One Saturday night, I stand on the border. The great divide between two highly similar and notionally divided ways of life: that of North side and that of South side. Here, in the so-called “Tunnel,” the two breeds mix indiscriminately. They temporarily forgo their pride and sacred identity to fulfill cravings for curry, an elongated sub sandwich, or a $60 haircut.

Perched on the curb between Jacobs Fitness Center and the Eagles’ Nest, I can hear the chatter of girls in the distance: talk of pre-gaming and some place called Town. Their high heels click on the asphalt like the hooves of a poorly-coordinated Clydesdale. They are making the trek from North to South, as if to find others like themselves, those who were not so unfortunate as to be assigned to Leonard or McFoul or, god forbid, Hughes, “the place where fun goes to die.”

The harsh pierce of Jersey dialect rings in my ears as I cling to my five dollar foot-long Subway sandwich. I nervously tear a piece of honey oat bread from the thin paper wrapped expertly around it. I chew quickly, rodent-like. I stare at the spandex-clad creatures from the Shore as they pass me, turn around, and sprint back to the safety of my North Side nest in Leonard Hall. It is cold outside, and I do not want to spend an extra second in the unforgiving breeze. I wanna flee to my heated room and the comforts of “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team” on CMT.

I wonder how such a divide came to be and, in my muckraking search, came shamefully fruitless. I reach only a vague conclusion that the two complexes of campus have been divided on the basis of geographic location. Could it be a matter of practicality? Or is it an insidious conspiracy to divide the wild from the sane, the brutish asses from the prudish masses? Indeed, There must be something perpetuating this divide, and I must find out what it is.

I set out to gauge how students feel about our pernicious partition, with loaded language in hand. I pose to one unsuspecting student the following question: If you were to compare the North-South division at AU to either the bloodbath between warring North and South Vietnam or the callous segregation of races in apartheid South Africa, which would you choose? When denied the option of neither, the respondent reluctantly chimed: “Vietnam, I guess …because of the North-South thing…”

Shocked, I stand unable to process the gravity of the divisions we have created. When I think of Vietnam in this era, I think of brutal murder and oppression; I think of the 16 years of American pillaging which brought enormous costs to all those involved; I think of the loathsomeness of human hate.

This is our world, AU. Let us not destroy it so.