Students post strong online reactions to Friday protest

The protest against a cop-themed party last Friday has triggered a number of strong reactions on Facebook.

One of the first posts that garnered attention was written by junior Thasos Athens, who argued that the themed party was not a big issue and that protestors were needlessly attacking Greek organizations on campus that have been previously scrutinized.

“This protest-happy activist culture has gotten so beyond the pale in its own search for validation of its victimhood that it’s now actively generating controversy on perceived easy targets,” Athens wrote just after the protest finished.

The post has received more than 200 likes, but a number of students commented on the post criticizing Athens for dismissing the protest and the issue of mass incarceration. Many students also challenged the tone of Athens’ post, writing that it was unnecessarily aggressive and hostile.

Ronnie Nadine, Trinity ’15, who declined to comment, wrote a post criticizing Athens’ post and argued the conditions faced by prisoners, rather than the criticism faced by Greek organizations, should elicit sympathy. The post had received 85 likes as of Tuesday night and dozens of comments and replies.

“I’d call the poor and disenfranchised a group many may feel antipathy toward, especially since they’re currently jailed, while Greek and non-Greek Duke students are enjoying a world class education and access to the top jobs in the country upon graduation,” Nadine wrote.

Athens said that he did not intend to minimize the topics of incarceration and prison conditions in the U.S., but rather the way in which protestors raised the issues.

“I’m sympathetic personally to the fight against government incarceration of our own citizens,” Athens said. “However, I find it utterly absurd that these protestors were trying...to make it an issue that’s somehow related to Greek life.”

Athens added, however, that he appreciated Nadine’s critical post. Athens said that he felt Nadine made “mistakes” in his analysis, but did respond in an analytical way and did not resort to ad-hominem attacks.

“I don’t agree with his analysis, but it’s his prerogative to make such a critique and share it and I want to laud him for having something actually analytical to say about it,” Athens explained.

Ray Li, Trinity ’15, who is currently a law student at Stanford University, expressed a different reaction on Facebook, writing that a discussion on prisons and mass incarceration is important to have at Duke, regardless of how it came about. Li encouraged students interested in the issue to get involved and help to find solutions. His post received more than 300 likes.

Li also wrote about his experience working at juvenile prisons to help children understand their legal rights. He said that the experience had helped him to better understand the impacts that incarceration has.

“The system is unsustainable and we only think it’s so inevitable because it’s so entrenched in our national psyche,” he wrote.

Li added that although he had previously felt that abolishing prisons was out of the question, a debate on the first day of his law school classes convinced him to think otherwise.

“One of the debates was, ‘Should we or should we not have prisons?’ and to me that was a ridiculous question,” he said. “But there were a lot of people in my class who either went to Berkeley or some of the liberal arts schools and have learned more about this through their classes. It has been a conversation on their campuses, and so they knew the points of major contention on why prisons might be bad as a whole and what the alternatives are.”

Although Li said that he did not see any easy solutions to the issue, he thought that starting a conversation on the issue was a step in the right direction. While the way in which the conversation was started may have been contentious, he said that there may not have been alternatives.

“I had the privilege of working in a student government context [while at Duke] in which we were always given a microphone and always given a place to speak,” Li said. “A lot of people don’t have that kind of institutionalized space, and so I think that if you want to get an issue across and you don’t have a lot of institutional support behind you and platforms otherwise, I think protest definitely is an effective way to get your message out and to start a conversation.”

Others, however, said that the way in which protestors attempted to start a conversation on mass incarceration was unhelpful. Senior Pi Praveen said that the tone of the protests alienated many who are sympathetic to the issue of mass incarceration. She engaged in a protracted discussion in the comments section of Nadine’s post in response to a comment by junior Mina Ezikpe, who did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

She also said that the protestors were attempting to speak for all minorities rather than allowing people to speak individually.

“Even the conversation about a meritorious topic like mass incarceration that we need to have is put off by the way these people have suggested that all black and brown bodies and voices must be on their side or must adopt their narrative,” she said. “It’s really difficult to find anything productive here because moderates have been turned off of the conversation and people are being told that they must take one of two extreme sides.”

Praveen added, however, that she felt that the tone of conversations on Facebook threads after the protest devolved significantly. She added that she hoped there would be better discussions of issues on campus in the future.

“Not only do I regret that people felt the need to post their views in All Duke, rather than, for example, write a column in The Chronicle or air their views in a more refined way, I also regret that I felt the need to get involved,” Praveen said. “But it was an issue that I felt particularly invested in.”