Posted by Sam Richards
Really, this is getting out of hand and needs to stop. Not sure how or why so many people have taken it upon themselves to be such rat heads. But silly actions seem to build upon other silly actions and soon enough there is a mess to clean up. And then when the black and brown people jump into the mix, it really get’s complicated. I love how one or two people become the spokespeople for an entire group, as you’ll see in the video below. That’s very much a dead end to any conversation and dialogue.
Here’s an article that pretty well sums up what has been happening out in California: “California Campus Sees Uneasy Race Relations”
OOOOOk so this video really just pissed me off. Like I really don't know if all of this was a practical joke gone wrong or if people is just really bored and stupid and don't have nothing better to do with their lives. I was really mad at the fact that someone hung a noose up in their school library. And honestly at first I thought that it probably was a white person who hung the noose, because to me it just doesn't make sense for a black person to do it. When they mention that a black person did hang the noose I was very baffled, how can someone be races against their own race? Naww that can't be possible. This is why I think that maybe this was a joke to cause some chaos on campus and start some trouble with the other students. But then I don't know, maybe this person really is racist and thought that this was best way to get his party started. You never know. And I don't even want to know how people would have reacted if a white person came forward and said that he hung the noose in the library. But like David said color really do not matter in this situation, it is the action that was matter.
And the whole thing about people dressing "ghetto" is stupid too. I think at this point the student are just trying to make each other really mad and frustrated at each other, because they know one group of people will react a certain way to whatever racist thing that they do. I don't want to say that I don't take this serious, because this is not cool. But another part of me just feel like this is a game of what race is the most clever to come up with something cool, jaw dropping and racist to do so that they can get some attention from it, because it is obvious working now.
The fact that the reporter keep saying that it is minority students that is causing all this trouble just makes me think that they think it is alright and cool to be involved with these actions. And they are not making the black people on campus look so hot either. I would be mad if I went to this school and all this was happening and come to find out that it is the minorities that is causing this.
And I don't understand why they are interview these two people in this video, they should the two people, the one that hung the noose in the library and the black fraternity guy on here, asking them, what were they thinking when they were doing these things? This would have been more interesting! And just ask them questions to see if they really feel some type of way about races. Because I personally think that interviewing these to people is not going to do anything, solve anything or help people understand why these guys did what they did.
[Reply]
psustarfire Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
I too think that it does not matter whether a white person or person of color hung the noose. Either would be despicable behavior. However, I do feel that if a white person was found to be responsible for this that there would be a lot more yelling and screaming and more civil rights leaders would be plastered all over out tv sets. It would have been the civil rights leaders that were being interviewed in place of the two people they had.
I love the fact that the host”ess” felt as though she was really going to get down to the bottom of this whole issue. Like those two people are really able to discuss how a white person feels about the noose. How does it feel for people of color to automatically assume that it was a white person that hung it in the first place?
[Reply]
Who knew a themed party could cause so much controversy? On one hand I do get where the people that was throwing the party are coming from. They probably just assumed that having a “black” party would make a fun theme because dressing up as gangtas and acting black is all the rave in the white community nowadays.
But on the other hand black people or even some white people might say that this kind of theme party is racist because it allows fun at the expense of an ethnic group of people. (Which it does no matter how detailed the note said to act.) But don’t we do this all the time as a society. When we go see movies, like the ones with Chris Tucker, where he can often be found making fun of black people or portraying a role that has all of the black stereotypes?
I think where the party people went wrong was the note. It was just too detailed, if it would have just said that we are having a gansta party wear baggy clothes and bring your gats then it wouldn’t have been that bad. But for someone to sit there and write out all those details, it’s just too much thought for many. It makes me think that the party host had to think at some point like a racist.
At what point does the party cross between just having fun and being offensive? I feel like they were able to throw this kind of party or for it to even go this far because the people that they were trying to imitate were black. Because they could always say that, “they were just having fun” and didn’t mean anything by it. So then, does it make it okay for people to throw disabled people themed parties or Nazi themes parties and turn around and say” oh we were just having fun with the concept of the idea but we really didn’t mean anything by it”. If the theme would have been disability then the party wouldn’t have made it pass the first proposal but since it is black people then it is okay for the party to go on.
But in a way a feel like there are multiply arguments to justify both throwing the party and not throwing it and if all these arguments are stable then what is the right answer? To throw the party or not to? I think people just have to know when something is wrong. Just like when a person says they are okay but you can tell that they are not. How do you know they are not? Because you just get a feeling. You just know. So for future themed parties just take a look at what your goals are and really know/feel if the party will be generally okay for those attending and those it is themed to imitate.
[Reply]
Oncodoc Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 2:44 am
Ok so we all know racism exists and I think its fair to say that there are few people, especially college kids, that can claim ignorance to this practice of hatred and intolerance. So if we all know this kind of stuff exists and there are such deep and passionate feelingson both ends of the spectrum in racism, why do people seem to always tred so close to the fine line between racism and just plain ignorance? And this, to me, is one of those cases wherea group of kids, although not intentionally, walked too close towards the line that separates unfair sterotypes and just being nuckleheads.
[Reply]
Oncodoc Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 2:45 am
THemed parties are fun, I get that. But we know sterotypes are unfairly thrown around and I feel like throwing a party with a theme central to a sterotype is just asking for touble. Is that to say that because people are sensitive to sterotypes that you should tippy toe and decide to throw a regular party? Not necessarily but then be ready to accept the risk of pissing alot of people off. To be honest, I wouldn't go as far as to say they were being racist by throwing a ganster themed party. But I do think they are instigating people and maybe being a tad bit insensitive. Just like I think that having a party where a bunch of girls dressed like "college sluts" (another big sterotype being thrown around to alot of undeserving girls) would not sit well with alot of people. I'm all for having fun, but when it goes this close to pissing off a group of people I tend to find other ways to throw a good party. I think this is a fine mix between people truely upset and affected by racism who may, at times, be known to be a little too generous with assucations.
[Reply]
Oncodoc Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 2:45 am
Then again, frat parties can be obnoxious as it is, even when they decide to not all dress up like gansters and maybe, in the other parties defense, unfairly draw a unsightly connection between drunk college kids and people who normally (not at themed parties) dress the way their themed guests do. Then I could see the reason for getting ticked off. If you want to drink and have a good time getting out of hand and doing what alot (not all) of drunk people do, then do it without bringing another group of people down with you. I feel like it might be a guilty by assocation kind of thing. BUt in the frats defense, I don't think thats what upset alot of people and to be upset at them for having a ganster theme party, then I would say get pissed off at all the kids and everyone else that dresses up as mob men and Michael Jackson and slutty nurses for halloween. It's all in fun until people take racism too far. I'm kind of stuck in the middle here….
[Reply]
kmp5031 Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 3:33 am
I agree with you when you say there are multiple ways to justify both sides of this argument. I think that this particular party crossed the line with its lengthy, detailed note, but I think that there are parties thrown, similar to this one, all of the time. The problem is that people don’t see it as being offensive when they aren’t personally offended about it. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bother someone else though. It’s hard to tell where you draw the line for what is okay to do and what is going to be offensive to someone else.
[Reply]
kpb5032 Reply:
March 19th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
I think people, especially college students, are going to do things that are beyond idiotic and without thinking. Just like when we were in Soc class the other day and Sam wanted us to write what we were thinking through the text messaging progran he had on the front projector. Everyone was just writing idiotic comments, even some were racist comments and we look at them and laugh. This is just plain wrong but college students today (some not all) do things without thinking and because we live in a society which is more "laid-back" about these certain topics, these college students went about planning for this "black" party without one considerable thought on how offensive it would be. This is not to say they are right, just giving a certain perspective on why these students might have been cool with such acts.
[Reply]
I don’t know. I really didn’t know what to think about the video. I see where that racism cannot be tolerated, but does this deserve to be treated so severely? I don’t think the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity (I think it was) threw the party with the intention of causing such controversy and personally attacking or subjugating the black community on campus. Does a fraternity having a “ghetto” themed party require such attention? There have been “ghetto” themed parties in the past. This kind of thing has happened and will continue to happen. I don’t think it is done maliciously. As someone mentioned, at what point does a party become offensive? Where can you really draw the line? I can see how it can potentially be offensive, but come on. The entirety of that event was blown way out of proportion. What, is the media going to cover every fraternity that holds a “ghetto” party?
The hanging of the noose is different. It deserves more attention.
I was actually surprised that it was not a white person who hung the noose in the library. I was almost positive it was going to be a white student, not a minority student. Why would it make sense for a minority student to have hung the noose? However, the fact that it was a minority student does not justify the action. I don’t even see why they would do such a thing. That said, as David Ritcherson mentioned, I don’t think it necessarily matters who hung the noose, simply that it was hung. Action does need to be taken against the student, so as to assure that something like this does not happen again. It is unacceptable and if the line needs to be drawn somewhere, in terms of being offensive, it is here. A joke is a joke, but to hang a noose in public is a little ridiculous.
Also, I agree with sjw5189. I would have liked to see some more depth to the interview. I understand that the media kind of wants to formulate some kind of educated response to what happened, but I would have liked to have seen something put more in perspective. I think everything was a little too vague. I really want to know more of what happened. I know CNN probably doesn’t want to televise the student who hung the noose or the fraternity brothers behind the “ghetto” party, but something else would have been more appealing. I think the protesting behind the incidents would have been something interesting to explore. From the brief video clips shown at the beginning of the video, it seems as though a lot of students are protesting or rallying.
[Reply]
brownsugarr Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
This party goes beyond 'ghetto' themed. This is the official invitation to the 'Compton Cookout' that was posted on Facebook:
"February marks a very important month in American society. No, i'm not referring to Valentines day or Presidents day. I'm talking about Black History month. As a time to celebrate and in hopes of showing respect, the Regents community cordially invites you to its very first Compton Cookout.
For guys: I expect all males to be rockin Jersey's, stuntin' up in ya White T (XXXL smallest size acceptable), anything FUBU, Ecko, Rockawear, High/low top Jordans or Dunks, Chains, Jorts, stunner shades, 59 50 hats, Tats, etc.
