Looking backward, moving forward

I began writing my column this semester as, simultaneously, a gesture of defiance, an act of solidarity and an exercise in futility.

"Defiance" because I have often experienced the pages of The Chronicle and the culture of this campus as inhospitable to—if not actively hostile towards—the voices of marginalized communities. I wanted to challenge the pervasive racism, classism, sexism and heterosexism that I see pervading many aspects of campus life and to provide a counter-narrative centering the experience of the excluded, the exploited and the oppressed. The hubbub provoked by my very first column on white fragility (the response to which was ironically indicative of the exact phenomena I was calling out) shows, I think, the degree to which this aspect of my project was a success.

"Solidarity" because, while I experience several of these oppressions directly, others are far beyond my personal ken. As a cis white male—albeit a queer one—I wanted to use my relative privilege to advocate for others who might be understandably reluctant to take to the pages of The Chronicle to express their dissent. This is in itself a tricky process, and one I am not sure I have always navigated successfully. One thing I have hoped to accomplish is to model what it looks like to be an "ally"—a term I use with reservation, insofar as it is often employed through the dual lens of guilt/charity. ("Although I do not experience your oppression directly, I will 'help' you because I feel some moral obligation and/or responsibility.") In contrast, I use "allies" here in something closer to its literal sense—as those who "combine or unite for mutual benefit"—in recognition that, however different our experiences, my freedom is bound up in our collective liberation. Perhaps, after all, "comrade" would be better.

"Futility" because, I must confess, I occasionally despair of the possibility of convincing those blinded by their privilege of the reality of forms of privilege and oppression. Insofar as I read race, class, sexuality and gender as social systems entirely predicated on domination, this is perhaps unsurprising: one cannot expect those who actively benefit from power structures to perceive the problems adhering to them. But as an opinion columnist—not to mention a literary scholar and both a current and aspiring pedagogue—it is a bit deflating to realize the relative weakness of words when they come up against the very real power of material interests. Some of that skepticism about the efficacy of language was itself reflected in my column.

One result of the aforementioned skepticism was that, while I was very clear on who I was writing my column for, I was not always clear as to who exactly I was writing to. Was I writing to the exploited and the oppressed? In that case, I can think of much more effective channels of communication. Was I writing to the oppressor? And, if so, what did I possibly hope to accomplish? I still do not have a firm answer to this question.

One thing that surprised me about my own column was the extent to which it became an exercise in institutional memory. As I confronted hyper-topical concerns about (among others) racial oppression, university-driven gentrification, broken grievance procedures and union-busting on campus, I came to feel that an understanding of these topics was inextricable from knowledge of their broader historical context. Perhaps this begins to answer the question of (f)utility outlined above. White fragility, like other structures of hegemony, depends on something like willful amnesia—for which the only remedy is a dose of memory. More and more, I begin to think that the most radical thing we can do is to teach history.

Having said that, the most inspiring novelty that occurred this semester was the emergence of a full-fledged social justice movement, in the form of Duke Students and Workers in Solidarity. To call this "unanticipated" would be an understatement. I remain deeply humbled, inspired and excited by the courageous work of the students and workers who have brought this movement into being—and deeply honored to have been (and to remain) a part of it.

Recently, after yet another, abortive conversation with a senior administrator which again revealed the painful gap between the urgent issues confronting our community and the administration's (lack of) priorities, a close friend turned to me and said "Bennett, I feel like I don't even recognize this university anymore!"