Dear Dookie,
I just got back from Common Ground and let me tell you: Life? CHANGED! But I’m having some trouble translating my tolerance back at Duke. I take my coffee African American now, but no one notices.
—Converted CGer
Dear Converted Cult Member,
I think I can help you out here. For those who don’t know what Common Ground is, it is Duke’s flawless retreat on race, gender, sexuality and feeling bad for yourself. Everything done and said on Common Ground is strictly confidential, which means people wait at least two days after they get back before they tell all their friends who the secret gays and rape victims are. Basically, the process goes like this: You spend three straight days making awkward lists and engaging in prolonged, uninterrupted eye contact, and you come out of it better than everyone else.
Attending Duke’s biggest pity party can be life changing for like, a whole two weeks. If you’ve been having trouble unpacking your CG baggage, I’d be happy to do it for you. It may come as a pinky up the butt to some (Get it? A shocker! That joke’s for you, sluts.), but the Dookie has been on Common Ground. So if you’re confused about your experience, I’m here (And I’m queer! Or am I? Who knows! #CGlife) to help explain it to you.
Now the first important thing to remember about CG is how much you have learned. You now know that black people don’t like to have their hair touched and are tired of dance floor compliments. You can differentiate a third from a first wave feminist, and you know the different ways they braid their pubes. There have been conversations in which you openly call yourself a racist—and that is like SO progressive and forward and we thank you SO much for sharing. You use phrases like “heteronormativity” and “rape culture,” and you’re like 50 percent sure you sort of know what they mean. You understand what it’s like being black, gay, Asian, Native American, trans, a woman—in addition to what it is like being normal. But mostly, you’ve learned that the worth of human beings is measured in their ability to qualify for affirmative action and to teach people lessons using their sad life story. More than that, you’ve formed real, healthy friendships based on three days worth of middle school-level intellectual activities, mutual crying and unnatural sharing of arbitrary details about your life. CG Love!
Let’s not forget though, that some HAVEN’T learned as much as you have. The plebeians back at Duke have spent this weekend wearing chopsticks, while you were learning that it’s racist to use them. You may find it hard to discuss Common Ground with non-CGers, and it’s because you’re better than them. They don’t understand what it’s like in the REAL world. Without a fully-fledged retreat on the glorification of misery, how can someone REALLY understand the issues? As we CGers know, it’s just patently not possible. Since they haven’t been forced to be uncomfortable for a few days straight, we can assume they are just like we once were—racist, sexist and homophobic. The best thing you can do for these people is to educate them. Take every chance you can to point out when their politically correct façade slips and they expose their inner bigot. Correct people every single time they use gendered language. Use parties or pre-games as screening processes to see how comfortable people are with the word “Oriental.” This strategy of forced immersion into CG philosophy can only lead to polarizing viewpoints—toward acceptance of the correct (i.e., CG-approved) style of thinking.
But don’t be too harsh, because these uniformed bourgeoisie may have some value to them—they serve as a fodder to your enlightenment. Remember the central lesson of Common Ground: People from tough backgrounds are inherently superior. The more gut-wrenching, the better. The level of gory detail in your story will directly correlate with how much they like you. Why else do you think CG facilitators are so excited to share even the smallest hardship in the most dramatic way possible? I mean, even Duke’s bats**t cray feminazis want social status in this weird fraternity they’ve created for themselves.
But if there’s one lesson you should take away from Common Ground, it’s that there is no problem that can’t be solved by complaining about it. This fact can be demonstrated by the intellectual advancement in Duke’s culture and our campus-wide cultural sensitivity. After CG each semester, an earthquake of equality hits campus, shaking the student body to its core. By having a tiny group of sequestered students spend a weekend reaffirming their own views and feeling good about themselves through expressing how hard their lives have been, social change has been enacted on Duke’s campus. With a social activism strategy based on no actual activism but instead on a revolutionary model of self-pitying, self-promotion and whining, it’s no wonder that Duke has become the world’s beacon of social equality in the 21st century.
The Dookie knows how this Common Ground stuff works; I AM SPEAKING FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. There, now none of you can criticize me, and, despite its actual real-world applicability, my opinion is indisputably correct. Follow the Dookie on Twitter @DearDookie.
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