Hannah Graham. She is everywhere. Her face is on the cover of every major magazine and newspaper around the country. Her name has flooded the Internet, TV, and radio for weeks. Her story haunts us all, because of its familiarity.
Hannah Graham, and the other missing girls in Virginia, whose stories have recently inundated the news, is no different from you, and me. They were all young teenage girls making spontaneous decisions in the name of fun. The majority of us (myself included) have attended a concert with friends, and wandered off to use the bathroom by ourselves, and the majority of us have also walked home alone after a night out, and maybe a few too many adult beverages. We did these things, but everything turned out all right. We went back into the concert, and easily reconnected with our pals, and although the solo walk home in our crop top and mini skirt ensemble wasn’t the ideal ending to a night, we made it back to our gothic sanctuary safely. We believe that we are invincible. We know that bad things happen to good people and we read about it in the news all the time, but we can’t seem to wrap our heads around the fact that those good people could easily be us. Any of us could easily be Hannah Graham.
Duke Police, and other University security, does an extremely impressive job of keeping us safe. The officers are friendly, and attentive, always looking out for us, even when we aren’t looking out for ourselves, but it’s time for us, the Duke female population, to take some responsibility for ourselves. It’s time to be as smart, and dedicated to our safety as we were to our SAT prep. As a whole, we need to start looking out for each other more. When you’re out on Saturday night dancing into the wee hours of the morning at Shooters, and one of your best friends tells you she is tired, and going to head back home alone- DO NOT LET HER. It is very tempting, and many of us are guilty of acting passively in this situation, or a similar one, but now is the time to make a change. We have to be aware of our surroundings, we have to know where our friends are, and we have to stop living under the assumption that we are invincible. The world is a scary place, and not a single one of the smart, beautiful, talented women that Duke has to offer deserves to be the headliner in the next missing person scandal.