Hands up anyone who knows a person who was a racist and wanted to stop being a racist but was forced to remain a racist by non-racists?
I will guarantee that right now the University of Oklahoma ΣAE guys are sitting around their fraternity house complaining about how they are being unfairly persecuted by “whiney minorities” and “Liberals”.
Step one should be, “Don’t drink.” I’m not saying that his beliefs were caused by alcohol, that if he’d been sober he never would have said it, etc. But I think it’s fair to say that he’s got problems with decision-making, and alcohol doesn’t improve judgment.
You have to name at least one other.
France is out, Peace Corps is out. Guess that means a visit to the nearest armed forces recruiter.
They don’t have a frat house. They were given 48 hours to vacate by the University who somehow own the property and were leasing it. In fact, they don’t even have a frat. The national office disbanded them.
That’s not a bad idea.
Starship Troopers was a true story?
Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-accusations.
Sure about that? IIRC, the Peace Corps is pretty welcoming to retired farmers and construction workers
OTOH, if they run off to join the French Foreign Legion, they can’t be missing more than 4-6 teeth. Perhaps a problem for Oklahomans.
Or learn how to give the short talk about yes, that was me, I was young and stupid, learned from the experience, have done my best to learn and overcome it and grow (fill in some convincing examples) etc., and deliver it sincerely.
They fully admitted it and apologized already albeit through family attorneys.
That’s true. You can get in with years of experience in a relevant skill. This still doesn’t apply to a 19 year old privileged kid who has never worked in his life.
John Grisham – yeah, I realize that’s like citing Tom Clancy in a military thread, but stay with me on this – had a character legally change his name from A to B, and then to C, and so on, and so on, and so nobody knows who Mr. X is, because backtracking to W and then searching to see whether there’s a V is something U won’t bother to do out of idle curiosity, but T was S because we R talking about someone who had a verrrrrrry good reason to switch to Q after switching to P.
It’s called “hyperbole”. The point is they’re probably sitting around scratching their heads, thinking THEY are the victims here.
Anyone remember Michael Richards? The guy who was caught on video screaming “NIGGER” at the top of his lungs?
Everyone predicted the worse for him. Remember that? Everyone said his career was just as good as dead.
He’s not an A-list celebrity. But he’s not living in the gutter somewhere either. Most people (read white people) weren’t offended enough to hold a permanent grudge against him. The same with Imus. The same with Mel Gibson.
These frat guys are not going to end up flipping burgers somewhere. That’s not what happens to well-to-do white guys. No, this is what’s going to happen. SAE alums are going to quietly rally around them. Offers of internships and other opportunities will land in their lap so they can stay busy while waiting for the hoopla to die-down. The country is full of small private colleges more than happy to take a student like this…especially someone willing to pay full-freight so they can get on with things. And then after college, if they’re having trouble getting a job, the brotherhood will step in again. Not the leadership. Not the “brothers” who pay lipservice to diversity. But the core of the organization who sympathizes with those students, because they remember all those fond memories of singing that chant back before YouTube and camera phones. I’m betting those guys get handed more business cards in the next couple of weeks than most people accumulate their entire lives.
Anyone who thinks these guys have ruined their lives has to be living in a frickin’ rainbows-and-lollipops cave somewhere.
They were really stupid and I doubt their lives ruined, but would ruination of their lives really be a just punishment in the first place?
Michael Richards career already had seen it’s Zenith and he already made his millions what were you expecting to happen, I don’t really follow him did he ever do anything big after that incident, a guest spot on Curb your Enthusiasm maybe?
Well, not a great example because he was already spectacularly wealthy from the Seinfeld gig. I honestly don’t think his career has recovered. It’s just that he no longer really needs one, his standup was mostly done for his own sake not to make a living.
Maybe, I do think they got a lot of tarnish. IME ( perhaps limited ) even most white people seem to think Gibson is a loon. Don Imus is slightly more obscure, but not particularly beloved either.
But in general I agree with your point. I don’t think these assholes are going to have to worry about “ruined lives” unless they start grandstanding. It will always be an ugly cocktail party-level skeleton in their closet, but otherwise if they keep their heads down they will emerge from this just fine. Memories are short, which is both a good and a bad thing. And the privileged are the privileged.
Muffin raises his hand.
I think you might be over estimating white privilege. As a middle aged white male I can say it ain’t what it used to be - frankly I’m happy about that, I myself have no desire for things to be like they were a half century ago; heck I’m glad we’re far from where we were culturally in the 80’s.
Don’t get me wrong - it exists, but there are many many things the power of these privileges cannot overcome effortlessly.
This whole controversy is the biggest bunch of first-world problem bullshit I’ve ever seen. Just look at the title of this thread:
*How can a **racist **frat-boy **rehabilitate *himself?
So just uttering a stupid, grade-school level bad taste rhyme means you get branded with the label ‘racist’. This is nonsense. It’s impolite and in bad taste, but nothing more. And absolutely none of those dumb kids are anywhere in the ballpark (or city, or planet) of lynching anyone just because it contained the line ‘hang a nigger from a tree’. And the label racist has been so hyper-sensitized that now it totally dilutes the real criminal actions of real, actual racists.
But even worse, rehabilitate?!?! Yes, they must be sent to a reeducation camp for processing. If this isn’t proof that political correctness is a form of fascism I don’t know what is.
Using the word nigger like this is the quintessential example of free speech. You have to accept the good with the bad. And until black people stop using it in every other sentence I’m not going to be expected to give it any reverence. And yes, black people’s use of it is 98% exactly the same as when whites do.
I’m not over estimating anything. It’s just that I’ve never heard of anyone’s life being ruined after being exposed as a racist.
Have you?