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(04/13/12 4:00am)
With May looming around the corner, more and more people keep asking me, “How does it feel to be almost done?” I still have no answer, but now I realize that there are many things to pick up along the seemingly long road to graduation that I wish I had known about when I first set foot on East Campus during orientation week freshman year. There are many valuable things I learned from my courses, but I learned the most important lessons at Duke outside of class. This is not for lack of going to lecture and taking notes and studying hard, but rather because some lessons must happen outside of the classroom. Most of the important things I have learned have come from spontaneous hangouts on the plaza, elongated study breaks in Bella Union, drawn-out “quick” snack visits from friends to my dorm room and, most of all, laughter-filled conversations at the dinner table.
(03/30/12 4:00am)
We’re an enslaved generation. It has been a subtle takeover, in the same manner that all “benevolent” dictators come to power. First they introduce something that nobody else has offered before, and then, as they gain support, they slowly steal their subjects’ freedom by crippling people’s ability to think for themselves. My friends, we are enslaved to our phones.
(03/16/12 4:00am)
Recently, I have learned a lot about a disease that every undergraduate catches before they graduate. Unfortunately, it is terminal. If you have not already caught this bug, then be prepared... At most, you have three years left before you start putting “last” in front of everything you do. On the plus side, you won’t be alone when you catch the disease… the disease of being a senior.
(03/02/12 5:00am)
At Duke, I often hear phrases like, “I’m just not attracted to Indian women” or “I don’t find black men attractive,” coming from people of different races. A disclaimer nearly always follows these phrases: “I would date somebody who looks like that, but I can’t see it because I’m simply not attracted to him/her.” I used to think these comments were just outliers, and I assumed that people at Duke were progressive when it came to interracial relationships. My own experiences caused me to start questioning just how good race relations are here.
(02/17/12 5:00am)
On several occasions, I have had conversations with Duke students that go something like this: “Oh, you’re on the track team? So … where do you practice?” To which I respond, “Sometimes at the turf fields, but generally at the track.” I am simply stupefied when they say with a blank face “We have a track? Where is it?” Squinting my eyes, I reply “Have you ever been to Wallace Wade?” There have been many occasions during my time at Duke when the level of public ignorance toward varsity sports teams has bewildered me. Therefore, I would like to clear a few things up about the academic and athletic accomplishments of all these student-athletes.
(02/03/12 5:00am)
“No offense, but you’re not really black—you’re white.... You don’t talk like a black person, and you don’t listen to black music.... I can’t dance—I’m not black.” Such statements never cease to baffle me for two reasons. One, if you preface something with “no offense,” you’re probably about to say something offensive. The second issue is more complex. Such statements imply that being black is determined by something more than the color of one’s skin. Whether the ideas associated with being black are positive or negative do not matter, but the fact that people have a checklist to confirm an individual’s “blackness” is concerning. Unfortunately, I have often found that these additional requirements are derogatory. Especially at Duke, we are eager to wrap people up in racial boxes, rather than look at them as individuals.
(01/20/12 11:00am)
Recently, Elle uploaded a post entitled “Dear Duke guys…” on the Develle Dish blog, in which she claimed that Duke guys needed to start asking girls out on real dates: “Not a pregame for Shooters or before a date function with the expectation of a no-strings-attached hookup, but a traditional date.” I often wonder why there isn’t more dating at Duke; when this question comes up, someone always hastily suggests that the “hook-up culture” is to blame. At Duke there is a constant murmuring about the pervasiveness of this aspect of Duke undergraduate life.
