Me Too Blog

The Me Too Blog has moved to a new URL!

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:52:49 -0400

The Me Too Blog has moved to a new URL!:

Everything is possible again...

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:32:13 -0400

that’s how I feel at the beginning of each semester.

I’m 22 years old. As of May, I am a Duke graduate leading an active and happy life. This is my...

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:24:56 -0400

I’m 22 years old. As of May, I am a Duke graduate leading an active and happy life. This is my last summer at home. And it’s amazing that my parents can still verbally abuse me every day and make me feel like I’m a worthless piece of shit.

When I was about 13, I had one of many weird incidents. I haven’t ever talked about it too...

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:14:48 -0400

When I was about 13, I had one of many weird incidents. I haven’t ever talked about it too directly to anyone, and never mentioned it to my parents. I don’t like to talk about it or a bunch of other things that I or my friends survived, living in the same neighborhood, because I feel like it will make people judge me, or pity me, or tarnish some image that I’ve been convinced I’m supposed to have. So this is a heavily filtered version: I was walking home after watching two of my friends, who didn’t always get along, fight after school. At least 40 other people watched, if not 60. The whole thing was planned. Some kids jumped in and hit them, often the same kids who were in gangs or fought regularly. They eventually let the two who planned to fight kind of fight it out, though. Afterwards, everyone dispersed, but a group of about 30, including me, followed a few of their friends, including one who was in the fight, home. As we stopped by his house, three guys walked up the block with a bulldog. They said something about hearing there was a fight, and asked if anyone wanted to fight one of the guys. I had my headphones on, and saw that there was a crowd drifting off, talking to these strangers, so I moved towards it out of curiosity. I took off my headphones to hear what they were saying, and one spotted me. He said come here white boy, and snatched my CD player. This moment felt all too familiar. I was the only white kid in sight pretty much anywhere in my neighborhood, or in school. After he grabbed the CD player, he ran across the street. I followed. He drops it on the ground. I reach for it. It must have been an uppercut and two jabs. The gravel felt warm, friendly, even. My body was flaccid like nights after sports practice, and I wanted to wrap myself in the sheet of concrete, curl up and disappear. I felt like a fish. I remember helping my dad gut them, how blood from their loose jaws gathered around our fingers. The cement felt like fingers. The guy says something and laughs, walks off with his friends and the bulldog. There’s a little person in me that wants to grow twenty times bigger and choke them at this point. But it takes a while for this thought to register, and it is weak. It’s almost not my thought, but how I thought I was supposed to feel after and during violence. I anticipated what happened; threats and racial profiling were common on the streets. That’s why I felt the eyes of the crowd on me the whole time, all of them just standing there: witnesses. I get up, get my CD player, and walk back to where I was. A girl says Are you okay. I say I’m not crying am I. It gets weird here. With blood on my lip and chin and hands, I put on this stoic face. This face that I’d gotten used to putting on because I knew that wasn’t the last of it. Walking with those 30 kids down the street, some looking at me, me refusing to talk or show emotion, all the way down to the end of the block, until I can slip off into my own little street, reach home, wipe off the blood, lie to my parents about what happened, which didn’t feel weird by now, slip into my room upstairs, play video games for an hour to get numb, answer three phone calls from friends that are concerned and got my number from other friends, cry a bit, do homework, and go to sleep. Wake up and go to school on time the next day because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Answer with less than three word replies to questions like “I heard what happened,” avoid the guy who punched me for the next year, who never ended up recognizing me when I ditched the old haircut, and don’t speak a word about it to anybody for years. I kind of knew why it happened. There are a lot of reasons, race, SES, and etc don’t even cover it. But the history books said that discrimination worked the other way around, so I felt a little silly talking about it. I kind of thought that it would be a burden on people to talk about it anyway, especially on my family, because it didn’t even start or end there. My friends too, though. People in my neighborhood. This kind of stuff happened often, to many people I knew, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I sometimes don’t feel comfortable in college because mentioning stuff like this is taboo. If they’re not close friends, there’s this risk of alienating yourself or whoever you’re talking to. I’ve grown tired of not saying anything though. Maybe I have to learn one step at a time.

“Rape” Performed by Lucy Goodson Written...

Fri, 13 May 2011 16:57:27 -0400

“Rape”

Performed by Lucy Goodson

Written anonymously

“Being an Asian Woman” Performed by Yujin...

Fri, 13 May 2011 13:47:08 -0400

“Being an Asian Woman”

Performed by Yujin Chun

Written anonymously

“Not a Feminist” Performed by Jaimie Woo Written...

