DUKE

   The Duke campus is beautiful.  It's lush, green, and very well manicured.  When I first arrived I was surprised by how stately everything looked, even the trash cans are posh.  Duke is a little like a Stepford wife, but a university.  I spend most of my time in the French Family Science Center which houses the offices and labs for the biological and physical sciences.  To provide you with a bit of history surrounding the new and modern French Family Science Center, Melinda Gates (as in Bill Gates' wife) is a Duke alumni and donated the cost of the building.  Her maiden name is French, hence the French Family Science Center.  Don't get too excited, the roof has a leak.  My only real beef with the French Family Science Center is that there are A LOT of stairs, a few of which are pictured here:

 

 which makes me feel like this . . .

    It is currently 102 degrees here in Durham, but I wouldn't know anything about that thanks to Melinda's good choice of air conditioning.  My office is across the hall from my actual lab and it just so happens that in the lab to which my office is attached, they are literally blowing stuff up.   Imagine hearing something akin to a gunshot every few minutes.  I doubt you can get PTSD from chemistry research, but if I was not brought up in a family of seven children where I was used to battlefield noises, I would think it quite possible.  After the first few explosions, I left my office to find out what was going on.  I was greeted by a grad student in huge headphones and protective gear who claimed his research was on exploding nanotubes.  I'm totally in the wrong field.  I wanna get paid to blow stuff up too!!  No fair!  Waaaaaa!

   In conclusion, while Duke has been interesting and educational, I'm still a Tar Heel at heart.

Cry Like a Rainstorm

Sometimes the perfect soundtrack will hit the spot.  I'm sitting here listening to a soundtrack I haven't heard in years but I was craving both the music and the message.  I think this Linda Ronstadt album is one of the first CDs my family ever owned and listened to on a regular basis.  I know every word of every song on Cry like a Rainstorm Howl like the Wind.  I usually buy CDs for a song or two and nowadays (for those of you that are proud owners or MP3 players) you can just download a song here or a song there, but on the rare occasion an album comes out that you can listen to all the way through over and over again.  Cry like a Rainstorm is one of those for me.  Given, Linda Ronstadt has a beautiful voice.  The girl can sang (when you say it ghetto like that, they really CAN sing), but right at this very moment I know what she's singing about and how she feels and I'm listening to her because I'm comforted that someone somewhere has felt the way I do. 

I've heard people say we read to feel like we're not alone.  Well, I would have to say the same applies to music if not more so.  Music is evocative by nature, tells stories (think Les Miserables) and conveys emotion that is often times challenging to articulate.  Bless the artists that help me, in difficult times as well as in joyous times, to feel less alone.   I love it that music also gives me something to celebrate.  Any Pit Bull song can get my booty shakin' and I don't care what kind of deep dark space I'm in, if I hear Flo Rida's Club Can't Handle Me, I'm automatically transported to a dance floor even if that's just the car I'm driving in. 

Still, I think it's the hallmark of a great work of art to be able to listen to an album all the way through and enjoy every song-you know, road trip CDs that you don't have to change very often.  Tracy Chapman is famous for this in my family.  We don't leave home without her.  Pick an album of hers, any album, and it has that quality.  She's also one of the very few artists who sound better live than on the record.  Oddly enough, The Essential Dolly Parton is another road trip album that I love.  C'mon, 9 to 5, Islands in the Stream, and I Will Always Love You on the same album?  One word:  THE BOMB!!

So fess up, what's an album that you love and practically know every word to?  Hey, if I can come clean with Dolly Parton, you can indulge in a honest confession here.  Do it!

Dear Racist,

   At first I wanna say that I know you don't think you're racist, but I'm writing this letter to let you know that you couldn't be more wrong.  To help, I'm gonna give you a few tools of analysis.  The first is, if you've ever said "I'm not racist because . . ."

1. I have a Black friend
2. I listen to rap
3. I used to live in ______ (insert a very Black place like Kenya or Baltimore)
4. I speak Ebonics
5. I insist they check my receipt at the Walmart exit because I know they usually let white people pass (I heard this yesterday and the individual was completely serious).
6. I date Black people
7. or ANYthing else . . . you're racist.

   I'm sorry to report that if this phrase has slipped out of your mouth, regardless of the conclusion, you are indeed a racist.  The second litmus test also has to do with the words that come out of your mouth.  Hint:  If you say racist shit, you're racist.  Let me clarify, if you say things that are offensive and racially charged to people of color (or anyone for that matter) even if you don't think they're offensive, you're racist.  The reason why you don't think they're offensive is because you're part of the privileged majority institutionally trained NOT to see the color bias of the institution itself.  As far as racial sensitivity goes, consider yourself Helen Keller.  I, in no way, want to insult the wonderful Helen Keller with this statement.  I just intend to point out that you are both blind and deaf to the spectrum of prejudice that regularly confronts Black people in America.  You don't see it.  You don't hear it, and it's not because it is not there.

   I know you pride yourself on being open-minded and you've tried to create racial awareness, which is commendable.  However, if you refuse to respect and validate the perspective or feelings of those under constant attack within the minority community, you are racist.  You are part of the hostile environment created by the institution.  You are part of the machine.  You are just another spindle or pulley making people feel small by invalidating their experience.

   Lastly, and this is not a requirement, if people of color have a difficult time getting along with you, don't like you, would rather not spend time with you, want to disguise themselves under black hoods and do mean things to you, want to burn crosses on your lawn, or just want to shoot you, ask yourself why.  Because you're probably a racist. 

   Let me just say that if, during the course of this letter, you have realized you're racist, please know that change is plausible and possible.  As the alcoholics say, the first step is recognizing you have a problem.

Ever the optimist,
Me