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section: Columns
section link: /news/2006/03/31/Columns/
headline: Sex and race:
subheadline: Guest column
By: William Chafe
author link:
Issue date: 3/31/06
So sex and race have always interacted in a vicious chemistry of power, privilege, and control. Emmett Till was brutalized and lynched in Mississippi in 1954 for allegedly speaking with too easy familiarity to a white woman storekeeper. And in 1958, two black male children under age 10 were imprisoned in North Carolina because they allegedly had kissed two white girls in a game-the infamous "kissing case" in which North Carolina became a target of ridicule around the world.
What has all this to do with America today, and with Duke? Among other things, it helps to put into context what occurred in Durham two weeks ago. The mixture of race and sex that transpired on Buchanan Boulevard is not new. Whether or not a rape took place (and this is an issue that needs to be assessed objectively and with full fairness to everyone), there is no question that racial epithets were hurled at black people. Nor is there any question that white students hired a black woman from an escort service to perform an erotic dance. The intersection of racial antagonism and sexual exploitation is all too familiar.
The real issue is how we will respond to this latest example of the poisonous linkage of race and sex as instruments of power and control. Who are we, the student body and community, of Duke University? Do we seek to be a community of inclusion, where in action as well as in theory, we encompass and embrace people of all races and backgrounds? Or do we seek to replicate patterns of racial and sexual control that have constituted such an affront to our claims of being a society of equal citizenship?
The choice is ours to make.
William H. Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of American History. From 1995-2004 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Duke University and Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Education.
What has all this to do with America today, and with Duke? Among other things, it helps to put into context what occurred in Durham two weeks ago. The mixture of race and sex that transpired on Buchanan Boulevard is not new. Whether or not a rape took place (and this is an issue that needs to be assessed objectively and with full fairness to everyone), there is no question that racial epithets were hurled at black people. Nor is there any question that white students hired a black woman from an escort service to perform an erotic dance. The intersection of racial antagonism and sexual exploitation is all too familiar.
The real issue is how we will respond to this latest example of the poisonous linkage of race and sex as instruments of power and control. Who are we, the student body and community, of Duke University? Do we seek to be a community of inclusion, where in action as well as in theory, we encompass and embrace people of all races and backgrounds? Or do we seek to replicate patterns of racial and sexual control that have constituted such an affront to our claims of being a society of equal citizenship?
The choice is ours to make.
William H. Chafe is the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of American History. From 1995-2004 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Duke University and Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Education.