Thu, 12 May 2011 18:15:22 -0400

“Not a Feminist”

Performed by Jaimie Woo

Written anonymously

“Being a Lesbian” Written by Kinnari Bhojani Written...

Thu, 12 May 2011 18:11:59 -0400

“Being a Lesbian”

Written by Kinnari Bhojani

Written anonymously

“I Became Black” Performed by Steph Darand Written...

Thu, 12 May 2011 18:11:17 -0400

“I Became Black”

Performed by Steph Darand

Written anonymously

“Asian Men” Performed by Michelle Sohn Written...

Thu, 12 May 2011 15:35:47 -0400

“Asian Men”

Performed by Michelle Sohn

Written anonymously

“Dear Mom” Written anonymously

Thu, 12 May 2011 15:34:00 -0400

“Dear Mom”

Written anonymously

“Race is a Racist Concept” Performed by Jacob...

Sat, 07 May 2011 00:25:02 -0400

“Race is a Racist Concept”

Performed by Jacob Tobia

Written anonymously

i think you’re such a great guy. thank you for letting me decide what i wanted to do. thank...

Thu, 05 May 2011 01:34:36 -0400

i think you’re such a great guy. thank you for letting me decide what i wanted to do. thank you for not pressuring me. i had an amazing time with you and i wish it could happen again.

Too Special to Everyone

Thu, 05 May 2011 01:34:30 -0400

So many girls are falling for you, my friend.

I know you don’t really MEAN to do what you do, but I’m sure you kinda know what you’re doing.

I also know that your intention is not to hurt them all.

So please stop leading them on.

They think that your smiley emoticons, caring questions, and late-night texts are only for them.

I know because I was one of them, too.

“Live” Performed by Gordon Wilson Written...

Wed, 04 May 2011 22:56:11 -0400

“Live”

Performed by Gordon Wilson

Written anonymously

“I” Performed by Zoey Best Written anonymously

Wed, 04 May 2011 22:15:06 -0400

“I”

Performed by Zoey Best

Written anonymously

“Hey, Baby” Performed by Catherine Castillo Written...

Tue, 03 May 2011 23:22:57 -0400

“Hey, Baby”

Performed by Catherine Castillo

Written anonymously

All Alone in My Head

Tue, 03 May 2011 21:40:05 -0400

I’m about to graduate in just a couple of weeks. I wish I could muster up some excitement for the occasion, but I just wish I would blink my eye and be home with my family who truly love me. I have been depressed and anxious for some time now. about a year and a half and despite the medications, the outside therapy, and help from CAPS my depression has not been able to abate. Its hard enough to be a minority women whose family relies on me financially and emotionally. Its troubling to not be able to ask your parents for help because you need to help them. I’m at the point where I cry every night and wait for the pain in my head and heart to subside so that I can grab a few hours sleep. I used to be able to smile and hide my feelings. Now its just a struggle to get out of bed and face the day. I feel so alone. All in my head, anxious about how my past could potentially dictate my future. My biggest fear is for my family both here and abroad and their health and well being. The poverty and homelessness that we have been through; and the fear of repeating those same events. I wish I could say that leaving here gives me answers on how to approach the problems in my life, but all I have are more troubling questions than actual certainties. I pray for a clarity that does not come. I wish for a day where the pain does not ache so much. And I hope that with the coming day I don’t shed a single tear.

My love

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:10:09 -0400

I thought that I have learned to conceal my passion and love from this place. And yet again, I found myself obsessed with him. The campus became so much richer, more beautiful, and more out-of-my-control.

I learned to satisfy my ego and emotional desire by hook-ups. But he is playing the game the “right” way. I don’t understand why he is wasting time on me.

It got better for me -

Sun, 01 May 2011 21:56:41 -0400

My first year at Duke I hated Duke, myeslf, and I wished I had never gone to Duke. I was miserable and had the worst time ever.

Now, years later, I am returning to the Me Too Blog-not to write the same things that I wrote my first year (which re-reading them today make me cringe inside), but rather to write that I am 110% different.

Today I feel so good about myself. I know it can be really hard to be at Duke-I know because I was one of the people who used to write miserable things on this blog bashing Duke.

But I’m writing on it today to let you know that for me, it got better.

But I only started to love Duke once I loved myself.

I couldn’t do it alone-I needed the help of CAPS, friends, and lots of other support systems on this campus. The CRR, the LGBT Center, the Women’s Center, every support system you can imagine on this campus, I have used. And now, years later, I return to the Me Too blog, but not to write that I hate Duke. But rather that I love it.

Loving Duke only happens when you love yourself. With the help of professional-and personal-help, you can figure out how to get there.

All the best

-A female upperclass student