Through the public flogging of Kappa Sigma, Duke has congratulated itself for its progressivism, yet on precisely the issues of systemic racial injustice so routinely raised in the scandal’s aftermath, our campus remains devastatingly silent.
To be clear: As the nationally-publicized debacle of the Asian-themed “racist rager” unfolded, I was proud to see the Duke student body react with widespread outrage. Hundreds of students gathered to protest the demeaning essentialization of a group of flesh-and-blood human beings, and rightfully so. I energetically concurred with students’ concerns not just about causing offense but about broader, deeper issues of structural and institutional racism, ones that infect our University just as virulently as the outside world.
Combating racism means addressing embedded structures that empower certain groups to exploit others through the social construction of race. Asians in the United States have a history of brutal racial exploitation that cannot be glossed over by cute cultural kitsch. Asian Americans have since the beginning been haunted by the specter of violent racism, from the steep wage inequalities and deadly working conditions of the Transcontinental Railroad to the lynching of Chinese immigrants across the American West, the unparalleled bigotry of the Chinese Exclusion Act to Franklin Roosevelt’s Japanese internment camps. The hateful beating death of Vincent Chin in Michigan as late as 1982, eliciting no jail sentences, became a rallying point for the Asian-American solidarity movement. In light of this dark history still unfolding we cannot afford to close our eyes to anti-Asian bigotry in our midst. The same racist stereotypes deployed at the Kappa Sigma party undergird centuries-old violence and marginalization.
Yet Duke remains overwhelmingly blind to the hideous racism plainly in sight outside of our University’s minuscule social scene.
In October 2012, an African-American woman named Stephanie Nickerson was brutally beaten by Durham police, suffering a broken nose, blackened eyes and bruises—all for informing her friends of their Constitutional right to resist a warrantless search. Rallies organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and allies this January, near-universally ignored by the Duke community, resulted in the officer’s resignation and the dropping of all charges against Nickerson.
Twenty-one-year-old Carlos Riley Jr.’s struggle for justice continues in similar obscurity. On Dec. 18, Riley Jr. was stopped by a plainclothes Durham officer in an unmarked car. The officer showered him with expletives, threatened to kill him and then, according to Riley’s lawyer, shot himself in the leg—a common occurrence when cops draw their weapons—alleging later that Riley Jr. attacked him despite the police department’s withholding of the incident report. The grassroots effort to defend against his charges and immense legal fees is again isolated and little noticed.
On our own campus, the completely opaque administrative review that reinstated housekeeping supervisor Linda Schlabach passed quietly. Allegations of severe race-based discrimination, routine humiliation and aggression against housekeepers were dismissed last spring behind closed doors. Despite the numerous problems plaguing the internal hearings—no consultation with some victimized staff, a risk to undocumented workers afraid to speak out because of their immigration status, refusal to disclose even which University officials were involved in the review—the lack of student calls for justice has silenced the housekeepers’ struggle.
Racism thrives in broader North Carolina as well. Last summer the Republican-led General Assembly overrode a gubernatorial veto to gut the landmark 2009 Racial Justice Act, which allowed a judge to commute the sentences of three death row inmates who were able to show racial bias influenced their sentencing. This same General Assembly recently set the state back decades with racist redistricting, capitalizing on a noxious combination of dark money groups and national operatives to flip North Carolina’s Congressional delegation from 7-6 Democrat to 9-4 Republican. To do so, as Propublica reports, state Republicans packed African-Americans into three districts, including one that “was 120-mile long, and sea monkey-shaped, connecting pockets of African-Americans from three different, distant cities.”
Activists from across the state are currently building a coalition against the NCGA’s ramrodding of racist voter ID legislation, which has widely been criticized for placing an undue burden on marginalized groups. A survey by the Brennan Center for Justice found that as many as 11 percent of the general voting population don’t have adequate photo ID, and estimates rise to 25 percent for African-Americans.
The Duke community’s interest in these issues—in stark contrast to the fury over the racist frat party—ranges from modest to nonexistent. Such passivity and disinterest toward real, material racism surrounding us each day amid professed commitment to fighting racism is specious and incredibly disappointing. Moreover, it is precisely the unaddressed nature of broader racism that feeds events like the Kappa Sigma party, which is sadly not without precedent at Duke.
If only we could eradicate the world’s social injustices without ever looking outside of our student body. But to consider ourselves truly committed to justice and equality, we must participate and engage in these daily struggles, not only when it is convenient.
Prashanth Kamalakanthan is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Monday. You can follow Prashanth on Twitter @pkinbrief.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.