OPINION
'Oreo': A harmful title
By Victoria Priester | September 22, 2017Growing up, we had a term at my school for black people that “acted white”: they were referred to as “oreos.”
Growing up, we had a term at my school for black people that “acted white”: they were referred to as “oreos.”
The American bias against introverts and preference for extroverts needs to end, not only because it is unfounded but also because it excludes a key part of the population that can offer a useful skillset. A preference for solitude is not something that should be looked down upon, and a lack of exuberance does not lessen the success of a student or worker.
As the frenzy of fall job recruiting grips campus, throngs of suit-clad, portfolio-armed Duke students have become a familiar sight. Behind the scenes, students spend hours perfecting resumes, polishing interview answers, and diligently networking with company employees. The targets of these all-consuming efforts are coveted job opportunities with a handful of elite firms—predominantly within the consulting and finance industries—that recruit extensively at Duke every year.
How do undergraduate students get stuck toiling on a project they don’t even care about? Can “true love” ever exist between Duke undergrads and Duke labs?
With our programming this year, Honor Council will offer some answers, but it’s each student’s responsibility to wrestle with, modify, and internalize them for themselves. Community, fairness, and equality undergird the Duke Community Standard and our mission.
At the U.N General Assembly on Monday, President Trump ushered in a new era of American foreign policy with a bellicose speech that, among many other things, openly mocked North Korea and called for an American prioritization within international relations.
Diverse viewpoints should be allowed to dialogue and disagree on campuses because it builds towards the universal goal of universities as sites for inquiry, reflection and intellectual challenges. However, the spectacle of current efforts obviates the real good of allowing controversial views and their dissenters a voice.
We rarely use Good/Bad to describe other social identities, so why not problematize Good Men? Who gets to choose who is Good and who is Bad, anyway? Perhaps masculinities are too nuanced and complicated to be understood with such an inadequate moral standard.
Every time you see the PCRs walking around and feel a wave of stress and anxiety, take five minutes and google random careers.
A good apophatic theologian understands well the idea that truth and beauty are defined by absence, that a room is made to seem brighter if one corner is in shadow.
Instead of focusing on the repeal of Obama era advancements, there needs to be be a concerted effort to work on re-imagining the process to strip the university of its undue power and to bring a more just treatment of sexual assault cases.
We didn’t create these situations in our city, but we’re lucky enough to be in a place where we can do something about them.
Both bullies and the bullied struggle with the consequences of feeling left out—a natural human sentiment we all can relate to.
Undergraduate students had to have awkward conversations with all the “young alumni” who they’d kind of hoped they’d never see again post-graduation.
There should be no cheering for a nuclear war where its innocent civilians will suffer the most. When speaking on foreign policy tactics, it remains unproductive and dishonest to conflate the people of a nation with their political leaders.
If Duke is as committed to diversity as its two most recent presidents have purported it to be, it should celebrate our fall in the U.S. News Rankings. Only then could its objections to Trump’s policy initiatives be thought of as ethical, and its claimed commitment to diversity be truly genuine.
Jenkins’ work provides a platform for anyone who once thought they were alone in that conversation, for anyone who felt bogged down by clouds of confusion and opposition.
Regardless of how much progress is being made in comparison to other schools across the country, there is still a need to focus on continuously creating new ways of supporting underrepresented students for their four years on campus.
It’s time to recognize that we did not get here alone. It’s time for us to open our eyes and stand in solidarity with someone besides ourselves for once.