Time to Speak Up

Like hundreds of you, I cast my first ballot as a resident of Durham this Tuesday.

And like nearly all of you, I was shocked and dismayed by the outcome of that election. It's hard to imagine what-if anything-49 percent of Durham residents were thinking when they voted for District Attorney Mike Nifong, who has disgraced this community before a national audience.

But even as we acknowledge Nifong's electoral victory, Duke students should continue to reject the ignorant, counterfactual and deeply offensive logic embraced by many of his proponents.

To see what I mean, consider this statement from Harris Johnson, a Nifong supporter and longtime Durham resident: "[Nifong's victory] just goes to show that justice can't be bought by a bunch of rich white boys from New York. no matter how much money you have, Durham is owned by its citizens."

Surprisingly, Duke's own Associate Professor of Literature Grant Farred advanced a similar argument in his Oct. 27 letter to the Herald-Sun.

Citing many students' decision to register to vote locally this fall, Farred wrote: "Duke students are notorious in their disconnect from the 'black' city of Durham.. The plan here is not to act in Durham or for the general good of Durham, but to act against the non-Duke Durham community." Farred concludes that "the goal of these new, expedient and transient members of Durham's political community is to repair the damage done to historic white male privilege by voting against" Mike Nifong.

Both of these arguments boil down to the same insinuation: that Duke students aren't "real" Durham residents, and we have no place in this town's political determinations.

Well, Professor Farred and Mr. Johnson, I have news for you: We are very much citizens of this community, and one electoral defeat will not keep us from continuing to demand our rights as such.

So let's not avoid the important question any longer: Are these not the "badges and incidents" of citizenship?

How much longer will Durham residents continue to disregard our participation in the residential, economic and civic activities of this community, all of which predated our recent claim to political enfranchisement?

And most important of all, will fellow Durham residents ever stop treating us like second-class citizens in a community that we-along with generations of alumni, faculty and staff before us-helped build?

Unfortunately, 49 percent of Durham voters answered "no" on Tuesday, leaving us with some very serious problems for the next four years.

Chief among them is a district attorney who thinks it's acceptable to target Duke students because our "rich daddies" can buy us "expensive lawyers."

Note also that Nifong is joined by a police force whose officers-prominent among them Sgt. Mark Gottlieb, a lead investigator in the lacrosse case-exhibit what attorney Bill Thomas called "a real pattern of arresting Duke students on less serious charges while not arresting non-Duke students on much more serious charges."

Most frightening of all, three of our classmates will face a politically motivated prosecution this spring despite overwhelming evidence suggesting their innocence. Never forget: Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and Dave Evans could spend decades of their lives in prison if convicted of first degree forcible rape, first degree sexual offense and first degree kidnapping.

And given that 49 percent of voters supported Nifong's deeply troubled candidacy this week, our classmates' chances of getting a fair trial before a Durham-based "jury of their peers" have never looked so bleak.

That's why I hope we students will set aside our post-election blues and continue to assert-in as bold and visible a way as possible-our full, unqualified status as Durham citizens.

Let's come out and say it: We are owed some basic fairness under the law. Our attempts to defend the rights we are afforded are not assertions of "historical white male privilege," but rather, of our identity as contributing, concerned members of this community.

And as victims of Durham's "political process," we are more than justified in our attempts to influence it through whatever legal means are available.

If that reclamation threatens people like Harris Johnson and Grant Farred, then so be it. But as Nifong himself said, the lacrosse case "remains a Durham problem, and it demands a Durham solution."

It's time to say that we're from Durham, too, and we fully intend to participate in that "solution."

Kristin Butler is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every Friday.