Not all white people at Duke University are racist.

Carl, your comments about racism at Duke are correct but incomplete.  There are many Duke Students -- including White -- who fight the good fight, as does the vast majority of the administration.  As you often do, you paint with so broad a brush that it undermines your credibility as serious commentator.  In your anger and enthusiasm, you condemn many who are your active allies.  You'd be taken a lot more seriously if you could get past your inability to see your allies.  All of Duke is not racist, and no serious commentator would even imply they are.  You have the makings of being a powerful and credible voice, and I hope you will widen your narrow vision so you can fulfill your promise instead of so often shooting your credibility in the foot. I hate to see you continue to undermine your own good voice.  On the other hand, if you really think all of Duke or even most of it remains racist, then you need to do some fact checking. -David Ball

Those comments came from David Ball, a reader of my blog.  I hate to say it, but ole dude is right.  Part of learning to be sensitive to the opinions of others is being grown up enough to say you made a mistake.  Ball’s point is about making overgeneralizations.  It’s one of the points I press hard with this blog.  We should never make assumptions in a way that diminishes the worth of an entire group.

So, here it goes.  Not everyone at Duke University is a racist jerk.  The truth is most are great people engaged in the type of hard work that is moving our community toward being a loving, affirming, tolerant place.  Not everyone at Duke University is consumed with being entitled.  Yes, some come from affluent families with trust funds large enough to accommodate the needs of great, great, great grandchildren.  Not everyone eats with a silver fork, and some who do are capable of having conversation about more than where they went for vacation over the Christmas break.

For anyone to oversimplify is bad news.  It’s the stereotypes that eat at me, and often have me exploding like a packed volcano.  Trust me when I say no one gets tagged worse than black men.  Not all of us have three baby mamas, a long criminal record and rob people as a hobby.  Many of us have college degrees. 

Ball is right. I would crash his party if he made any reference that labeled an entire campus based on the actions of a few.  I hate to think what I would have said if someone asserted “all students at NCCU smoke marijuana.”  My first thought would be, so what.  That would be followed with, “no he didn’t”. From there I would have applied the traditional rhetoric – racism.

So, let me make this perfectly clear.  Some of my best friends are white.  I know, that sounds familiar.  It’s the common avowal white people give when slapped with the R label.  R is for racist for those who failed to catch up in time to get on the train.  But really, some of my best friends are white.

I’m not quite sure if that makes a difference, but I feel the need to state that given the assertion that I need to do my homework.  That statement made me feel like I failed the course on white sensitivity.  The contrary is true.  I’ve spent most of my life learning to exist in a world governed by the rules of powerful white men.  I’m not player hating on their position of power, but black folks, women and other minorities deserve medals for maneuvering around white male feelings.  You feel me?

My world is surrounded by people who learn and teach at Duke, and yes, I love them deeply.  Naomi Quinn, a professor emeritus in the anthropology department, is a member of the Saturday Morning Breakfast Club I attend.  I call her mom.  I love her like a mother.  She loves me like a son.  Owen Flanagan, a professor in the philosophy department, is co-founder, with me, of the Bums Club.  It’s for those who meet at the Bean Traders and work while looking like we have nothing to do with our lives.  I call him brother.  I love him like a brother.  He calls me brother, and treats me like he means it (insert tears).

There’s Laura Lazarus, a Ph.D. student in the political science department.  She’s an old school feminist who gives me that black woman glare whenever I say something perceived as being sexist.  Her look slaps me like my mama’s hand back in the day when I got in trouble for reason I can’t remember.  I love Laura like a sister.  She loves me like a brother.

There are others I wish I could mention.  The good news is there are too many to list on this page.  It’s part of being connected to a diverse community.  Being community is hard work.  We can only make it when we have friends who yell at us when we step over that forbidden line.  When that happens, and it takes place often, wisdom involves getting your behind back on the other side of the line.

So, I hope to see David Ball at the Bums Club.  He’s welcome to meet me at the Breakfast Club if he desires.  Those are the places that make true community. Community is made one word at a time.  Sometimes you have to take back a few words, and on other occasions you have to add a few.

So, here’s to more than a few.

Racist parties aren't new at Duke University

My son, King Kenney, knows a lot about parties at Duke University.  He made a name for himself, with his business partner Jeff Johnson, as the premier party promoters in Durham.  King shut down his business to move to Austin, TX last year.  He’s not surprised by the news of a racist fraternity party at Duke.

