TO THE EDITOR:
We were deeply disturbed to read “Durham crime crosses over.” The article suggests the solution to crime in Chapel Hill is a wall to keep out “undesirables” from Durham.
Such imagery is inherently racialized, invoking anti-immigrationist rhetoric, the history of Jim Crow, and continuing de facto residential segregation by race. It supports intensified policing of Durhamites, who already experience persistent police harassment.
Though the article does not explicitly name race as a “demographic difference,” it implicitly reinforces the link between blackness and criminality. It callously disregards the people who experience violence daily. Most victims of violent crime in Durham are young black men, whom the article vilifies.
Perversely, Chapel Hill residents, whose higher property values make their lives more secure than those of many of their neighbors in Durham, are cast as the vulnerable population.
Rather than fomenting racist and classist fears, the DTH should address the complicated position of the student body within the broader community.
While each of us may only live here briefly, we are members of an institution with a long history of perpetuating the systems of inequality that lead to the “demographic differences” among and within Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Durham.
If the DTH wants to seriously engage the issue of violent crime, it should include the perspectives of people living and working in neighborhoods where crime is highest.
Violent crime can only be effectively addressed when we recognize the inextricable linkages between neighborhoods in our community, not build walls between them.