For girls: For those of you who are unfamiliar with ghetto chicks-Ghetto chicks usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes – they consider Baby Phat to be high class and expensive couture. They also have short, nappy hair, and usually wear cheap weave, usually in bad colors, such as purple or bright red. They look and act similar to Shenaynay, and speak very loudly, while rolling their neck, and waving their finger in your face. Ghetto chicks have a very limited vocabulary, and attempt to make up for it, by forming new words, such as "constipulated", or simply cursing persistently, or using other types of vulgarities, and making noises, such as "hmmg!", or smacking their lips, and making other angry noises,grunts, and faces. The objective is for all you lovely ladies to look, act, and essentially take on these "respectable" qualities throughout the day.
Several of the regents condos will be teaming up to house this monstrosity, so travel house to house and experience the various elements of life in the ghetto.
We will be serving 40's, Kegs of Natty, dat Purple Drank- which consists of sugar, water, and the color purple , chicken, coolade, and of course Watermelon. So come one and come all, make ya self before we break ya self, keep strapped, get yo shine on, and join us for a day party to be remembered-or not. "
[Reply]
PamBeesley Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
I saw this posted on facebook when I searched for it too. You're right – this goes way beyond a ghetto/gangsta themed party. It's incredibly stereotypical and racist towards Blacks. I don't see anything wrong with themed parties until they have the intention of stereotyping and making fun of other racial groups. Some people might argue they can say whatever they want because of the 1st amendment because they have the right to free speech and themed parties like that, but speech is limited when it's slander or offensive stereotyping. I do believe that in a free society people have the right to express their views, no matter how offensive they might be. Yet free speech, like any other right, is not an absolute. In this case, the speech in question isn't really an expression of an opinion and is more of a malevolent assault on the rights of others.
People who argue that they can do and say whatever they want are ignorign several examples of speech limitations that we live with everyday, and that most all would think legitimate. So, "we are not free to slander others, to print libelous information about others, to engage in false advertising, to harass others, to print and disseminate personal information about others (such as their confidential medical or financial records), to engage in speech that seeks to further a criminal conspiracy, to speak in a way that creates a hostile work environment (as with sexual harassment), to engage in plagiarized speech, or to lie under oath by way of dishonest speech." So really, you can't say or do whatever you want, especially when it comes to race, religion, and personal information.
Racism versus free speech is and should be a very touchy subject for some people, as issues concerning free speech and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights come into play. Some people argue that talking about supporting racial discrimination and prejudice is just words and that free speech should allow such views to be aired without restriction. Others point out that these words can lead to some very dire and serious consequences. For example, hanging a noose in the library went way beyond freedom of speech and freedom to express opinion. Even if it was a joke, it's not funny because people were hanged not more than 100 years ago just because of the color of their skin. Even if the student who hung the noose wasn't white it still doesn't make it ok. People have taken some things beyond practical jokes.
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on 9/11, Security concerns have understandably increased, but so too has racial profiling, discrimination etc. People have become extra sensitive because many people of color have been discriminated against and stereotyped to be "terrorists" or threats because of their skin color or the clothing they wear.
If people have the right to be educated or employed in non-hostile environments (and the courts and common sense both suggest they do), and if these rights extend to both public and private institutions (and they do), then to favor the free speech rights of racists, over and above the right to equal protection for their targets, is banishing the rights of all others. In other words, there is always a balance that must be met, and an argument can be made that certain kinds of racist speech create such a hostile and intimidating environment that certain limits would be not only acceptable, but required, as a prerequisite for equal protection of the laws, and equal opportunity. This most certainly should be enforced especially at higher education institutions (college campuses). The students involved in this should be punished.
[Reply]
Oncodoc Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 2:51 am
Now had I seen this I would have gone wild. Purple Drank and Watermelon? Where's the fried chicken for the love of God. THat was sarcasim by the way. Now this goes straight to racism and sterotyping. That fine line I was talking about before between racism and just being silly? Well they crossed it. It seems like these kids have too much confidence in their profiling of gansters. The sad thing is is that this is no different from the guidelines that cops follow to pull certain people over or that people use to turn down those looking for loans or housing contracts. This is ignorant, trashy, and downright sad. Its scary to think about all the profiling that goes on under our noses in every day life. And people probably never thought once about it…
[Reply]
apd24 Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 4:42 am
After seeing this I now understand how a themed party can be racist, although the majority are not this invitation definitely crosses the line. Especially the part on how girls should dress and act, that's just straight up racist no matter how you look at it. As a white person it pisses me off that there are still other white people out there who put stuff like this up on facebook and then wonder why some black people think we're all racists. It's no wonder white people get a bad image of racism, its because of ignorant shit like this.
[Reply]
JayBella Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 7:16 am
The hanging the noose thing has happened on a few campuses and it upsets me every time. One reason is because a lot of people don't even fully understand the cultural essence of the situation, what it really means coming from a certain person or group of people. It very well could have been that a black person put the noose up in the library either as a joke (that obviously was not funny at all) or to make tension between cultures on campus (clearly the opposite of what we are trying to accomplish). On one hand I could almost say that it doesn't matter what color the person was that hung the noose, but the reality of it is that if a white person did it then blacks would just continue to stereotype and inflame the hate that some people may feel. However, since it is possible that a person of color contributed to this action it's probably worse. It's disrespectful to one's own people. And if it wasn't the case and there was some deeper meaning to this prank, their point was obviously not clear enough.
[Reply]
Well as a minority I kind of understand the feeling of the students there, but as a matter of fact I don't think it deserves a protest or something. As I knew the University of California has some kind of recruiting rules to recruit their students by races. There is a proportion for minority students which means if you are a minority, you might attend the school at a lower high school performance. Personally I don't think the noose part is very important. It is just an ironic joke from my point of view. What matters is how to solve the problem. I don't see any hope of solution from neither the student, the faculty or the chancellor. Okay so here we have the protest, and now what? I personally can't think of any valuable solutions. It just needs to take some more time to solve I guess.
So don't panic or do things stupid. It will only make things worse.
[Reply]
Oncodoc Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 2:56 am
I'm sorry but there are far too many cases of suicide and hangings, intentional or not, to classify the hanging of a noose as anything as close as to being ironic. EVen if it wasn't racist, there are other ties to nooses than racism and the fact that someone had the insensitivity to make the tool that alot of people use to kill themselves a prop in their prank…well its sad because although they didn't use it for harm, alot of people do. Maybe this person should try to be more creative and find another way to make his or her statement. As for the protest…yeah it could be a bit of a poor solution that will only make the problem worse…but it would be wrong to expect people to stay quiet.
[Reply]
CastorPollux Reply:
March 6th, 2010 at 3:12 am
I want to make a counter-argument about part of your statements regarding status quo thing. It may be true that some groups of minority students would benefit from a low average GPA or SAT scores but other students would get disadvantage of that. Currentyly, students from East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong …etc) and India tend to have higher scores in such criteiras. It means that they have to compete among themselves for a fixed spot. I agree on your conclusion in which time matters. It took a while for many of older Generations to accept the idea of equality and anti-racisim. It could be happened due to various efforts from every areas and, I think, the same thing should be occured in this case. For example, while showing their uncomftable feelings toward this incident, they need to seek for mutual understanding of their culture or lives with other part of the community.
[Reply]
This is unbelievable that this is still happening in the United States and in California of all places. It is hard to believe this type of behavior when you don’t see it. Living in State College all of my life I have never experienced anything in this nature. I have lots of friends of color and if we were to have a ghetto party or something of that sort it was jokingly and my friends even joined in. I don’t understand the KKK hood and the noose in the library that is just taking it way to far. I believe we can all handle a joke here in there such as a “ghetto party” but these measures these individuals took it to is unacceptable.
[Reply]
Should I care or shouldn’t I care this was my feeling after watching the video. I understand if students wouldn’t want continue to go to classes under those conditions, no one would. What I notice was that it was students who hung the noose and was going to have the “ghetto party”. That is what need to be addressed, thing like that can only make situations worst. It’s not a joke if your the only person laughing, which I’m sure if a black person who hung the noose he is the only one laughing. Also, to place the noose in a public school library, he or she needs serious help. He or she should face criminal charges it’s clear what that person was trying to do spark something that will get out of control. I know college doesn’t mean you’re an adult, but at some point you have to grow up and see the world in different eyes. Why even talk about the “Ghetto Party” it’s complete different from the noose. It’s understood that ghetto means poor area from where minorities live, which is a stereotype. That fraternity needs to be dealt with on a level on ethics. Come on what’s so hard about saying let’s have an “Unban Dress Party” if that is the point you wanted to get across. Lastly, let’s not get so uptight about everything that’s seems racist. Maybe the “Ghetto Party” was does just where mixed race people or one race came to just have fun. A lot of problems clearly need a solution maybe they need to start with the students and work their way out to the Chancellor.
[Reply]
Who would ever want to go to UCSD now? Only crazy people, if you ask me. No matter what your race, this is not cool. I would be absolutely horrified, as a white female, to go there. And the noose in the library? Seriously, why? I guess I could understand the black-themed ghetto/gangster style party. A little far-fetched and twisted if you ask me, but I wouldn’t put it past college students at Penn State, either. Especially judging by the lame incidents with the text-messaging thing yesterday in class. People just don’t know when to stop, and have no regard for others or their feelings.
