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Dear Duke, 

I always thought I loved you. I imagined myself with you for years. I pictured myself climbing up your chapel and floating through your halls. I followed your students and idolized your professors. I learned your history and became consumed with the institution you are today. Every course you offered, every event you hosted, and every club you contained seemed perfectly crafted to fit my interests. Every black girl who shined in your presence served as a model of who I could be in a few years.  I thought I loved you so I worked towards you, doing my best to prove myself worthy of your acceptance. 

But it took getting you to realize that I never loved you at all. I loved the idea of you. I loved the things you could give to me. I loved the resources I thought you could offer me. I loved the people I thought you could introduce me to. I loved the person I thought you could make me. But now I know that not only do I not love you, but you could never love me. 

A place like you was never meant to love a girl like me. Your immaculate architecture was built to house those who looked nothing like me. Your founders, your heroes, your family never intended to include. You look down on me. You avert your eyes when you see me. You avoid me, ignore me, undermine me. You silence me with requests for politeness. You goal is to make me disappear, urging me to assimilate into self-annihilation, leaving not a trace of me left on this campus. If I was never here to begin with, you can pretend I don’t exist. You ‘ll try your best to pretend that you’re perfect, to pretend that the pain you inflict of us was never a problem. 

You wait for all of our demises. You wait for us to disappear. Yet we persist. We refuse to be silenced. We refuse to be put out of this place. We occupy this space with pride, knowing that our mere presence is an act of protest. We survive and we thrive, despite how hard you try to keep us down. We take the loss of love and convert it into strength, finding within us the will to turn your rigid palace into our home. Your hatred was meant to destroy us, yet we stand as tall as your storied chapel. 

Sincerely, 

Kaycee