How language turns advocates into reformers

I’ve spent the last year studying oppressive language. My honors thesis in Public Policy (which I submitted on Friday!) explored how the language surrounding racial profiling, stop-and-frisk and use of force in the New York Police Department offers strategic policymaking insight. That is, what does studying the way we debate these problems tell us about the best way to go about fixing them? It just so happened that, as I was feverishly documenting the linguistic power struggle in New York City, a similar tug-of-war was unfolding on campus.

The very same communication issues that impeded police reform in New York City plague efforts to address institutional inequality on the Duke campus. New Yorkers, whether they supported or blamed the police, all wanted less crime. We, as a community, all want less discrimination and, certainly, less hate.

Our problem is the same as New York’s, where police and citizens subject to police action were each trying to prove their moral superiority over the other. Neither side was willing to give each other the benefit of the doubt. Endless argument over whether racial discrimination even existed, what was causing it and who to blame prevented productive conversations about change. The police claimed that protecting citizens against crime was their primary mission, but advocacy groups argued that it was the police that people needed protection from.

The parallels are not difficult to draw. The Duke Administration maintains that the University seeks to protect students and faculty from bias and hate. Those who issued the “Demands of Black Voices” claim that the University itself is complicit in perpetuating a biased and even hateful environment.

The student advocates did not give the University the benefit of the doubt when they issued what amounted to an ultimatum at the most recent forum—imposing yes-or-no responses and refusing to allow President Brodhead to ask a question of them. Yet, at least in that setting, the University would not give student protestors the benefit of the doubt either; administrators offered the same overly evasive answers—even to a softball of a proposal to rename West Union after Julian Abele, the prominent black architect who designed all of West Campus’ gothic splendor. Granting many of the other demands would require extending benefit of the doubt by, for instance, trusting students not to abuse recognition of mental health incapacitation on STINF forms.

The current police reforms underway in New York were initiated by court order, which seems to have jolted both sides into accepting that they both want progress and that progress is not a zero-sum game. The new NYPD policy narrative treats respect for individual rights as a key tool for crime-fighting; the trust that emerges from mutual respect allows officers to gain information and cooperation necessary to improve conditions on the ground and apprehend criminals. Correspondingly, student advocates here at Duke need to recognize that establishing mutual respect to serve a common purpose will go much further toward actually accomplishing reform than will continuing to insist that the University capitulate to every demand.

This will require distancing rational policymaking conversation from the often personal, emotionally-charged reasons for having those conversations. The fact that many minority students on campus describe their personal experiences of feeling slighted, overlooked and victimized from the perspective of their particular racial, sexual and gender identities absolutely helps initiate the right conversations. It contributes to the critical “problem recognition” stage of policymaking. However, carrying over those sentiments into the “policy formulation” stage actually inhibits finding the most fruitful, feasible paths to change by alienating other stakeholders.

I asked Chronicle columnist and Editorial Page Editor Jonathan Zhao, a vocal critic of both the premises and means of student advocacy in public forums this semester (and himself a minority), about the pros and cons of leveraging one’s personal identity in argument. His response sheds light on why policymaking debates that are fraught with identity politics often end in gridlock. “Using identity as a way to discredit others or to validate your own viewpoint is nonsensical,” Zhao responded in an e-mail. “Sure, being of a certain identity, whether it's race, gender or whatever else, might help to inform your view, but it is no substitute for real argumentation which is borne from logical conclusions built upon evidence. Being a member of a particular identity does not entitle you to sole speaking rights over issues that affect your identity group. And using identity as a crutch for argumentation only serves to Balkanize people and alienate those that otherwise might agree with you.”