[Reply]
I think that this entire thing is completely out of hand. I feel that the theme of the party could have been okay…but the way the description is makes it a messy situation. I feel that because these students chose to do this themed party in honor of Black History Month they crossed the line. Also, the students painted their faces black which I feel is a little bit ridiculous. There are many other ways that this could have been carried out. There are many times when people here at Penn State have “ghetto” or “white trash” themed parties. I am not offended by either of these. I do feel that doing something so ridiculous to honor a huge part of our history is rude and unnecessary. The guy who was the main focus of this party is black himself and is not offended by what these students did. I am not sure why it is okay for him and not for other people. I guess it all just depends on how personal people take things. No matter what you do in life someone is going to be offended by something you say or so. There is no way to do something in life without this occurring. This also goes to say are people allowed to paint themselves black for Halloween? Halloween is seen as a time for costumes and getting dressed up as different characters or whatever. If someone dresses up as a black celebrity and paints him or herself black you can be sure that someone is doing to be offended. There will be many people who do not find this offensive at all, but there will be those few. There are a lot of problems in society revolving around race and I feel that this party wouldn’t have been seen as such a big deal if we didn’t have these issues. I feel that race for many many people is a huge issue and there are many instances where people don’t know what to act in certain situations. I’m not trying to say that what these students did is right, but I feel that if this is seen as such a big deal, then there are many other things that should also be viewed this way. There are many other themes that people find offensive and they aren’t posted all over the news. I feel that this is just another case of a huge racial dispute, but who is to say what is right and wrong in this situation. Some people would even find a Jersey Shore themed party offensive, while others think it isn’t a big deal at all. No matter what there will always be issues in our world where we are offending people, but here is no way that we can bring this to an end.
[Reply]
I do not agree that the noose deserves much more attention than the "ghetto" themed party. After reading the invitation posted above, it is clear that this is a blatantly racist driven and themed party. The invitation posted above, if indeed the actual one sent out to the "Compton Cookout," screams fighting words in all aspects deemed by the United States Supreme Court. If that invitation does not stand out to you as absolutely racist, then you are not seeing what is really going on here. I know some may argue that it was all in “good fun”, but the words used in the invitation are lined with hate and malicious intentions. In the land where we prize our freedom of speech, where is the line drawn?
Likewise, I don't agree how someone said people would be "crazy" to attend UCSD. This sort of thing can explode anywhere, on any campus. It usually is just a couple spoiled apples that ruin the bunch, and it appears in this case to be a snowball effect on their campus.
I am not sure if the color of the skin of whoever hung the noose should change the situation. I think that the skin color and the intent of the person who hung the noose are important factors to consider before making a judgment about the entire situation.. What if the student was doing it as some sort of prank or maybe they were told to do it for some irrelevant fraternity initiation. Regardless of the intent, this action had produced a huge uprising in the black community and has shacken the campus considerably. It is not obvious that something needs to be done in order to address this explosion of hate on their campus. The massive reaction to the events was indeed justifiable because of the malicious intent described on the Comptom Cookout invitation. It is one thing to have a "gangsta" themed party in California, but another to include such phrases like "Ghetto chicks have a very limited vocabulary" while also mocking what some may perceive to be “their” culture-“ dat Purple Drank- which consists of sugar, water, and the color purple , chicken, coolade, and of course Watermelon.”
-This sort of negativity will only cause more problems and perpetuate the cycle of hate and racism in America. I believe it is right for the black community to respond in the way the did, protesting and standing up for injustice. Only when you draw more attention to their situation will people begin to understand what is really at stake here. We are too young to remember what was going on during the Civil Rights Movement-like the Birmingham church bombings which the headlines titled “Bombingham, Alabama” and the countless others who died in the struggle for equal rights; let history humble us and remind us that what those people were fighting and dying for this cause will not and should not be forgotten.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"-Martin Luther King Jr.
[Reply]
I first heard this story when I was watching CNN the other day. At that point in time, the noose was the only incident at the school. Now all of these campuses seem to be going through some very tough racial issues at this time. First of all, I want to address the themed party incident, which actually ties pretty well into the post that our classmate made about racist themed parties. To me, it is a weird situation, considering that black students organized this party and that a black person also hung the noose. It's just strange to me how this person could possibly think it was an okay thing to do, when the entire black community is now lashing out about it and outraged. That would be like me, a Jew, drawing a huge Swastika on a table on the library, or putting in the elevator or something. Either way I know that it is a symbol that most find extremely offensive, and I'd never even dream of doing it. Additionally, we are just talking about kids here (18-22) year olds. As Sam said, this could easily just spiral out of control into kids just messing around to get a rise out of people. Once the story gets backing from international news like CNN, I'm sure lots of idiot kids thought about stirring up a little chaos around their campuses. It's also an interesting when you've only got the two people there representing the entire campus. True, the black kid David does in a sense 'represent' his constituents since he is the president of the black student union. Also, I did see on campus interviews with some of the kids at UCSD, but for such a large segment only to have two people engaging in dialogue isn't enough perspective. John Stewart the other day was ragging on Fox for interviewing four old people in a retirement home about Healthcare, and each of them said they disliked it, during a segment that was supposed to be completely non-biased and non-opinionated. Obviously this segment wasn't quite like that, but the American public is so non-educated about a lot of issues that they need to be presented with all facets of the debate. Finally, I think it starts with the students really being vocal about this problem. If the administration comes down too hard, then students will just continue rebelling to say 'fuck the man'. If it seems like the majority of students on campus are engaged and want this to end immediately, perhaps the idiots or are continuing these racist acts will stop quicker. Hopefully these kids will realize how heinous and harmful acts like this can be, and that they are drawing a ton of negative attention toward their school.
[Reply]
That noose story is pretty screwed up. And that the racial undertones in this campus are quite disturbing. The UCSD has a pretty problematic situation going on but the party going "ghetto style" sound like a horrible idea. The culture of having to be popular is that which follows the trends of which popular, but on a side note if you watch the USCD chancellor you'll realize she doesn't blink at all. When the trend is to be "ghetto" the imitation of large amount of the impressionable people will usually cause a disturbance for those of a different color. The move foward in a positive manner that only solution is to respect each other and learn about each other's cultures and kind of respect the ethnicities so that problems and occurrences like this doesn't happen again.
[Reply]
I must say that I do find the compton cookout party pretty disturbing and much worse than the noose incident. To me the noose thing is being blown way out of proportion. A minority student admitted to having done that and I highly doubt that person made the noose as an ill-willed statement towards african americans or any other minorities. It was just one of those dumb things that people occasionally do, although this dumb move easily could be considered racist. I just think from limited knowledge of the circumstances that it was harmless. Now as for the compton cookout party, I don't really have a problem with the theme, but I have a huge problem with how far they took it. Almost all theme parties in some way work on the stereotypes of a certain ethnic or racial group, and it is no way limited to just minority groups such as blacks in this case. You have Jersey Shore parties which I think stereotype Italian Americans and people from New Jersey. You have redneck parties which stereotype rural white people. Then there are the many others that stereotype all other racial and ethnic groups. There are no groups that are spared. And on top of that you have all different races and ethnicity's participating in these parties, even when it is stereotyping one's own group. Now the problem lies in the fact that this certain party was taking everything way too far. I read the description from the facebook group and it was extremely racist in my opinion. It was very particular in defining the stereotypes and even seemed sarcastic at points, such as when it wants all the women to take on the "respectable" qualities of ghetto chicks like "using limited vocabulary", "cursing persistantly", and constantly "smacking their lips". It also said that they wear cheap clothes, have gold teeth, and start fights and drama. I know that I am pretty offended by the fact that they would even say something like this and even go as far as publicly post it on facebook. It isn't even directed towards me but I still feel pretty disturbed by it. There is line between a party that is all in good fun and one which is offensive and possibly racist. The line is blurred and there is no set definition for what constitutes it, but this one definitely is far over it. Although I did find it interesting that apparently a black person was the one who initiated this party or whatever. It shows me that he apparently didn't feel that this was too offensive and also stereotyped his own race pretty harshly, and I guess was okay with it.
[Reply]
Typical mob mentality. A lot of emotion, a lot of demands, and no sincere meditation on possible solutions. The guy in the interview wore a disgruntled expression throughout the interview, articulated well, spoke a lot of words, and said nothing. He ignored the fact that the acts were committed by minorities. The party was hosted by minorities. I don’t believe that minorities hate their own, but hate is how everyone has chosen to interpret these events. He said the chancellor needed to do more while dismissing the “Teach In” as “not enough”. Instead of recognizing and commending the effort to try and create some awareness, he prefers to be angry that the acts have been committed and the powers that be aren’t doing anything about it. I was eager to hear just ONE idea from him about a possible solution, but the only thing he could come up with is increase the number of African American faculty, as if that were the source of the problem. I struggle to believe that if the faculty were 50% African American racism would up and vanish.
The lady in the interview spoke with even more clarity than the man, and still managed to say nothing. She begins by explaining racism, and moves on to label the discovered noose as “an act of racial terrorism”. I ask why it must be labeled this way. The noose has been used to hang people of all races all through history and was the preferred method of capital punishment prior to the electric chair and lethal injection. I understand that within our culture and history the noose has evolved into a powerful symbol of hate due to its illegal use targeting African Americans. But what PRESERVES a symbol? Ritual attention and indoctrination. The noose in the library was turned into a spectacle, and this lady labeled it racial terrorism. It was wrong to create the noose and leave it in the library. It was meant to send a message of hate. But it could have been ignored. The feeble minds that created it did not have to be acknowledged.
It is a very, very small percentage of people at this campus committing these acts, yet it is being deemed a campus-wide perspective deficiency. The interview took nearly ten minutes, yet everything that came out of their mouths can be summed up as follows: The man is angry, the lady thinks the students need to be more informed about racism.
We don’t need more or less of any skin color. We need more classes like Sam’s that get us to heat up, then lighten up and really begin to see each other for our humanity and not the consequences of our phenotypic ancestry.
[Reply]
While watching this video, I couldn’t quite grasp what this whole issue was about. Did this all really start over some silly theme party? Don’t get me wrong, I can completely understand why people would be offended by throwing a “ghetto” party and normally I wouldn’t think it required such a mass protest. That is why I think that there is more to the issue. Therefore, I think in this case it may not be an overreaction. The party may have been meant to offend and it wasn’t just an innocent theme party. I’m sure the people throwing the party thought it would be amusing and didn’t even realize how ridiculously racist they were being. I realize that it was a fraternity affiliated with the school that threw the event and that’s why the protests are happening on the UCSD campus. However, this was an off campus party and I feel like the university can’t do much about the situation other than condemn it.
