Tired of running from the police

“I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other. We gotta start makin’ changes…”

—Tupac Shakur

At a Duke University Police Department meet-and-greet Sept. 30, I asked Officer Paul Detomo about the role of DUPD in promoting racial tensions at Duke, and he said he didn’t seem to understand why students are increasingly dissatisfied with how Duke police are dealing with minority students.

He said that DUPD has been operating under the same guiding student relations principles for years, and that nothing has changed.

In my opinion, when police officers like Detomo turn a blind eye to the obvious—and worsening—racism at Duke, it’s no wonder that race relations on campus are still so strained.

We burn bench after bench at basketball games, but the “Black Bench” still exists, and tensions toward the PSM conference and stereotypes of Arabs on this campus intensify daily.

And although we don’t always care enough to burn the Black Bench—and all its connotations—instead, the possibility of racism in our police force is an issue that affects us all.

DUPD Chief Clarence Birkhead doesn’t believe DUPD plays a part in racial tensions on campus.

The Great Hall party celebrating NPHC’s Step Show last weekend—a party that few white students attended—greeted its mostly-black students with a metal detector.

And in my own experiences with Duke police, I’ve seen that minority students—black or not—get harassed by DUPD officers almost daily on account of their race.

Like so many Dukies, I don’t believe in working within the system to change things when, in the words of Officer Detomo, Duke is a system that refuses to change.

In an echo of Tupac’s message, we’re all “tired of being chased by the police.”

Even Durham police.

“You never touch a man in a blue uniform,” said a white Durham Police Department officer Sept. 2 outside Parizade Café, according to sophomore Anteneh Addisu, who was arrested that night.

Not that it should matter, but Anteneh is a black—or rather, Ethiopian—student at Duke.

“The manner in which he cuffed me was as if I was causing a public disturbance. He was rough about it,” Anteneh said. “You could hear people say, ‘Let him go, let him go. He didn’t do anything.’”

But Anteneh is not alone, and in my opinion, acts of racial prejudice on Duke’s campus and at Duke’s off-campus parties have not been unique to black students. Arab students are also affected by race relations at Duke.

“This is not Saudi Arabia; this is America. You will obey the laws here…. You need to shut up now,” said a white DPD officer outside George’s Garage last spring, according to fifth-year senior Rakan Aldukeil.

It seemed to Rakan that his arrest had a lot more to do with his race than his actual infraction. “In a split second, he smashed me against the wall and then threw me on the ground and cuffed me,” Rakan said. “I got bruised all over my face and chest and had cuts on my arms.”

Rakan was sure to get the name of the Durham officer before leaving George’s that night, but he didn’t get to keep it. “When he threw me onto his trunk, he took everything out of my pockets,” Rakan said. “He took the piece of paper that I had written his name on and threw it away.”

According to Rakan, the Durham police set his bail at $3,500—unheard of for a first-time offense.

Black or Arab or not, we are the students these police officers vow to protect. We should not be marginalized—by DUPD or DPD officers—on our own campus, least of all racially profiled.

It is a conflict of interest for these police officers to maintain their positions in our police force if they continue to allow their own issues with racism to interfere in the line of duty.

As students, we support Duke—and Duke supports Durham—financially, socially and morally. Racism has no place in the pursuit of justice, at Duke or anywhere else.

“We gotta start makin’ changes...”

Shadee Malaklou is a Trinity sophomore.