“An open letter of love” to our students

“The ultimate offense of it all—the contorting of body and behavior to offset the deficit in another. There is a spiritual injustice in the adjustment. But now young black folks are refusing alteration or the mollification of conformity and are simply demanding justice.”—Charles Blow

Inspired by the events on Duke’s campus, and Rae Paris’ “An Open Letter of Love to Black Students,” we write to mark our solidarity with calls for fuller accountability on matters of social justice at Duke.

“We’re writing to tell you we see you and hear you.”

We write too to tell you that we see and hear your sense of injury in the face of events of the last year and more—the racist and mortally threatening Sigma Alpha Epsilon chant reportedly directed at a black student; the hanging of a noose outside the Bryan Center; Jerry Hough’s (James B. Duke Professor of Political Science) ill-informed published comments on a May 2015 New York Times editorial, “How Racism Doomed Baltimore”; and the defacement of the Patrisse Cullors #BlackLivesMatter poster this term—injuries that have come into public view that cannot stand. We also know there are countless other such injuries that remain in the shadows, unknown to us, that make you feel unsafe and harmed as black students on Duke’s campus.

Anti-black racism at Duke is not of course isolated. You surely have friends, siblings, cousins and other loved ones who attend other Predominantly White Institutions—whether Yale, Georgetown, the University of Missouri (“Mizzou”) or indeed Northwestern—and feel themselves to be too often in harm’s way as well.

We know there are hostilities and aggressions that likewise organize the experiences of many other kinds of students on Duke’s campus. These include the Kappa Sigma Fraternity’s 2013 “Asia Prime” Party; campus sexual assault; the preclusions to reporting; the threats to life and bodily and emotional integrity that come with homophobia and targeted declarations of mortal harm to specific students, not least to Jack Donohue; as well as the fears of many Muslim students—these and many other anti-sentiments organize aspects of your time here. These are the ones we know about. There are surely others.

Whatever the race, religion, (trans)gender, sexual orientation or indeed class position of students, we know that such differences—differences that ought to be celebrated, differences that make for the richest of both emotional and intellectual experiences on campus—can, and often do, place you in harm’s way. These harms are psychic and physical, deep and painful and take on significance in the living out of daily life on campus. We feel compelled to say, again, “We see you and hear you.”

But what can we do for you and with you? You expressed your outrage during the Friday, Nov. 13, 2015, noon conversation with senior Duke administration. Black folks, queer folks, many folks “are refusing alteration or the mollification of conformity and are simply demanding justice.” These sentiments extend to your allies. Allies likewise feel that the demand of conformity is no longer reasonable, permissible, livable. As faculty, we want you to know that you should feel you can lean on us, rely on us, demand things of us. We hope you will see us as providing a safe space, and that whatever tools we have at our disposal, in the cause of social justice, are your tools too.