As far as the noose and KKK hoods go, I can’t believe some people can do things so blatantly cruel and offensive. Although the girl said it wasn’t meant to signify anything racist is hard to beilieve. The reporter said that it was a minority student that hung it, but she didn’t specify, which leads me to think that it was not a black student that did it. It is surprising that a minority student would do something like this. The fact that it was done by a minority doesn’t make the act any less wrong. I don’t think that it is an overreaction or exaggeration to call hanging a noose anything but a threat to the minorities on campus.
The UCSD campus already had racial tensions before these incidents occurred. These may have been the last straws before students finally decided to take action. It’s hard to see such a complicated issue resolving anytime in the near future. It’s disheartening to hear the student in the interview walked out of the teach-in. Refusing to talk to each other won’t solve anything. Hopefully these protests will eventually lead to more tolerance on the campus and make people realize that their stupid jokes can offend and hurt people.
I’m curious to see what some of the fraternity members have to say about all of this. I wonder what their opinions are on the protests and other acts of racism on campus and why they wanted to throw that party in the first pace. It’d also be interesting to hear from the student that hung the noose and whether they meant it as a threat or just some sick joke. I think Sam was right when he said that this is just a series of dumb actions and has escalated into something much bigger.
[Reply]
Honestly, this is a never ending battle, one that I'm sick of having to write a blog about. There's only so much we can say, only so much we can do, and none of that will solve this problem. And everyone's top question is, "When are we going to stop paying for the actions those did before us?" My answer to you is, always. There will always be those before us making the same mistakes we could have once made. There will always be some changing the world, or starting a revolution before we do anything. There will always be someone before you. Whether you pick up the pieces, go with the flow, or start a new is your decision.
[Reply]
People love to take actions or words to far. The envelope is always being pushed, especially in our generation. People are testing the waters to see what they can get away with. Our youth are trying to break out of the mold we have set for them, just as we are trying to break out. I feel kids go to college, planning on changing the world. They go hoping to get their voice heard. They feel this is the time to start that revolution. And it is. College is a great environment to express yourself, and your beliefs. It is a great opportunity to get your voice heard and it's the best place to find people who feel the same way. But when is too much too much? I think people are finding ridiculous ways to get their voice heard or make a statement. Having the KKK hood or a noose is taking it to far. And not a way to express yourself at all. You are not saying anything but hate, and no one wants to listen to that.
[Reply]
So is it ok that a minority hung the noose? I mean if it was acknowledged that a white person made it, all hell would break loose. But because a minority admitted to it, it's not as bad? And who the hell plays with rope? I don't know if this was mentioned…but who was the 'minority' that made the noose? Because I don't think white people are the majority anymore.
[Reply]
His solution was to have more African American teachers, what is that going to solve? I don't think it will solve UCSD racial problems. What more can they do to stop the madness going on there, it's going on everywhere. Professors need to be qualified to teach. And as much as I don't agree with half of my professor's I do know they are qualified to be there, or else they wouldn't be. I don't see how that will solve a problem. There are professors everywhere of different race and ethnicities.
And the Compton Party, is ridiculous and should not be gaining this much media. It’s a party, not some political debate. That’s what else is wrong, the media focusing on mediocre stories. The way local newspaper blew up over State Patty’s, you added all the hype, more than students did. You gave us the attention.
[Reply]
I find all of this really surprising and completely ridiculous. Never in a million years would I have thought that a themed “Compton Cookout” party would be funny or even appropriate. To me, the fact that a fraternity put it on only makes matters worse. Regardless of how funny they wanted to be, there is no doubt in my mind that the fact that this could be a little offensive would have crossed their minds. To me, that means that this is just completely insensitive.
Now, the matter of the noose in the library and the hood found, that is just scary. I really find it hard to believe that the noose was just “accidentally” created out of playing with some rope, and there is no reason in my mind that the hood would be created except to elicit fear in others. Even it was also intended as a joke, the person (or people) that did this had to have known that this would scare people and cause a stir. The article said that this may have been a cry out for attention, which I feel is very true, but I wish that there was another way that they could get it.
In reference to the video that CNN did, I totally see where Sam was going about the “dead end” in the conversation. I thought it was really funny at the end of the piece whenever the professor just kept reiterating about the necessity of “utilizing the resources on campus and making sure that the children are educated.” I am not saying that I do not agree with this, but I wish they would talk about more of the actions that they were going to take, and less about the fact that actions need to be taken.
I was also confused about the student who told them that people did not want to go to the “teach out.” First of all, I do not really understand what that is, but it sounds like a way for the student body to engage in conversation and figure out what is going wrong and see what needs to be done. The student expressed concern with the fact that the chancellor did not allow them to take matters into their own hands, but it seems like the “teach out” sounds like a pretty good first step. Maybe I am missing something with this, but usually adhering to policies in the university and making sure that the students all feel safe and that their voices are heard is the first step.
These incidents are not the first hateful actions we have seen on a college campus, and they are certainly not the last, but I feel that it is necessary to find some way to keep these problems from happening.
[Reply]
This whole article is controversial all the events being discuss as racial discrimination in the school was allegedly done by minorities. So who is discriminating who? I don't really understand. With that being said the events that were committed can be cruel and make students uncomfortable. I don't believe these acts should be tolerated but by blowing up the "ghetto" theme party is just going to fuel the fire of discrimination. To me having a theme party like that doesn't seem to be offensive but that's only my opinion
[Reply]
This was a weird video, honestly. I think that the reporter seemed really nervous to be talking about race and it made her seem really uninformed and almost scared. The two interviewees, who were the professor of ethnicity and the president of the black student union, seemed to be able to answer her questions with composure, but what I don’t understand is why they were being interviewed at all. Did they have anything to do with these acts of discrimination? Why aren’t they interviewing either the people that found the noose or the people that attended the party where “ghetto” dress was encouraged? I feel like they picked the two interviewees based on the fact that they were both black and had titles related to being black. Couldn’t they just have easily interviewed any black student on campus? Why pick these two and allow them to be representative of the entire black student population? It doesn’t seem fair that the opinions and views of two people should represent the opinions of the majority of black students and professors. I think a poll, or an objective overview of the events leading up to the acts of discrimination, would be more informational and a lot less conflicting.
It’s disturbing to me that a noose showed up on a campus, and that this probably was done as an act of hate towards black students. At the same time, there are acts of hate committed everyday towards Muslims and members of the gay community in every college across the nation, and almost none of them get this kind of publicity. I’m not saying we should kick up this kind of conflict every time an act of hate happens, I’m just saying, it would be nice if the acts of hate that made media headlines were more representative of which groups they were committed against.
I don’t think it matters that the noose was hung by a member of a minority. I don’t think that makes any difference at all. The intent, and the effect, are both the same. I think it’s kind of racist to say that it’s okay if a minority hung the noose—that makes it seem like it is okay for minorities to discriminate against each other.
Honestly, I think that instead of protesting the acts that were committed on this campus, it would be more effective to protest the sentiments behind the acts. Having a “Compton” party is insulting, true, but what were the underlying reasons for having such a party? Stereotypes about black people. If they really wanted to solve the problems at this campus, they would try to change their thinking about stereotypes like being “ghetto” and maybe try to educate the student body about how those stereotypes hurt everyone. Instead, they are interviewing random black people to see how they feel and nothing is really getting accomplished.
[Reply]
Alright they are just figuring out that most college students are immature brats? Seriously?? People are always ignorant they think that playing into the stereotype is fun to do…Don’t ask me why but they do. A noose! A noose! though. These kids are just stupid or hit their head hard that day. They don’t understand the history behind this hateful symbol. I still believe that it probably wasn’t a black student; if it was I don’t think we would be discussing this or it would be an issue. I think this interview was set up because it was assume that a white student did this, this is why people are reacting the way they are. Also, why are these people almost like the representative of the black community instead of the school? There’s no real story here, I felt as if it was thrown together. You could clearly see that! She didn’t even know the guy’s name and she was the interviewer.
[Reply]
While listening to this discussion it was like they were just talking in circles I believe and nothing was really said. This is soooo ridiculous bad enough that black people are the ones doing this…as a joke no less. Are they that bored? And why is dressing “ghetto” a good theme party it just feed into the stereotype that black people are ghetto and ignorant. This really pissed me off, I really want to know what was going through the heads of these people it’s utterly ridiculous that they would do such a thing! It’s not cool. It’s just stupid. I think the faster people would stop trying to live up to these stereotypes the faster we can get rid of them. I really disagreed with David’s idea of having more African American staff members it’s not because it’s a dumb idea, but it’s really unrealistic. It’s almost impossible to find that many minority staff members that are qualified to do the job efficiently.
[Reply]
Ok so first things first and I could not agree more with Sam, when your conducting an interview like this, one that is so heated with race, why are there only two black people being interviewed? Why isn’t there a white representative, a brown one, why is it only the black race that has a say in this? We wonder why our views are the way they are we hear one side of a story and a reason and have to base our opinions off of that. If you want to change something that surely isn’t going to do the trick you need more views on a topic to really have an understanding as to why something takes place. This goes back to a post a couple of weeks ago as to why no one says anything, well here we are not given that right to say something. When they first started talking they only brought up black issues, and what they mean, especially with the noose hanging in the library. When they first started talking you didn’t hear a black person did it until they were ready to answer then the anchor made sure she said “this was done by a black person” and I thought that was important to state because then race is taken out of the incident as long as color boundaries go. It still deals with racism and stereotypes but at least it wasn’t a white student did this look at how racist they are. It was completely wrong no doubt about that and this is why we cant move forward because we still are focusing on what happened in the past. I understand it is hard to forget but if you want it to stop look at the future and not the past. Second when they asked the professor about the situation she seemed to give a very conservative response about race in general which I liked. She focused not on color but the incident that was disrespectful. She said it didn’t matter who placed it there it was still there and that is the point that is wrong. Then it went on to talk about the party, and how she didn’t really want to comment. It’s a party with a theme it was meant in fun and that’s it. There was no underlining message there besides lets drink eat and be marry. Finally with the chancellor speaking on the website, I thought it was funny that a black chancellor only mentioned the black student union. What about the white one that doesn’t really exists or the brown one or the yellow one, if this was a campus wide complaint on racism shouldn’t they be talked about also? The answer is yes, and this is what makes m so angry, we are getting screwed views on a topic involving a certain race and that’s never going to help fix an issue. You need to ask everyone and talk to everyone before we can assume things and change for the better.
