“I can’t believe that this kind of stuff is still happening and being said,” one of my close friends, an ally to the LGBTQ+ community remarked to me the night before in regards to the death threat made against Jack Donahue in his own dorm.
“I’m not surprised at all, honestly. This type of thing has gotten old,” I responded.
This conversation is what you’ll hear on campus for the coming week regarding this event. Everyone will act shocked—surely, an elite institution such as Duke University should have students that have moved beyond the years of homophobic and racist teachings that our society has upheld and ingrained in us.
I honestly feel like the individual who wrote this death threat will simply say, “It was a joke… I did not mean it at all.” And there will be many of you, today and tomorrow and next week, who are reading this column and the other pieces written about this incident and will react with, “but is it that serious?”
I am tired. I am tired of people masking their homophobia with claims like “I don’t hate gay people… I just don’t feel comfortable around them.”
To allies, all this might seem like harmless writing on the wall, but it continues decades upon decades of ignorance that has led to the many deaths of our queer siblings at the hands of your fragile heterosexuality.
Being an ally is not just about grabbing your free “Love=Love” shirt in the Bryan Center Plaza on National Coming Out Day. It is not about your pat-on-the-back, rainbow-kaleidoscope Facebook profile picture. Being an ally is about allowing queer individuals, and not just white ones, to feel safe on this campus and in our world.
What do you think Jack did to make someone write this in a space where he is supposed to feel safe and at home?
Did he smile at that person? Wave at them? Open up to them and let them know his sexuality? What made that person so uncomfortable with him that they decided to write a death threat against him and the many individuals that share his identity?
In the coming weeks, there will be dialogue at Duke about this incident—likely a considerate email from an administrative figure “reminding” us that our safety is still not fully guaranteed.
Trust me. We know. Our community knows. And we are not surprised.
Erick Aguilar is a Trinity freshman.
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