A “big, black man” and faculty duty

Readers' Note: It's been called to my attention that in a Jan. 27 letter to The Chronicle Professor Wahneema Lubiano has termed "a misrepresentation of my thoughts" press reports that she knew the 88's ad would be seen by many as a "stake through the collective heart of the lacrosse team." You can read Lubiano's letter here.

John
__________________________________________________


Reasonable people at Duke University and elsewhere continue to question its faculty Group of 88’s “listening statement,” published last April as a full-page advertisement in the University’s student newspaper, The Chronicle. (Ad here. Pdf)

The ad was signed by 88 faculty members and endorsed by more than a dozen academic departments and programs.

It’s been widely-reported that Professor Wahneema Lubiano, who laid out the ad, knew it would be seen by many as "a stake through the collective heart of the lacrosse team." Lubiano's never denied the reports.

Among the growing ranks of those questioning the 88’s ad are Friends of Duke University, which yesterday placed it’s own ad in The Chronicle, and historian and blogger Robert KC Johnson.

Johnson today posted: "Friends of Duke Confronts the Group of 88."

It’s an informative and thought-provoking post that poses questions all of us, including Duke’s trustees and President Brodhead, should be asking the 88.

Here’s one of KC's questions followed by my response:

The April 6 ad contains the following anonymous quote from an alleged Duke student: “Being a big, black man, it’s hard to walk anywhere at night, and not have a campus police car slowly drive by me.” Have any of you approached the Duke police force to ask if it has a policy of slowing down when officers see a Black man on campus? Have any of you experienced or observed this phenomenon?

I can answer KC’s question because at various times during the last 30-plus years I’ve been a Duke student, parent, and contract service provider. I’ve lived in Durham most of those years and have been on campus thousands of times during the day and night.

I answered KC’s question last November in a post, “Duke faculty duties,” addressed to 88 signatory and William R. Kenan Professor of English Karla FC Holloway, then a member of President Brodhead’s Campus Culture Initiative committee. [excerpt]:

It’s true that at night campus police cars drive slowly by big, black men. We’ve both seen them do it.

But we also know that at night Duke police cars drive slowly by small white women, elderly Asian couples, Hispanics and grandparents of every ethnicity holding their grandchildren’s hands.

Duke police are watching out for all of us regardless of our size, race, or gender.

To do that, they need to see us and any threats that might be behind or about us.

So they “slowly drive by” us.

Responsible adults would explain all of that to the “big, black man.”

Who would leave him seeing a racial aspect in a police practice that has none?

The student’s misperception doesn’t help him or the police who seek to protect him. In fact, it makes serious misunderstandings between them more likely.

Didn’t you, as a faculty member, have a duty to tell the student why the campus police drive slowly by him at night?

Didn’t your “listening statement” colleagues have that same duty?

I hope you agree it was a failure of duty to advertise the student’s misperception in The Chronicle under any circumstances, but especially so at a tense time when some on campus were circulating “vigilante” posters targeting Duke students, and others were encouraging them.

I’ve never heard back from Professor Holloway.

And as far as I know, no member of the 88 or senior Duke administrator has publicly spoken to the question KC asked or those I asked.

People who care about Duke students and the University need to keep asking questions.

And President Brodhead and the University should begin answering them.

Hat tip: Johnsville News