[Reply]
Maybe it's just me but doesn't it seem like Ms. Philips is trying to get the people she's interviewing to 'admit' that it does change the whole situation because the people who engaged or encouraged these actions are minorities? She basically asked that question twice, just rephrasing it a little each time. What difference does it make if the students were minorities?
*On a side note, women are a minority. So if the person who admitted to participating in the noose incident was referring to that fact when she said she was a minority, it negates any assumptions that she should get a 'pass' for what she did*
It just shows that there is a problem on the cmapus. Maybe it's not the expected 'white vs. black' situations most people have come to expect when they hear about racist incidents, but they were still actions that were seen as offensive by a large population of students. Maybe it's even a greater problem because it involved minorities. Has our society really become so insensitive that the struggles people faced and the stereotypes placed in different groups have become jokes? Are we really so ignorant as to think that no one would be offended by such actions?
If so, then this isn't a problem with one person, or one school. It is a problem that needs to be addressed by our society as a whole. It wouldn't be an easy task and the results wouldn't be seen immediately, but I believe there are some simple things we can do to start a change. Expanding discussions like the ones in the Race Relations Project and SOC 119 out into the community could be a start. I know that the people who come to these types of things are the ones who are willing to listen and have something to say and there are always going to be those people who are not willing to do either. So then it is our responsibility to take what we've learned form each other and share it. Eventually, regardless of whether or not they agree with what you have to say, people will listen–and that's the first step toward the change we need to see.
Also, I have to say that I'm disappointed that he left the teach-in. He's right, a two hour teach-in is not enough to fully address the issues on campus, but it shoes the administration cares and that they aren't just trying to brush the issues under the rug. Shouldn't he be proud that the school took measures to make the issues known to the public and is taking a proactive step towards making a change? He should have stayed, especially as the leader of the Black Student Union. It is his responsibility to take what is said at and learned from the teach-in back to his membership so that they can decide if a more appropriate course of action is needed. But because he was not there, he does not know what was discussed and what, if any, progress was made.
And who chose him to speak for the entire student body anyway? What has he done in the community to warrant this? Also the Black Student Union is not the only group affected by these issues. Why not have a panel of several minority organizations and even some non-minority groups. Only having him makes this seem like a 'black thing', when really it affects everyone on that campus.
[Reply]
A comment made on Thursday's communal texting class really rang true to me, and I think it's worth following up on. After people put up such insightful comments as, "that hickey was out of control", "i have to poop" and "8===D", a student in the class responded sagely with the words: "This is why we can't have nice things." In many situations, it is an obnoxious minority which gets the attention of the mainstream media, and it is my opinion that it is our opinion as informed, intelligent people to take away a reasonable message and move on–quickly.
I wrote in a previous blog post that psychopaths tend to gravitate towards positions where they can be heard by the masses. Unfortunately, big media plays a big role in this process: Just follow the money. The majority of funding (and profits) for mainstream television networks comes not from consumers, but from other corporations in the form of advertisements. The price of an advertisement is determined primarily by a statistic called the Nielson rating. This statistic measures, using a variety of methods, the number of people watching a particular televised program.
In other words, television networks become profitable by drawing in crowds. In particular, this means that television news networks will try to feed you, the viewer, whatever sensationalist crap it takes to keep you coming back to that set. When it's a choice between a new and breaking story about a small-town murder in Arkansas, or a drawn-out debate on the future of science funding, guess which story gets the air time? In 2003, a Florida court of appeals agreed with lawyers for the FOX Broadcasting Company that news networks are not legally obliged to present unbiased or even factual information to viewers. That's right: Television news is allowed to lie to you.
Studies have looked at the ability of groups of people to correctly answer facts about current events, based on their preferred source of news, correcting for differences in demographics. Of the major networks, viewers of FOX News Channel were least able to correctly to answer factual questions about current events. People whose main source of news was a newspaper, on the other hand, were more informed as a group than those who turned to any televised news network. Finally, people who got their news from National Public Radio were the most informed of all. I find this interesting, because of all of the studied outlets, NPR is the one which is publicly funded rather than a commercial enterprise. Just follow the money.
As regards to this debacle about the theme party in UCSD, I think that it is blown out of proportion by ratings-hungry media. Yes, the party was racist. Yes, some kids should probably get reprimanded for it. No, there's probably not a sudden "outbreak" of racism in the UC schools, and yes, somebody should probably take a look at the environment that lead to that kind of a display. There. Now can we please move on? The health care debate is pretty important… And it seems like we should maybe do something about poverty in urban America… Or the 27 million slaves in the world! Something that doesn't involve obnoxious racist frat boys and publicity-whoring rappers.
[Reply]
The education you get in college helps you to get acquainted with the origins of the people not similar to themselves. I don't think that throwing a party with a ghetto theme is really racist , it happens so often that in movies stereotypes are used to show the characteristics of an individual. For example, in many movies stereotypes of black people are used like Chris Tucker in the movie 'Rush Hour'. If people don’t consider that to be racist then how can they do the same for this? It’s not only that black people wear this type of clothing, some white people do as well, so you really can’t call it racist .
[Reply]
I was really surprised to hear about something like this. I know that racism still exists but i dint think that it is so obviously brought out. Also this was in a very reputed college. People who are in some way racist are more than usually people who are not very well educated. But this happening in such a reputed college, has truly shocked me. I always thought that when a college has such a multicultural campus the student are used to having people of different color .
[Reply]
This whole situation is kind of weird, since a black frat member thought of the party and also hung the noose. It must have been started as a joke since this black person is probably not racist against his own group and may of thought it to be acceptable that he could do it, or just wanted to spur up some controversy. The fact that a riot formed because of this and black students are recommending more black faculty is confusing to me, because I do not see where other minorities are discriminating against black people. In response to the recommendation that more black faculty be hired I think that is just unfair and that in any case, the best person should be hired for the job. I agree though, that the noose is not a joke, and although I think its less serious because an African American student hung the noose, I do agree that more education should be given about discrimination. It was not acceptable to include the racial stereotype of "ghetto" girls, especially with the inclusion of the "nappy hair" comment. This is obviously directed towards black women and not "ghetto" people in general. I think this whole thing was blown out of proportion. The fraternity was trying to have a fun night, with a "ghetto" theme, thought of by a black person, but included racial slurs in the facebook invite. This does not mean that the whole campus has racial undertones and that more black faculty needs to be hired to make it a better atmosphere for black people. Is having white faculty not comforting? I think this statement is a little racist or discriminatory in itself because it's not like the white faculty was hanging nooses, or white students for that matter. I think it is a situation that was blown out of proportion.
[Reply]
The article reported that there has been “racially and ethnically charged incidents” recently at UC San Diego. I agree that creating a noose and placing a KKK hood on the Dr. Seuss statue is racially charged (although the creator denied having malicious intentions) and that carving a swastika on a Jewish student’s door is ethnically charged. These acts are undeniably shallow, intolerable, and racist, and the individuals behind these acts are wrong.
But honestly, I don’t think that the ghetto-themed party or the Tijuana Sunrise party is a big deal. I was at an “Around the World” themed party where a few of the different rooms were New York City, Australia, Ireland, etc. New York City had fat American tourists with the big cameras and goofy souvenirs as well as Asian tourists making peace signs while taking photos. In the Australia room, Australians definitely were misrepresented by the picture of someone wearing a Steve-Irwin type outfit. The Irish room had pictures of red-headed leprechauns with pots of gold. Is this image considered racially or ethnically charged? The Irish aren’t black, but at one point in time, they were on one of the lowest rungs of the social ladder. Along with them on that rung were the Italians. That being said, I’m an Italian (from Pennsylvania, not Jersey), and I am in no way offended by the Jersey Shore parties “mocking” guidos and guidettes. In fact, I’ve attended several and I have enjoyed myself. It was fun to dress up as an image that did not represent me. I don’t know why, but it just was. People essentially escape from their own personal identity every Halloween when they choose to dress up in a costume – not to mock people, but because it is all in good fun. On Halloween, I have seen people dress as Scottish men when they wear kilts – would you assert that these people dislike Scots? I have seen boys dress as playboy bunnies – would you then assert that those boys are mocking girls with blonde hair and big boobs? I wouldn’t. I just think it is funny to see masculine men dress up as girls. Anyway, all of the party-theme images of people play into stereotypes. There are also western themed parties where everyone dresses up in cowboy boots, cowboy hats, flannel shirts, and jeans. I’m sure this isn’t how all people from the Midwest dress, just like not all people from the ghetto are black individuals wearing baggy clothing. What about Eminem? He’s white, from the ghetto, and dresses in baggy clothing. I don’t see how the ghetto – themed party or the Tijuana sunrise party are any different from the other parties that “mock” someone’s heritage – technically, the Jersey-Shore theme parties “mock” my Italian heritage. And I intentionally put “mock” in quotations because I in no way believe that any of these parties are meant to offend the subject of the themes.
[Reply]
What a sad, complicated mess. It's unfortunate that so many racially charged incidents have occurred, and sad that the response to them has been so weak. I don't think a required teach in would do much good–as the young man in the interview pointed out. In general though, I'm much more saddened by the fact that these things occurred in the first place.
When reading about the "Compton Cookout" fiasco, I saw that apparently the campus is 97% white or something, and it reminded me of one of the sections from Laurie's book that we read (I just found it again, pg. 74 in the second edition) in which she describes knowing two women, one of color, one white, who both feel that white people gathering to have a discussion on race with no people of color present would not be a good idea (the white woman Laurie mentions even deems the idea, "just dangerous").
When I initially read this passage, I felt confused, and a little bit frustrated. I wanted to think that I would not speak about race any differently if there were no people of color in the room; I wanted to think that our generation had moved past this. And then I read about the incidents occurring at the UCSD.
My first reaction, I'm not afraid to admit (despite how it may reveal my naïveté), was surprise. When the TAs in our discussion group read the facebook invite from the cookout aloud, and then told us that apparently some students had shown up in what was essentially blackface, I almost wanted to think it was a joke.
