Letter to the Editor: BSAI beneficial to Black community

One must be very careful when generalizing all the events of BSAI weekend as mimicking the idea of "blackness." Upon reading "The Big Show: Blackness at Duke," two questions come to mind: Do the authors Yousuf Al-Bulushi, Ekua Annan, and Zachari Curtis truly know and appreciate the events of BSAI weekend? And does either of the authors actively participate in the Black Student Alliance?

Aside from events like the fashion show and the step show, BSAI provides Dean's sessions, FOCUS brunches, faculty mixers and other programs created to disseminate information to prospective students. For one person to rightfully cast judgment on the African American culture of Duke University or the Black Student Alliance, he or she should at least have some experience with the community that is being judged.

For the authors to view the African-American community here at Duke as a "uniformed blackness" contained under the "myth of unity" is only a perpetuation of the closed mindedness that we here at Duke are attempting to escape. We are the crops sown by the labor of our ancestors through the years of suffering and oppression by a nation of ignorance, striving to become successful people in all spectrums of life--not to become the "new Black bourgeoisie class." Annan and Curtis obviously feel that step shows and fashion shows embrace the "hyper-masculinity, homophobia, and lack of privilege" in the African-American community, but they fail to mention the academic seminars and informational sessions that comprised the majority of the weekend.

Instead of criticizing BSAI, the aforementioned authors should propose solutions to the "so-called" problem by becoming active members in an organization that represents the black community as a whole. But then again, that may be too "unified" of a thing to do.

Phillip Olaleye

Trinity '07