By Justin Robinette

I get renewed amusement every year our campus erupts in reference to anything unpleasant which appears on the East Campus bridge.  Each time, participants always include a) the Honor Council, b) any given angry race or sex-oriented advocacy group, and c) any given administrator with the power of email blast, most recently Dr. Airall.  Unfortunately, the vandal himself is almost entirely ignored in favor of condemning, rather, the symbolic nature of the message itself.  The vandal is also somehow conflated each time not with a random criminal act or a pervert with too much time on his hands, but with a universal message of hate waged at a group in its entirety, and almost always connected somehow to Duke itself.

Bridge vandalism is always considered Duke-on-Duke crime, when we know very well by experience that frequent (and almost exclusive) violent crime at Duke is waged Durham-on-Duke.  This precedent should suggest that vandalism (a form of property crime) which appears on the bridge not be applied in knee-jerk fashion to Duke students, but instead to those who are most often waging violent crime against us.   I would not bet my life, but possibly my lunch money, that a non-Duke affiliated student vandalized the East Campus bridge following the Pride parade in September.

Secondarily, what is so offensive about what was written that it deserves this much notice?  We forget all the lewd messages and images left publicly on dorm door whiteboards, the posters week after week that advertise themed parties, sex toy exhibitions, sex worker shows, and we should not downplay finally recent porn in the privacy of our own library—with images standardized as art that adorn what I now refer to as “Perkins Library’s Porno Wing” at the entrance to my Major department.

My favorite line during the most recent Bridge shenanigans was from Random Student XYZ’s October 7th letter to the editor in The Chronicle, entitled “Hate speech should not be tolerated.”  This statement sums up the misinformation and disjunct which exists for those who foamed at the mouth over the most recent bridge vandalism; I laughed out loud.  The very definition of tolerance is predicated on hate; for me to be tolerant, I must necessarily hate your way of life or the very thing that you are doing.  If I do not hate it, I cannot tolerate it.  If I do not hate it, I have accepted it instead.  I must hate it, but willfully choose to permit it for the greater purpose of free speech, in order to “tolerate” it. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, hate speech should be tolerated, but never labeled as acceptable.

There is something innately wrong with putting such garbage up that appeared on the bridge following Gay Pride, and also in taking it down.  It is thoroughly un-American to, as a recognized campus group, be seen censoring (read: actively covering up) speech that should by definition be “tolerated.” What is especially offensive on this front is the fact that the bridge was painted over, and marketed so by Duke administration, by a recognized student group to the tune of blast-email support of the university against the wishes of the Honor Council.

Grafitti and vandalism: the ancient Greeks did it, so did the Egyptians, so do bored Duke students or angry Durhamites.  What do we have in the painting over of hateful words to the tune of university displeasure?  Cowards validating the work of other cowards.