After a mere moment or two, the feeling turned to shame, and frustration. I felt angry that these students would ever think this was an acceptable idea; I felt embarrassed to be white. I wondered if maybe the women Laurie mentioned had had a point, and that made me disappointed. Don't get me wrong–I think having racial and ethnic diversity is optimal–as Sam mentioned, people who grow up in diverse areas are often more likely to be open and accepting. And I certainly want people of color to be involved in our discussions on race. I just think it's sad that it may be necessary for people of color to be involved in order to strictly keep white people from doing something wholly inappropriate.
And if class on Thursday (3/4/10) was any indicator, we are not safe from such events at PSU. While I was excited to see Sam use live-polling, I was really disappointed in the way many students chose to use the feature. A few more creative posts were genuinely funny, but my laughter quickly turned to disappointment when several students chose to take advantage of the offered anonymity by posting racial slurs.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is: Guys, don't be dicks.
[Reply]
To be honest, neither of these incidents strikes me as extremely outrageous. Well actually the incident with the noose does seem outrageous to me because nobody seems to be considering the fact that it was a minority student that was responsible for the act. I’m sure there are a few students at UCSD that are racists, but the amount of racial intolerance that the minority students would have you think is probably extremely overblown.
As for the incident with the “ghetto” party, big deal. In less than one year at Penn State I’ve heard about numerous themed parties similar to the one described. Things like this are a dime a dozen and I don’t believe that anyone involved (maybe a few) are hardcore racists. The ghetto style is just a cultural idea that has become ingrained in our understanding of society. I’m positive that the kids involved were much, much more interested in getting hammered than making fun of minorities. However, if the party was intended to be racist and to make fun of black people, then it becomes a more complex situation. They claimed they got the approval from a black friend, but what does that really mean? One black man’s opinion does not reflect the opinions of black people as a whole. So that argument would be invalid, and the backlash that they’re receiving is deserved.
I find the noose incident to be much more intriguing. At first you just assume that a white student did it and then conclude that all the outrage is called for. But when I found out that it was a minority student who did it, my sentiment was reversed and I actually felt that minorities should be the ones being bad mouthed. To me, it seems like the person responsible harbors ill will towards white people and thus planted the noose in order to spark outrage. Now that the person responsible has been caught, they’re trying to play it off like it was just a joke but to me that just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know of too many people who think that hardcore, offensive things are in any way funny or amusing.
What made me really mad, however, was the reactions of the people in the CNN interview video. The reporter stated that the perpetrator was a minority, yet continued to go on as if UCSD was still some kind of hotbed of racial hatred. Also, the student president of the black student union and the black professor were clearly exploiting the situation to further their own agendas. The black student wants his group to get more funds and power based off the incident and the professor wants to increase her profile probably. It’s just really annoying that they just kind of ignored the actual facts of the story.
[Reply]
I think this article overshadows and places too much blame on the University of California school systems. While I can understand the frustrations of many of the students, I don't understand how the UC school system is "setting the tone" for racist activities, as one student puts it. Furthermore, I'm not for certain but I will say that incidents like this occur at other campuses across the country. I think this article fails to show that these seem like somewhat isolated incidents. The last paragraph of the article says what the University is doing to create a more tolerant environment, but I would assume that the people who are actually partaking in these racist incidences won't be more tolerant because more of the staff is diverse, or the fact that they will be required to take an ethics course. For lack of a better word, these people are radicals, or they don't see the consequences of their actions. If they are "radicals" like I said I don't think increased funding for a diversity office will help the cause.
The university seems to be conducting these investigations to its fullest capability. Maybe the issue here, what these racist incidences sparked, was that some of these students don't feel that the university is treating them as equally as their white counterparts.
One of the students that came to the lunch time rally suggests that there is something in the "tone of the environment that allows this to happen" I guess the article is leaving out the way the university has gone about this? Or maybe how their school newspaper is continuing to portray these series of events. I want to know more about the climate and the racism that exists at many of these UC campuses. Do these incidenents call to light the racist climate there? I must be missing something.
The video wasn't working for me, and I tried searching for it on CNN.com but no luck. But if you look on the UC school newspaper website, this is COMPLETELY overshadowed by the protests for a cut in education spending. I couldn't even find an article about this at all everything is about the education budget. I guess that money becomes more of an issue here than racial inequality. Just to throw it out there, all these new proposals to make the UC school system more diverse and toleralant to actions that won't happen like this, will be cut when these state education budgets get cut.
[Reply]
My initial reaction to the story was that the actions were very insensitive at worst, however, I questioned whether the media could be blowing the story out of proportion as it sometimes does. Upon seeing the picture of the noose and reading the description of the "Compton Cookout" though, I am convinced that the acts go beyond simply getting carried away with a joke or being careless with your words. Very unsettling is that let alone merely saying such things, the students did not hesitate to act out for the entire rest of the community to see. While some people may harbor racist sentiments, that is something that must be changed at an individual level. The fact that people feel comfortable enough with such sentiments to act out in these ways sends a very alarming message about the type of community that exists on the UCSD campus and probably even elsewhere. At some point the actions that you take and what you say reflect certain undercurrents running through our society and, in light of this, I have to say that these actions strike me as very unsettling. They reflect that some people truly do not grasp the gravity that race issues have in a country with such a racially charged past. Despite that we now have an African American president and African Americans now have opportunities in this country similar to other racial and ethnic groups, we still must not take race of all issues lightly. There are still many areas of drastic inequality that remain in this country and have yet to be addressed but they certainly must. Furthermore, we are not that far removed from a time when grave racial inequalities existed in many areas of our American society. The actions reveal that many people are either unaware of these facts or think that racism is gone and thus we are able to "joke" about it. Joking ceases to be fun or light-hearted however when the joke perpetuates an idea that certain stereotypes and generalizations make one racial group inferior to others. Most disturbing is that people would be fine to make reference to race-related violence! Certainly there is no fun or laughter to be had there. We must live in a society that is knowledgable about our past and thus is respectful in the present. Getting carried away is no excuse for perpetuating ideas of racial inequality of any kind and it should not be tolerated. As the two representatives in the video made clear, knowledge on the subject and a greater minority presence would effectively prevent such undercurrents and ideas from infiltrating the community. Hopefully the community will embrace the educational measures being instituted, become more sensitive and acknowledge that such acts are wrong and will not be tolerated.
[Reply]
This is just ridiculous. I don't understand how people can act this way. This kind of makes me think of class the other day when students were putting up nasty comments through text messaging. All of these kinds of actions need to stop, because joking or not joking, they are very offensive. Hanging a noose? Come on. We are supposed to be progressive as a country. We need to realize that all people are equal, no matter their skin color, religion, country of origin, class, etc. Its things like these that make me so disgusted. Especially at a college campus, we are supposed to be educated individuals. Right?
[Reply]
Thank you Sam for posting this.
I think students should be required to watch this clip before any discussion of the term “political correctness.” Indeed this demonstrated fully and to an otherwise unimaginable extent within the timeframe, the malady of political correctness and how its application hinders, not heals the our racial wounds. The journalist, and I use this term with unadulterated hesitancy, for her performance deserves no noble title, displays political correctness at its finest (ugliest), extolling the guest speakers at every moment, failing to pursue an intelligent discourse, and shattering any chance of progress. This news segment should not be called an interview, but rather a metaphorical blow job that leaves any self respecting viewing grasping his or her stomach, in a futile attempt to avoid vomiting. No more blatant and insincere meeting could have taken place, should all the world’s schmoozers, politicians, and car salesmen congregated to do just that, though I know someone will prove me wrong.
Amidst the hollow banter you can see that the chosen road leads nowhere. Should this take place a million times, humanity would not be a single step closer to a solution, nigh it would find itself confounded to defeat. Still we have exclusively adopted this approach as a means of curing our environment of racism. The entire process works as follows. A few ignorant radicals publically and anonymously express their racism. In response, ethnic support groups in defense of the target decry racism. Soon other organizations join the war on racism, who compete for (in)fame(y) and attention with their peers. Before long, racism is being uncovered everywhere. It is behind every tree and under every rock. Even seemingly innocuous activities have become tainted with malicious racial undertones. The media jumps on board to do lip service to the victims, because race makes a good story. It always has and it always will. The airwaves become saturated with pundits explaining to the world that we all hate each other and the so-called journalists (really “professional communicators” or whatever bullshit they are calling it these days, in actuality they have a nice voice and a pretty face) use political correctness as a guide book for conducting interviews, consequently prohibiting the audience from obtaining anything useful. Racism is gold to the modern media; it would never want the problem to be cured, for a greedy doctor would never rehabilitate the sick, to only find himself unemployed.
Nevertheless racism represents humans at their worst. Latent prejudice follows closely behind. But you must understand this: the guest speakers are only the flip side of the coin. They represent a group who is unwilling to participate in the solution. Everything to them is made of racism and thus cannot be utilized, developed, or communicated with. For example, the student refused to participate in the teach-in because it was university sponsored. This must be a “small price” to pay for progress, but I ask too much, since doing so from his perspective, would only admit that the patient is cured. In reality their partnership wouldn’t expel racism from planet Earth, but symbolic protest does reinforce the idea that it is ever present. For him and his constituents that is risky business, since we all know a healthy man means no business.
