Three life lessons from the unknown black bards
By Luke A. Powery | October 31, 2022I urge you to listen to these unknown bards because in hearing them, you are hearing the wisdom of the Holy.
The independent news organization of Duke University
I urge you to listen to these unknown bards because in hearing them, you are hearing the wisdom of the Holy.
The reality is, if we want to study mental illness, we have to make something mentally ill.
Competing against students that attended private schools, come from wealthy backgrounds, have had increased access to opportunities or just possess plain talent means that the average student with nothing but a passion to learn will never be enough.
If your values are at stake on November 8th, what will you do to stand up for them?
Such hypocrisy is indicative of the problematic nature of American exceptionalism—the belief that America, with its foundations rooted in democracy and freedom, occupies a unique mantle in modern history and thus assumes the responsibility to play a distinctive role on the world stage.
I would rather be unknowing than know failure.
As students attending a university with a privileged position in the local economy and politics, what responsibility falls on us to work towards reparations and dispelling the long-held trope of the ignorant, uncaring Duke student?
We can start by considering whether the term “borderline” has any sociocultural basis beyond a pejorative.
This is not a rational article, and processing social rejection often lacks rhyme or reason.
The courses at Duke that have stood the test of time have pushed me to synthesize the material to some further intellectual point, not just slog through the numerous superficial assignments for completion.
I’m scared that I am stuck on the same scratch of a record, that time keeps marching forward without me, tracing endless and expanding circles in my wake, that one day I’ll wake up and wonder when I was supposed to do all those things they say life is really about—the heartache and the love and the mistakes and the fun.
When we hear the phrase “passing on,” we may think of someone’s death...But there is another way of thinking of it. It has to do with life, learning, and legacy.
Why spend decades watching and rewatching these animals from a safe distance, highlighting every moment of madness or violence or tension like a quadrupedal reality show? To me, it all boils down to our own human, selfish need for individual discovery.
I was ashamed of not making full use of the plethora of resources available, and worried that my decision to sit out on many “core” experiences was diminishing the value and authenticity of my college experience—that it made me less of a Duke student.
"Well, you don't seem like you're from Mississippi."
Perhaps it is time to stop caring about optics, and start allowing your poor students to sip their Diet Dr. Peppers.
Duke University will be judged by current and future generations in the ways we decide to implement concrete, measurable, and forward thinking goals to ensure that our actions are as bold as our words.
It saddens me to see that, although new administrators have come to Duke with new sets of promises, they have reverted to the same words, defenses, and strategies against recurrent student grievances.
Iranian women are not victims, they will emerge victors over a repressive regime.
I mean in the more emotional sense: how to draw. Like how to think. How to clear a mind. How to excavate it for memory.