INC NEWS - Column: The worst sound at Duke (Chronicle, 17 April 2006)

[John Schelp]

"Only when all of us believe ourselves to be members
of the Durham community -- no more, no less -- and
make individual commitments to act like it, will the
faces and personalities of real Duke students replace
the stereotypes."

Column: The worst sound at Duke
by Daniel Bowes, Duke Chronicle, 17 April 2006

You had to have heard it at some point this past week.
It was everywhere, all at once-a huge, collective sigh
of relief. Heck, you can still hear it now.

I've decided that it is probably the worst sound I'll
ever hear at Duke.

Don't get me wrong-there is certainly reason for
relief. As students, we should obviously rejoice when
facts emerge that make it significantly less likely
that our classmates are rapists. 

But that is not at all what's happening here. The sigh
was not a response to the potential innocence of our
classmates, but rather a response to the potential of
our own exoneration. I am sincerely troubled by the
number of students using the DNA evidence-the
increased likelihood that a rape did not occur-to
vindicate themselves, to vindicate Duke and to
completely and tragically obscure the real issues
here. 

The fact is that the student body hasn't been absolved
of anything. It wouldn't matter if the mayor of Durham
came out next week, apologized to the lacrosse team
and gave the team a key to the city. The charges of
racism, elitism and general detachment would be as
valid as ever.

Since the allegations were made public, too much
campus dialogue has focused on the media's immediate
condemnation of the lacrosse team and the
mischaracterization of Duke and its relationship with
Durham.

Though these are valid topics of discussion, their
dominance and tone are severely undermining any and
all attempts to productively discuss privilege, race
and responsible citizenship. 

Students are defensive in their responses to the
larger Durham community. We have supplanted genuine
engagement with an inexcusable dialogue that only
reinforces Durham's allegations. 

Residents are accusing Duke students of believing
themselves superior to Durham and its people.

Some students are defending their reclusive nature,
brazenly pointing out that Durham isn't exactly a
cultural mecca. 

Community members are calling for Duke to implement
policies that promote interaction and tolerance. Yet
at a campus forum, a senior countered, "We need to
remember how good Duke is. At the University of
Alabama, the frats are completely segregated."

Durham and NCCU are asking the Duke student body to
address its racial insensitivities. The Center for
Race Relations responded with a forum to do just that.


A whopping thirty students, or .5 percent of the
student body, participated in the event. 

Is this madness, or is it just me?

Because it seems to me that we're countering charges
of elitism, racism and apathy with blatant snobbery,
racially insensitive excuses and wide-spread
unresponsiveness.

If anything valuable is going to come of this entire
ordeal, then there must be an immediate and dramatic
shift in dialogue. 

Individually, we must honestly reflect on our own
perpetrations. We each have them. The distrust Durham
harbors toward Duke is no illusion of the media, it is
all too real and consequential. It is a product of
experience and has led much of a town to readily and
collectively condemn so many for the alleged crimes of
so few.

The absence of productive dialogue is in and of itself
a statement-a statement that we consider crossing our
own threshold too risky and largely unrewarding.

If a relevant dialogue does eventually emerge and in
it we decide to accept Durham's residents as our
peers, then we must begin making every effort to
persuade residents to accept us as their own.

Once we commit ourselves to Durham, at every
opportunity community members must be made to feel
comfortable within our walls, and not as if at the
slightest perceived misstep their welcome will be
rescinded.

In turn, it is imperative that we cross that same
threshold and go into Durham, not as students or
consumers, but simply as citizens.

Only when all of us believe ourselves to be members of
the Durham community -- no more, no less -- and make
individual commitments to act like it, will the faces
and personalities of real Duke students replace the
stereotypes. 

Until you make that commitment -- until you've taken
every opportunity to represent yourself to
Durham-whether it be to your housekeeper, your fellow
restaurant patrons or at neighborhood meetings --
please spare me another impassioned diatribe on the
injustice of "mischaracterization."


Daniel Bowes is a Trinity junior. This is his final
column.