In between promoting his own parties, King worked the door for numerous parties attended by Duke Students.  “Whenever we did parties with Duke Students something happened”, he told me during a recent phone conversations.”

“I was there when they had black face night,” he continued.  “They say and do things that are really offensive.”

He told me about numerous accounts when he was called a nigger after asking students to leave the party.  “One time a student called me a nigger and placed his hands on me,” he said.  “Next thing I knew he was on the ground.”

The Kappa Sigma fraternity has been suspended at Duke University by its parent organization after a party that featured offensive Asian stereotypes, including straw conical hats.

“Things are worse for the Asian students,” King continued.  “White students are intimidated by Asians because they outperform them at Duke.”

An email sent to promote the party had several misspellings to suggest Asian-accented English and a meme based on the Kim Jung-il character in the movie “Team America: World Police,” The Chronicle, the Duke University student newspaper, reports.

This is not just about Asians, one party or one frat,” Ashley Tsai told the Chronicle. “This is a consistent thing happening. We want serious things to be done by the student body and the university so that this never happens again.”

Pictures posted online show people at the party dressed in stereotypical Asian-style clothing and a greeting that imitates Asian dialect.

King told me his departure from Durham was due, in part, to the lack of tolerance among students at Duke.  “People say Durham is the most tolerant city in America, but I was called a nigger more there than ever in Austin.”

He talked about the time he rammed the head of a student on a car after being called a nigger and pushed.  “They think they’re better because they attend Duke,” King says.  “I thought I wanted to go there, but this incident reminds me of why I moved away.”

King is preparing to attend law school.  Duke was on his list of places to attend, but too many memories of life in Durham make it hard for him to consider sharing space with those who play games with race.  It’s cruel.  It’s been going on for a long time.  It needs to come to an end.

Asian students say this type of thing happens all the time.  They’re right.  It happens to often to be swept under a bureaucratic rug.  It’s more than a party.  Students are playing games with race.  Those who play those games should be asked to take their insensitivity to another place.  Be it asking a black woman to thank her grandfather for picking the cotton that made a shirt, wearing black face to a party, or mimicking the culture of Asians, it must be stopped.

Durham may be a tolerant city, but that spirit isn’t shared by those who attend Duke University.  The truth may hurt, but the truth will set you free!

My Chat With Author of Duke Study

Photo: Herald-Sun/Christine Nguyen

He’s not a racist. He simply didn’t know any better. That’s the impression I left with after my chat with Peter Arcidiacono, one of the authors of a controversial study that has damaged race relations at Duke University. Last week the Rev-elution shredded the study for making assertions that make one wonder about the underlying motives of the authors.

In that blog (The Ghetto Side at Duke) I questioned why the authors would use the decision to shift academic major to gauge performance. “By arguing against the merits of black academic performance by using academic major as a variable, the authors of this study have created an academic caste system that the university may have difficulty in unraveling,” I wrote.

My primary contention with the study is it being attached to a case on affirmative action before the U.S. Supreme Court. Arcidiacono reached out to me due to the public perception that he is aligned with the people arguing against affirmative action. He wanted to set the record straight that his agenda is not to dismantle affirmative action. I met with him to discuss his concerns.

I began with my issues related to the study as an unpublished work. Given it has not been published and hasn’t been reviewed by his peers, how did it land in the hands of those connected to the Supreme Court case?

Arcidiacono informed me that it was pulled from the website that presents his unpublished work. “It’s the way we do things in the field of economics,” he informed me. Given the time between completion of work, and the publication of that work, it is posted on the internet to give peers a chance to review before it is published. “People in the field of economics don’t have problems with the research.”

I discussed with him my personal concerns that his work is being discussed prior to publication which gives the impression that it is endorsed by his peers. He informed me that it has been rejected once due to what was called a lack of relevancy.

“This is the most talked about work I have ever done,” he says. Maybe the people at that journal were afraid to step into that can of worms.

Despite the local talk about the study, it has failed to receive the official endorsement as a credible study among those within his field. I informed Arcidiacono that having a conversation involving a study that hasn’t been peer reviewed assumes credibility of his research. The truth is that hasn’t happened yet.

I moved from a discussion involving the significance of the work given a lack of peer review to the matter of motivation. What is it that stirred his interest in this subject matter? He indicated that the decision is rooted in what he considered to be a lack of credible research on either side of the affirmative action issue. He felt it critical to delve into how the gap between white and black achievement is impacted after students enroll in elite universities.

