Home not so sweet home

Some Duke students claim they only leave campus to go to Shooters and Chipotle. Although Chipotle sets the bar unfairly high, I don’t think that generalization gives credit to the many Duke students who do take advantage of Durham. Whether that entails seeing a show at the Durham Performing Arts Center or taking your parents to Revolution, students have responded well to a constantly improving downtown Durham.

However, even students who claim only a burrito can lure them away from the recesses of the library may have overlooked the one off-campus spot every student visits—Raleigh-Durham International Airport. For many, the temporary relationship we have with Durham makes it difficult to see it as home. However, if we reap the benefits of Durham, we have some responsibility to the challenges Durham faces.

Not only do I rarely leave the comfortable confines of Duke’s campus, I’ve done embarrassingly little to give back to the Durham community. Without excusing my inaction, I believe some of this stems from the lack of connection I feel with Durham. Or even worse, my lack of awareness about the issues Durham faces. I get the feeling that many Duke students don’t realize that the issues that concern them globally­—poverty, unemployment, crime­—have a devastating presence in certain areas of Durham.

This past weekend, I had lunch with Duke alumnus Dan Hill in East Durham, one of Durham’s more troubled areas. We ate at Joe’s Diner on the corner of Angier and Driver, and I got a chance to talk to Joe Bushfan himself. He pointed me outside to an intersection that, to me, looked like any other intersection. But to Joe and the residents of East Durham, the brand new intersection looked like a $4.8 million renovation project and a testimony to how far the neighborhood has come. Before the Angier-Driver corner was home to Joe’s famous 1 lb. hotdog, it was home to gang violence and prostitution. In a moving account, Dan described how Joe deliberately opened his diner in a neighborhood bloated with poverty and crime in an effort to help the area. Confronted by Joe’s tough attitude and linebacker physique, the gang members who once ruled the street gradually left and opened potential for the area to grow.

I’m impressed that Joe, a native of Roxbury, Massachusetts, took on such great responsibility for a struggling community that was not his hometown. More so, I was disappointed in my own unawareness about this problematic section of Durham and the origin of its issues. I learned that East Durham used to be a self-sufficient, working-class community but when the tobacco and cotton jobs left, so did all semblance of prosperity. The area was soon considered toxic to businesses and the surrounding poverty rate resides around a depressing 60 percent.

Having hopped on the Durham Freeway to get there, Joe’s Diner felt like any other poor neighborhood I might encounter. Sad and unfair? Yes. But not necessarily my responsibility (excuse the bad attitude). In a conversation with Joe’s son and manager, Mackey, we learned that we attended the same elementary school. I couldn’t believe we both went to a school in the same neighborhood in Massachusetts and then ended up in the same town. That’s when I realized that we did live in the same town. No matter how different the Driver-Angier block might be from the lush Duke University campus, they are both Durham and right now, Durham is my home.

Dan tells me many organizations are finally starting to work together to revitalize the community. Habitat for Humanity has already built 11 houses just a few streets down from Joe’s Diner. The Durham’s Children Initiative has done a remarkable job in the past four years of building the trust of both the community and non-profits. There are plenty of opportunities for Duke students who want to get involved. Perhaps, that’s a lot to ask. At minimum, consider grabbing some friends on a Saturday and taking the short, four-mile drive to Joe’s Diner. Ask Joe about his diner’s role in pushing the community forward. Maybe you’ll also learn something about good hot dogs. We have some basic responsibility to at least understand the issues Durham faces. In this case, buying a burger would do more than just support a diner, it would support a community­—our community.