[Reply]
My reaction to the video is that it seemed a little much to react over considering the the noose and the party. It just seems to me like innocent yet clearly misguided college kids looking to have some fun. What it turned into was a firestorm about race and hurt feelings. The headline on the video was something like "Is UCSD a racist campus?" I mean come on. There may be some substance to this video but to have a meaningless conversation with two minority people about how they feel just seems like the media is trying to escalate the situation into something bigger…that was my impression from just watching the video. After reading the article I was a bit more concerned about the situation. It seems like the University of California is having problems with students instigating racial or hate crimes all over its campuses. I don't know if any of the incidents are related or if they are copy cat crimes or if it's all just poor judgment but I'm really tired of college campuses becoming the battle grounds for racial equality and acceptance. I mean, it's not like the topic shouldn't be acknowledged in college, but why does it always dissolve into an argument? I always sigh when I pass by the HUB or the Allen Street Gates or the Willard building and hear people shouting their heads off about their ideology(do they think people are stopping to listen to what they say? No, they are getting a brief amusement from you making a fool of yourself.) Then, their political or sociological opponents will stand on the opposite side of the street and yell right on back, gaining some support just because they tend to be on the more popular side of the issue…sometimes. But why is it always an argument? I feel bad that people of minority groups feel that the only way to respond is to make an uproar and attract as much attention as possible. My attention and patience for dealing with things that way is very small and I do not feel like making a commotion is the right way to address your feelings. I'd much rather sit down and talk about the way we feel and discuss routes and measures to address what injustices people are feeling on their side of the table. The black students at UCSD have a right to feel their campus climate is being upset, I don’t blame them. I blame the media for in turn making the events look like the campus is on the verge of a racial melt down. Why would ask two people with a biased view to have a discussion and not bring in people who were related to the incident or see how a white person felt about the issue? That video from the school chancellor said she was working to make changes according to guidance from the black student group. It all just seems one-sided to me.
[Reply]
This story is really a huge disappointment. To see events such as these occur on such a diverse campus, in a state that is making so much progressive movement in present social issues, is outrageous. It infuriates me to see young people, who historically have a tendency to be forward moving, taking such huge strides backwards. I had not heard about the KKK tribute on their campus prior to this article, but reading about it brought two thoughts to my mind: First, wow. I cannot believe that my peers can be so harsh and find humor and amusement in such cruelty. But, has anyone confirmed that the pillowcase was meant to signify a KKK symbol? Obviously, that would be the first assumption that everyone would make, and if it were true, it is absolutely disgusting. But, as Sam’s lecture last month enlightened us, that same white hood has other meanings in different cultures. What if the rest of the community is looking at it the wrong way, and it was not intentionally meant to be an offensive statement? I admit that this idea is probably way off and too lenient, but, it could be a possibility, right?
Anyway, I am not satisfied with the action that the university has taken thus far. I think they have fallen far too short of their responsibilities to their students and they need to make a stronger statement when the rest of the nation’s eyes are on them. I do not really know what a teach-in is or how it works, but if it is not satisfying the student body then it is definitely not enough. I agree with David that two hours of discussion is insufficient to ensure that this sort of outrage never occurs again. I would like to see that the university handles the situation better. The individuals who are involved with these hate crimes should be met with serious penalties. Their faces should be all over the media so that they can be publicly condemned for their lack of character. I hope they encounter very strong resistance from future employers.
I am pleased, however, with the response of the student body. I am proud of the people who became upset with the situation and took the stance against it. This is not the first time that someone in their area has been a victim of a hate crime. The incident reminds me of the young man that was harassed and tazed by police a few years ago in the college library for some unfair reason. Hundreds of students had gathered around him and the police officers and witnessed the event. The issue then was that he was a Middle Eastern man who was unjustly and unnecessarily targeted. It is unacceptable for these things to keep happening. When will we see change?
[Reply]
Wow this is disgusting. People need to grow up. When is racism going to end? I honesty never thought that racism was still this prevalent in today’s society. The video about the noose being hung is disturbing. To know that people still have these feelings of hate is a scary thing. Now whether it is a joke or prank it still does not change anything. Racism is not something to joke about which I thought was a no brainer, but apparently I was wrong. I definitely agree with Sam when he says that just two representatives’ opinions from a very large group of people cannot further the conversation or take it to depths that it should be taken to. The article that was posted was just as sickening as the video. I can’t believe that someone of a minority would stoop to the level of hanging a noose in a public place on campus. The woman said it was an accident and not meant as a harmful, discriminatory act. But how can you let this type of “accident” occur after other incidents of racial discrimination have been going on at your school. I just don’t understand what goes through people’s heads. The KKK hoods being found around the San Diego campus are just as disgusting. What are the people putting these things around campus trying to accomplish? I really wish that people would wake up and smell the roses. We live in 2010. Our nation has come a long way from where it started when it comes to race. I’m not saying our country is at a great place in terms of accepting different races because we still have a long way to go. But for actions like this happening this frequently is appalling. The other thing that makes me mad is that this is happening on a college campus. The people on college campuses in present time all grew up in a time where race was never an issue. I understand that some people were more sheltered than others, had racist parents, or whatever. But hating racial differences was not something we were taught about growing up. After reading this article and watching this video, I can’t help but wonder if things like this are occurring on the Penn State campus. I would like to believe that they’re not, but now I have my doubts. I honestly think that people are entitled to their opinions and no one should have the right to make a person change what they believe, but when your negative opinions are showed through public displays is when it begins to cross the line. This nonsense needs to come to an end. Race, color, whatever.. it should not and does not matter. People are people no matter what their differences are.
[Reply]
This is such a tricky topic and situation to discuss and voice opinion on. I would not expect the university of California at San Diego to be a racist school. That said, I don’t really know why I assume it to not be a primarily racist institution. I should not make assumptions on things that I have 0 knowledge of, but lets just say I wouldn’t expect to have this situation at UCSD. But hey, it happened so there you go.
We talked about this situation a lot in our soc 119 group. It was brought up that UCSD is a highly white majority student body. Which plays a large factor in the racist situations, but neither negative nor positive, but just an interesting aspect of the situation. But anyway, let’s take a look at the situation. A group of students at a fraternity decided to throw a party with a “ghetto” theme. There was a very in depth description of how to dress for the party as well as what the party will entail, on the facebook invitation.
First off, I am not sure how this has become such a widely surrounded topic, because I would assume that this is not the very first incident of this occurring on any college campus anywhere. However, I can honestly say that I have never seen or heard of Racist parties like this one at Penn State. I don’t really think that any of the frat brothers throwing the party had any malicious intent in throwing their party. Instead, I think that their intention was to have a big party and get drunk. And, to make it a little more fun they decided to think of a theme and dress up. I’m good with all of that, but I think they just made a bad decision on the theme. They took what they thought to be a funny joke and went way in depth with their idea. I think that this was more a case of ignorance as a result of lack of diversity in the student so of UCSD’s lives. I think that its really a product of underlying factors in peoples heads, where they just do things without really thinking about how it will affect others because they know that they mean no harm to others by doing it. That’s the issue.
I do not expect this to be solved overnight, but I really hope that people see this issue and pay attention to what is going on. There are a great number of people in the world who could learn a lot from this lesson. Racism is something that many people of the world are not exposed to in any way, and that’s when issues like this pop up. Regardless, ignorance is just an issue, and you would hope college students think a little bit before they do things in the future.
[Reply]
I was definitely bothered and annoyed when I heard about what happened at UCSD. The people who created that group went to great lengths to mention practically every last stereotype that exists. This situation shows how heartless some people are and how ingrained racism is in our society. The situation at UCSD is definitely an example of something that is going on all over the country. I think themed parties that clearly attack a race like this are annoying. They clearly are untrue and hurtful.
I am also finding myself bothered and annoyed by many of my own peers. Personally, when I go to class each day I make a concerted effort to pay attention and listen to what Sam said. It is definitely important to be open-minded in that class. If you allow yourself to open up you may realize that pretty much every he says has a lot of truth to it. In my opinion, the class is so important because its about life. We're not learning math equations or to engineer buildings or to paint; we're learning about life. This class and the knowledge it offers is something that should be taken somewhat seriously. I was definitely bothered by the texts many people in class we're sending on Thursday. If you ask me it's pretty cowardly if you think hiding behind your cloak on anonymity makes it okay for you to do something like that. Furthermore, I was bothered by some of my peers in discussion on Thursday. After our TA read the description of the Compton Cookout, many of them broke out into laughter. Then they proceeded to see they found the whole situation racist and disturbing. I'm not sure how you can laugh at something like that and then say it's wrong. I was bothered by what I heard in the description and didn't really think it was funny. Racist jokes bother me.
So at this point it's pretty clear that racism is very deeply ingrained in our culture. Everyone says they're not racist, but really a lot of the racism is subconscious and automatic. Although it seems like we've come so far from a hundred years ago, we really have so far to go. It's not just whites either. I think racism goes both ways. So what's the best way to end it. Educate people to the reality with classes like this. That's why it's so important to educate people about the reality of the situation. And as I said before, it's important for people to take this stuff seriously. Hopefully more people will be take what happened at UCSD seriously enough and actually be bothered by what happened there. If people just laugh and think it's funny, it's never going to stop. We need to grow up and make some real progress when it comes to race relations issues.
[Reply]
For me, this video seems to raise an issue of whether the action of putting a noose in the library and leaving KKK-style hood on the campus would be protected by First Amendment via free speech clause and whether the protest held by groups of minority students are purely understandable or somewhat over-reacting. I would say it is argumentative and understandable for former and latter respectively.
The first issue would be argumentative because those who put such stuffs have freedom of speech inherently but the means of expression and the tools that symbolizes cruelty were over the limit. It is true that we cannot stop ones from having conceptions, or sometimes referred as "streotypes or biases," against other people even though it is related to race issue. However, as a mature citizen, one must be little bit careful when expressing his or her opinions. In this case, it was not done in private conversations with his or her friends but in public setting. On the other hand, the loose would be up to the interpretations. If African-American see this, the first interpretation would be regarding 'racisim' but if it was interpreted by those who are crazy about hunting, it might be just a tool for hunting. To be honest, I do not know how the loose looks like in this case and the one back in early centuries so I may be making a wrong argument.
On the second issue, I am not saying whether the protest should or should not be taken in place, but that reaction was truly understandble. By the way, what does KKK represent? Isn't Ku Klux Klan the group of people who showed great amount of disgust toward persons of color and even committed heinous crimes against them solely based on grounds of race? These students should have had threat to their safety because of that. If it was not a KKK-style hood, I think it is more likely that these students will use other means to appeal the issue. Furthermore, the totality of this case would make the protest more legitimate. These two incidents were not only ones but several other types of incidents were occurred in the past. The minorities who were believed to be targeted for the past incidents would take them as offensive as well. However, this KKK thing blew up the balloon which was filled with anxiety from all minorities.