It is his contention that the findings of his study expose the limits of the university in supporting students once enrolled opposed to a deficiency among the black students enrolled at Duke. Students enrolled with the intent of pursuing certain academic disciplines are set up to fail due to a failure of support from the university.

“Are you saying those students don’t deserve to be at Duke,” I asked.

“No, I’m saying the university needs to support them in achieving the interest they had when they enrolled.”

We discussed the implication within the program he teaches. There are few black students and no black professors. By failing to support black students who enroll with an interest to pursue a degree in economics, the university creates a culture that fails to offset the disparity between black and white students within that field.

Arcidiacono pressed to convince me that the findings of his study are more of a critique of the failures within the Duke system versus a question of the intelligence of the students enrolled. If they enroll with an interest to pursue certain fields of study after being accepted with academic credentials below white students; it is the responsibility of the university to establish systems of support to assure that they will achieve their goal.

“Do, you understand why the study is painful for black students to read,” I asked. Arcidiacono’s response made it clear that he was clueless. I had to help him understand.

Black students on campuses like Duke have to contend with the perception that they don’t belong. The judgment that they aren’t as smart as white kids is rooted in a history a race and racism that we have not yet overcome. The study exposes the gap between white and black achievement in a way that feeds the hunger among those who contend a white person was robbed a seat due to an unworthy black kid who took their place.

Arcidiacono, and the other authors of this study, failed to ponder how it feels to walk in the shadow of the Duke legacy while many feel you have no right to be there. They need to be there – he responded. We simply need to help them be successful.

How do you do that without drawing attention to the disparity? I had to ask that question after he informed me the university doesn’t want to deal with the conclusions of the study. How do you establish a system of support for black student without bringing attention to the need for the support? Do we want to give those searching for evidence to prove the unworthiness of black presence the ammunition to shoot them down?

What does that do to the self-esteem of those who enroll with pride related to their acceptance? Do you want to tell them they lack the intelligence? Should we establish a remedial program that brings further attention to that disparity?

We then discussed the social implications related to this type of research. The role of research is to measure and expose the validity of our assumptions. Some of that research is rendered within a context of historical anguish that both compromises and hinders the way the public engages with the study. As viable as some research may be, some things can’t be heard because it is too painful to hear.

Why is it painful? Because no matter how you state it, the conclusion asserts the limits of the subject of the study. You may argue the university needs to do more, or you can suggest that black students lack the same level of preparation. It all feels the same. Black folks don’t deserve to be here.

So, I’m willing to concede that Arcidiacono is not a racist. With that being said, the findings of the study have racial implications, and they hurt deep.

Any thoughts?

The Ghetto Side at Duke University

Photo from BET.com

Just when I was prepared to throw away all those race cards, I find reason to keep a few in my back pocket. After years of grappling to get past the notion that I’m only in the room because I’m black, a study conducted by faculty at Duke University argues black students aren’t able to deal with the rigor of those tough academic majors. In other words, they take classes in the ghetto at Duke.

One is left questioning the motivation behind the study. Why would a group of professors go about the task of researching the merits of black folks being in the room? The answer is simple. The paper is part of a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by opponents of affirmative action. The report, “What Happens After Enrollment? An Analysis of the Time Path of Racial Difference in GPA and Major Choice,” found that among students who enrolled with an interest in majoring in economics, engineering and the natural sciences, 54 percent of black men and 51 percent of black women changed their major to the humanities or another social science.

That’s compared to the 33 percent of white women and 8 percent of white men who switched majors. The study assumes the switch is made because they are less rigorous, require less study and have easier grading standards.

Professors Peter Arcidiacono, Kenneth Spenner and graduate student Esteban Aucejo argue that “attempts to increase representation [of minorities] at elite universities through the use of affirmative action may come at a cost of perpetuating underrepresentation of blacks in the natural sciences and engineering.”

In other words, it’s not enough to consider the GPA of black students. According to the study, the success of black students at Duke must be evaluated based on their academic major. The authors of the paper suggest that the switch to easier majors is the reason the GPA of black undergraduates is similar to the GPA of white students. Black folks can’t compete in a world where they have to take the tough classes. Time to pull out one of my cards.

The measuring of the black intellect is an old game. In 1994, Harvard psychologist Richard J. Hermstein and political scientist Charles Murray, published The Bell Curve. The controversy of the book involved sections in the book in which the authors wrote about racial differences in intelligence. They write in chapter 13: "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences." The book fueled a national debate on the issue of race and intelligence.

