The history of Duke University is the history of class struggle. I don't mean struggle in class, like my experience in Math 121 (by the way, I actually betrayed my own advice from my last column and dropped that class along with my dignity), but the struggle of class, like administration vs. tailgaters or Marketplace pizza server vs. unfortunate freshman consumer. In short, Duke is characterized by the eternal battle of the oppressor vs. the oppressed, the exploiter vs. the exploited.
Nowhere on campus did I find a more apparent example of class conflict than in K-ville-the very place where camaraderie among students should flourish the most. It may seem a bit early in the year for a column on the bourgeoisie of K-ville, the line monitors, but the applications for the 30-person staff have been turned in. The time is ripe for revolution, or at least for some friendly discourse on the subject of the government-enforced regulation of lines.
To begin an analysis of the class conflict of K-ville, an understanding of the respective psychologies and socioeconomic standings of the two castes is necessary. At the bottom we have tenters, who exist solely to support Duke basketball. Their unadulterated and unconditional love for the team, although perhaps naive at times, persists despite their poor standard of living, which brings to mind the conditions of people displaced by disaster or war. In fact, last year a source close to the basketball team, who is a self-proclaimed "VIP" of Cameron Indoor, referred to the tenters as "refugees" in a video that appeared on deadspin.com under the title "The Lovely Ladies of Duke" that is simultaneously hilarious and painful to watch.
At the top of this two-tiered social pyramid, there is the aristocracy-the line monitors. They are driven by an insatiable lust for authority often equated with that of a hall monitor in an elementary school (please see the "South Park" episode where Cartman becomes a hall monitor for verification); one could say that these kids are ego-trippin' like De La Soul. Their defining physical characteristic is their lavish attire. Like the stately purple robes of a Roman emperor, the line monitors don a custom-embroidered blue windbreaker that clearly separates them from the sordid bunch that are the tenters.
Within the stadium, after the line has been thoroughly monitored, the separation of the windbreaker elite from the body-painted masses continues. The line monitors have reserved seats in the front two rows of the student section, although they most graciously do not occupy the center of the court.
Comrades, I ask you, is this equality? Yes, the line monitors certainly paid their dues to Duke Basketball in the past by tenting, and there is a necessity for some type of order to the chaos of K-ville. However, some of these line monitors only tented for one or two years and now have guaranteed front-row seats to every game. Also, perhaps an organization of 30 members is excessive. In my experience as a tenter last year, all questions are deferred to the all-knowing Grand High Line Monitor, who governs from somewhere behind a curtain.
With such an imbalance in the social order of K-ville, a new order must be established. Theoretically, a self-governing line would be ideal, but it would dissolve into anarchy. There is no denying the necessity of some kind of line-monitoring body, so we shall rule out a bloody uprising for the meantime.
What is to be done, then, if we concede that the line monitors are a necessary evil? Instead, let us work to eliminate the sharp division between the monitors and the monitored. I talked with this year's head line monitor, senior Roberto Bazzani, and he told me that one of his primary goals for the 2007-2008 season is precisely that.
Bazzani told me line monitoring is far more demanding than it looks, which I hope is true. However, waiting in the line is clearly a greater commitment. To argue otherwise is the equivalent of saying that being a prison guard is more demanding than being a prisoner.
The existence of the royal box seats, like those at Wimbledon, goes against the very nature of our student section. There are no strawberries and cream in Cameron. When the line monitors take those front row seats, it is like taking the big piece of chicken at the dinner table before Daddy gets home. You just don't do it. Line monitoring should have some dimension of public service to it. As it stands now, it is an incentive-laden alternative to waiting in line.
Cameron Crazies unite! Let the day come when a fan clad in a way cool windbreaker stands in the center of the student section with their right fist raised to the sky.
Jordan Rice is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Friday.
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