In conclusion, this issue is obviously a high-profile case; if it is not, it should be. Hiding the ugly facts and reality would not solve anything. When this kind of conflict came in sight of our eyes, we are able to pay attention and there is much higher likelihood of solving the issue.
[Reply]
The situation at UCSD does not shock me at all. These types of things could happen here at Penn State and have happened here in the past. Last year vandals drew swastikas on a Menorah outside of Beta Sigma Beta. Although directed at a different group, the situation is the same, outright racism on college campuses. I can honestly say that racism is everywhere here at Penn State. Racial slurs and ethnic jokes are the most common but that does not make them any less hateful. Now I realize that many students come from small towns where racism and intolerance towards people of color is acceptable. I do however believe that as college educated young adults this behavior is unacceptable. Racism is not acceptable no matter where you come from or what your parents have taught you. It’s 2010 for god’s sake! Why are we still talking about these kinds of situations, when will our generation take responsibility for our actions and end this war? Whatever your personal feelings may be, keep them to yourself.
[Reply]
These actions are childish and immature. I was especially upset when a racial slur was expressed in our own class this Thursday. Texting “those niggs deserve what they get” was completely out of line. We are in a race relations class correct? It almost seems that nowhere is safe; moreover, there is no place, where racism doesn’t occur. I was disappointed and hurt by this display and it made me consider that even in a race relations course, most people are not as tolerant or mature as they seem. I wonder why anyone would take this course if they weren’t honestly interested in improving race relations and ending racism in our society and on our campus.
[Reply]
I wonder what they will even take away from the class, will they change or will they continue to perpetuate this unacceptable behavior? It’s sad when you think about it, the fact that racism is everywhere. Most people would never describe themselves as a racist, but most people do engage in racist behavior. What makes a racist then? Are racist’s only KKK members or Nazis? These groups display and embrace their hatefulness, however what makes them worse than it makes those people who engage in racist behavior, but are not “racists”. At least the KKK members are not hypocrites.
[Reply]
Okay, I don’t know where to begin with this one. I guess I’ll just tackle the small thing first: “Ghetto party.” I personally hate these types of people and I was whole heartedly agreeing with the sociologist being interviewed that these people are putting their own race down. I hate those types of people and I hate that type of media that promotes these ideals.
“Be as ghetto as you possibly can.” The hell is that? Is it really that cool to break the law and go to jail for some street cred? I can’t say I didn’t see this coming as most of the movies and songs that are made by current Black artists tend to be about “Gangsta life.” And it’s complete bullshit. The party about being as ghetto as you possibly can is something that made me think about a friend I had in High School. The kid was a Black Muslim and he was a good student; hell, a great student. But his black friends called him, “white.” So apparently it’s not black to be a good student, to care about your future, and to actually go to class instead of hanging out in the halls like a pack of hyenas? It’s that kind of attitude and peer pressure that makes kids make dumb decisions that could possibly screw them over later in life.
Now, onto the bigger thing: the noose. …The hell? A noose? What was the message they were trying to get across? What was the “student of minority” trying to say with that symbol? (And by the way, why the hell doesn’t the reporter simply call it as it is? The student was black. Just say it. Instead they made me go through some mental gymnastics to figure out that the student was black because he was a part of a black frat.) I can’t believe that anyone would hang a noose on the library. What’s the point? I can’t think of anything logical that can answer the question. And I can only wonder what conclusion people would come to when they saw a noose. Personally, I was thinking that if I didn’t know the video was about race, I would think it was a statement on student suicide, being that the noose was found in the library.
I also can’t believe that people are seriously considering the campus as being racist. This is why people can’t have nice things: one person or a group of people try to mess around, have fun, and ruin it for everyone else. After seeing so many of the students protesting and demonstrating against hate and racism, how the hell can you say that the campus is racist? No, the campus is not racist, some of the students on that campus are racist. And those students are probably the minority… (no pun intended.)
[Reply]
These incidents – all of them – are clearly unacceptable. They each sadden, scare and appall me. Although I take the hanging of the noose and the KKK style hood very seriously, the act that seemed to hit me the most was the Compton Cookout party and its invitation. When our discussion TA first handed out the sheet of paper with the invitation text on it , I didn't know what to think. He didn't say anything, so as I was reading the first few lines I thought that we were actually being invited to some party commemorating Black history month. Then, as I read farther into it I was more and more confused. I wasn't sure whether this was a real event that we were being invited to and whether it was serious or a joke. It seemed to get more and more ridiculous as I read on. The funny thing is, at first it got me and I thought this was something I was being invited to although I still found it offensive. Only when I got to the more ridiculous and offensive parts did I realize that this just couldn't be right. Specifically, I am talking about the paragraph where it goes into talking about the female attire and behaviors. I love how their paragraph goes well beyond only describing the dress as it did for the males. It refers to the women's hair as short, ugly and nappy. It then goes on to completely degrade and insult Black women by stereotyping the way that they all supposedly act by saying things like they have an attitude all the time and always yell and fight. It even goes as far as to bluntly call them stupid and uneducated, describing how they lack intelligence and vocabulary. And I also couldn't believe what I saw in the last paragraph. It talked about the "purple drank" saying that all you need is water, sugar, and that COLOR PURPLE. Assuming that they are referring to the Color Purple as in the book and the movie, which I'm sure they are, that is just completely disrespectful. Unacceptable.
I find this to be an interesting observation – the fact that at first I thought this was happening at my school and people were inviting us to it. I think this shows the unfortunate fact that it has become more acceptable to partake in such odious behavior and make fun of one's race. If this wasn't at all accepted in our society, I would not believe this invitation for one second. But I was sitting there, trying to figure out whether it was for real. I never thought to myself, "Oh, there is absolutely no way that someone would do this" and that is sad. And the part that is even more sad that this actually DID happen, the invitation wasn't for me, but it was an actual invitation for the party at another school. It is still difficult for me to believe that someone did organize this insulting party and composed and sent out this disturbing invitation. It's 2010 and I'd really love to say that we should not be seeing anything as distasteful as this happening! I have to admit, for some reason I felt ashamed after I read about this incident. Not that I would ever do that myself, but I guess just felt ashamed and embarrassed to be part of this people who could still let something like this happen in the community. I don't want to feel ashamed, but I can't help it.
[Reply]
This topic is crazy. I didn't even know about this stuff happening until we talked about it in our discussion group this week. It seems kind of absurd that these acts are making national news. I’m not saying this isn’t wrong or anything but stuff like this happens every single day in the United States and it barely ever makes national headlines like this has. What makes this isolated incidence so much more special or important? Just because it is at a university doesn’t make it more important. It almost seems kind of stupid like it could just be a publicity stunt or something. I mean I think this could happen anywhere else and it wouldn’t cause a stir at all. I mean kids put bomb threats and gun threats in bathrooms all the time and it isn’t like everyone in the nation hears about it. That’s a real danger with the threat of danger and killing people. This is just a stupid party, a noose with no threat of death and a Klan hood. I don’t think it should be taken lightly I’ll say once again because it could lead to real danger but why the publicity. The facts about this story seem to be fuzzy and unclear though. The idea that all these acts were committed by a minority student, especially one of African descent seems to be very perplexing. That makes me feel as though this is just a publicity stunt or a student seeking attention. It also seems like the university is gaining a lot of acknowledgement from this. The acts that are being committed are also very bizarre. To consider a “ghetto” party a racist act is kind of dumb. That’s a culture and it’s not about race and even if they use terms referring to black culture it is because some blacks have undertaken this culture and it now reflects them. It is not like we can change or choose how certain people influence different culture. The other acts committed were very stupid to say the least and didn’t make a bit of sense as to why a person of African descent would poke fun or even joke about things such as the Klan. I find this appalling that something that whites would generally be held accountable for due to the nature of the acts is now being committed by blacks. It makes me really question if there is racism at play here or if it is just stupidity and regular discrimination. The final thing that I really had to question is the demands by the black student body. Because they were being “threatened” and the community of blacks didn’t feel safe, they wanted to have more black professors hired and tenured. Now those demands really don’t seem to meet the problem do they? Huh, wonder how having more black professors changes the ability of a student of minority to commit these acts. Maybe someone can reply and explain because I really don’t get it.
[Reply]
I think the video made the events that happened at UCSD a little unclear. I understand that students were mad about the “theme party,” but I find it hard to believe that this one incident started such an outrage. From the looks of the facebook event the party was definitely one that stereotypically targeted black people, and yes that is wrong but I think people can be too hypersensitive sometimes. I personally don’t get upset about theme parties that target white people like “white trash” parties and “Jersey Shore” parties ( I also happen to be from New Jersey). I don’t think anyone would agree that all poor white people are missing teeth, live in trailers, and have pregnant teenagers, or that all Italian Americans fake tan and do steroids, just like all black people do not wear FUBU and eat fried chicken. These are generalizations and stereotypes and when we do that of course were all being a little racist. I’m not saying its right, but it’s going to happen. If there are no hurtful intentions behind parties like these I don’t see what there is to get so upset about. Theme parties are meant to be fun and creative ways to socialize- not to offend people.
The other events at the University of California San Diego, like the noose in the library, are wrong no matter who committed them. It seems as we are just perpetuating acts of hate for the sake of it. That event is a hate crime—it cannot be called anything else, and will only bring us further from a society of understanding and unity. A college campus is supposed to be a place for students to feel safe, not in harm, included, not isolated, and in an environment of learning and acceptance, rather than that of hate and ignorance.
And if CNN really wanted to get a real perspective of the situation at UCSD they should have had a diverse group of students to talk about their opinions on the issues, and to get different angles of the story. I think the whole news story exaggerated the issue and made it seem like there are more problems than there really are.
[Reply]
This is terrible. I have been genuinely unaware of the racist actions which occur within our own country. I have always felt that the United States has been a country which has progressed the furthest in terms of establishing equality for all peoples, regardless of race or ethnicity. Although, one of the major differences between our generation and that of our parents is a level of compassion. Many of us have not had to experience the hardships which our parents and ancestors did.
[Reply]