part is small compared to the benefits reaped for our community.