By arguing against the merits of black academic performance by using academic major as a variable, the authors of this study have created an academic caste system that the university may have difficulty in unraveling. There are real programs, and there are easy programs. Are the big wigs at Duke willing to accept that the findings of the study ultimately call into question the academic strength of the programs on the other side of the tracks?

The study also implies that black students make changes due to struggles in those tough programs. Their GPA should be cast aside because they failed to compete in those real programs. Is it possible that a few of those students changed their major because they found a true passion in the humanities? How many of those students went on to pursue a PhD?

It’s dangerous whenever a person delves into the matter of race and intelligence. It is even more harmful when the motivation for the research is to invalidate intelligence due to a political agenda. This research is not about the decisions of black students at Duke. It is a ploy to nullify their right to be in the room.

I say no to placing merit on a few academic programs over others. I say no to measures of black student achievement based on an assumption that they can’t handle the heat. I say no to Duke University for failing to stand by programs in the humanities that this study attacks for being less than the rest.

I want to throw these cards away. But if it smells like a bigot and sounds like a bigot, well, you know the rest

Chronicle Column Damages NCCU/Duke Relations

Its days like this that make me regret having earned a master’s degree at Duke University. It has been hard enough having to explain why I never attended a historical black college or University. Black people in the South take great pride in the HBCU tradition. They should. Those schools enrolled and graduated people like me long before the Duke’s of the world considered the possibility that black people can do more than serve whites folks on campus.
For many, attending Duke is paramount to treason. Names like Uncle Tom, sell out and Oreo are common slurs used to define me for having chosen to get a degree at Duke. I remember the looks on the faces of the locals when I informed them I attended school at Duke. It didn’t take long for me to learn there is a long, not so pleasant history that has crippled race relations in Durham.
Students on Duke’s campus were considered snobbish and the product of white privilege out of control. I did my best to curtail the hatred black residents felt about Duke. They were quick to remind me that “those people” think they are better than us. No, that’s not true, I would argue. Now, after reading Kristin Butler’s column in the Chronicle, I feel like stuffing my head in the sand.
Butler’s column “Summa cum looney” attacked North Carolina Central University for granting degrees to Solomon Burnette and Crystal Mangum. Burnette, the son of a former Durham City Council member, served a 13-month prison sentence for robbing two Duke students in 1997. Butler chided Burnette for writing a nasty column in the NCCU student newspaper that had revolutionary undertones. Go get them Dukies. We certainly can’t have that.
Shame on NCCU for allowing this fool to get a degree, and how dare NCCU allows him to write in the student newspaper. That’s bad enough to cast a few stones over on Fayetteville Street. The coloreds over there lack good judgment, but wait it gets worse. How could they, oh no they didn’t grant Crystal “the lying, stank stripper” a degree.
They should know better than grant her the chance to pull her life together after attacking a few good white boys on the lacrosse team. Can you hear the arrogance in her words, the disdain, and the disgust? Don’t take my word for it, read what she wrote.
“Because of the university's blatant refusal to enforce its own rules, I will never again take an NCCU degree seriously, and neither should any other self-respecting Dukie. NCCU's "seal of approval" no longer guarantees good character, and it's just too hard to tell the thugs and liars (like Burnette and Mangum) apart from the high-performing majority.”
What ever happened to giving a person another chance? Isn’t that what members of the lacrosse team got after violating rules related to off campus drinking on more than one occasion? Should they hold some responsibility for hiring two exotic dancers to shake their groove thang?
The problem with Butler’s column is the double standard lurking in each word. It’s okay to get drunk, use a few racial slurs, urinate in your neighbor’s yard, consistently violate campus policies on off campus drinking and still attend class and get that degree if you attend school at Duke. Why, because we’re Duke dammit.
Black folks need not apply for the same privileges. You have not earned your right to break rules and to be treated as the victim despite your contribution to the mess. Burnette should be punished because HE ROBBED TWO DUKE STUDENTS. The nerve of him to think he can get away with that, and assume a normal life. The administration at NCCU should punish him for making that assumption. Can you hear the underlying white privilege yet?
This is why people worried after the story of an alleged rape hit the airwaves. It’s because of a long history of abuse and neglect coupled with an air of privilege among those kids who go to school at Duke. They think they’re better than the black folks who live in the city. They refuse to accept the thought of a person getting a second chance after a mistake is made.
Get this Ms. Butler. NCCU is a great school. They don’t hand out degrees. People earn them. Both Burnette and Mangum deserve those degrees. The fact that they brought harm to the fine students hiding behind the trees at Duke doesn’t negate their right to make lemonade out of those lemons.