Now you see how the OJ Simpson jury came to their conclusion.
Over here, an Everest sized pile of evidence pointing to one conclusion. Over here, an anthill of a contrary explanation, that, if everything were to align up exactly perfectly and against all odds, might possibly be true.
Conclusion - not guilty.
Some people are willing to explain away anything, and as we see, it doesn’t matter if they’re black or white. <cue Michael Jackson>
So a white comedian, say… Michael Richards… that would be fine? Or maybe Ted Dansen?
No?
I guess that establishes that being a professional comedian is irrelevant. The key here is that a) the perpetrator is black, and b) the victims are white, and it’s okay.
Maybe I’m just the only one who’s upset that it happens to anybody.
Nobody has asked my what my conclusion is, or which explanation I find most likely. I have been simply taking issue with YWTF making statements of fact that are nothing but opinions.
"Tis true. That doesn’t make such parties right, though.
Ghetto and “pimp n’ ho” parties are subjects of derision, as they should be. However, I wonder what would happen if a group of black students had a “white trash” or “soccer mom and The Man” party? Black kids dressed in J. Jill and Abercrombie wear, drinking Fat Tire, cranking the local play-it-at-work soft rock station on the stereo, and acting out “white people walk like this” jokes?
I am going only on what you wrote.
Well, if we’re going to make racism and bigotry be synonyms, and make them mean anything from hanging a Confederate flag to fire-bombing minority churches, then it seems to me that saying only white people can be racist is a racist thing to say.
My mention of the “Mock Black People” theme on the invitations was facetious. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. I also apologize for the “fucking stupid” remark, which was an overreaction on my part. I haven’t yet had enough interaction with you to know how fucking stupid (or smart) you are.
However, I still strongly disagree with you. Ironically, in other threads, I have leaned toward the other side in thinking that YWTF, her Doppelgänger monstro, Biggirl, and others jumped too quickly to the conclusion that racism was a primary motivating factor in some incident being discussed, to the automatic exclusion of other explanations.
In this case, though, I think it takes an amazing level of cognitive dissonance to conclude that a party thrown by a bunch of white kids, employing a host of racial stereotypes, on a holiday honoring the most famous black civil rights leader, could have another likely intent other than being derogatory toward blacks.
And even if their intent were completely innocent, common sense dictates that sometimes you have to consider the appearance of your actions and words, and their likely impact. Throwing the party was pretty dumb. Taking pictures, marginally dumber. Posting the photos on a public Web site ascends to the phenomenally dumb, as though asking for trouble.
If I were to get on the train tomorrow, face the crowd of passengers (a large number of whom are black), and in a loud, clear voice, proclaim “I THINK ALL YOU LAZY SPEAR-CHUCKERS SHOULD GO BACK TO AFRICA!” should I reasonably expect them to determine my intent before reacting? After all, they’re strangers. How would I know whether they’re lazy? They’ve probably never been to Africa or thrown a spear! How do they know whether I meant it in a racist way? I might just like the sound of the words, or be conducting my own personal social experiment. And so on and so on. Regardless of my intent, they likely won’t be any less offended, and my severe ass-beating won’t be any less painful.
But I would never do such a thing (even if I wanted to), because I know better. And so should these imbeciles.
Because that party sounds lame. It’s fun to drink forties and blare rap. Rap is good party music. Norah Jones, not so much. It’s also fun to “play pretend” and dress up like pimps and hos. I don’t think these “costume” parties should be derided. Why? Lest I offend the campus ho, or worse her pimp? Are true 1920’s style gangster parties out as well, as being insensitive toward Italians. What about, as has been mentioend, St. Patty’s day – no more drunken potato eating? Or redneck-themed parties? One Halloween I wore a blonde wig, mu-mu, mid-calf hose, house slippers, and tied three cabbage patch kids to a “kid leash” hooked on my belt. I walked around smoking 100s out of one of those tacky cigarette cases (the soft sided kind with the coin purse like opening at the top) and drinking talls of PBR. Was I mocking a stereotype? Your damn right. It was funny, it deserved to be mocked.
That is so much like what happened here it’s astonishing. Point on analogy.
and
and
And herein lies the problem with your whole argument.
In each case, you openly concede that there was “tasteless,” “terribly offensive,” “dubious” and “racist” behavior, and you then proceed to ignore that particular behavior and argue that the other stuff wasn’t racist, so we should just all chill out.
Why can’t you look at each incident in its entirety? No-one is arguing that the mere eating of fried chicken or the mere drinking of particular types of alcohol is racist or offensive. You need to examine each incident as a whole.
Look at the Hopkins case, for example. I don’t know about you, but if i received an invitation with racist content, one making clear that the party would be based on black stereotypes and would be mocking blacks, i’d probably refuse to attend the party. And i think that if people receive such an invitation and still choose to attend the party, then it’s not unreasonable for us to draw certain inferences about their beliefs and attitudes, even if not every individual gets dressed up in an offensive way.
Furthermore, once they arrived at the party, anyone who attended would have seen other partygoers dressed as slaves. They also would have seen a figure hanging by a noose from the front porch of the house (screen grab from local news website). The frat brothers argued that the figure was a pirate, but at a party with a “Halloween in the Hood” theme, where people dressed up as blacks, it’s easy to see how it might be interpreted otherwise. Again, if i found myself at such a party, i think i’d leave in pretty short order. If people choose to attend a party where this sort of stuff is going on, then it’s not unreasonable to assume that they condone it, or at least that it doesn’t concern them very much.
I might have missed it. Did someone make that assertion?
I certainly don’t believe that only white people can be racist. In fact, at the Hopkins incident i’ve been describing, some of the frat members were of East Asian and South Asian descent. And blacks can also be racist and prejudiced. Racism is, for better or worse, an equal-opportunity failing.
I’ve never heard of black people throwing these kinds of parties, and I’m a black woman who attended a historically black school. The idea of a “soccer mom” party is antithetical to the whole concept of partying. How are you going to dance to soft rock?
You are being very careful to draw analogies to stereotypes that are not exclusively based on race or culture – gangsters or pimps or rednecks. People don’t culturally identify as rednecks or as trailer trash; people do culturally identify as black – whether they want to or not. So the point you are overlooking is that in this case, there was a pervasive element of race – that’s the only way you get Aunt Jemima AND gangstas AND MLK Day all in the same room, nevermind the 40s and the chicken. So when the theme of your costume party is “let’s dress like black people!” and then you trot out every tired lame-ass black stereotype you can think of, are you being racist? Yes. Arguably unintentionally so, but still. And “fun” and “funny” are purely subjective; the photos would indicate these kids were having fun, and no doubt they thought they were being funny. But that’s not a good enough excuse for such complete cultural insensitivity. Would I feel the same way without Aunt Jemima, and on a different day other than MLK Day? Maybe. But that’s not the situation we’re discussing.
No disrespect, but first, it should have been Popeye’s chicken. Second, that ain’t Malt Liquor, them’s redneck fohties. Third, they were playing Skip-Bo, not triple-bleaching the white hoods and robes. Fourth, if “dressing black” is wearing a bandanna and rampantly displaying The Shocker, well then I guess I’m occasionally a tennis gansta, yo.
I’ll spill my guts: one year in college we had a little date party in honor of Bob Marley, on the anniversary of his death. There were fake dreads (it was 1989, we only had RIT-black mops back then), tie-dyed shirts and the ganja! Oh the ganja! There were white pledges in brown makeup and black actives dressed like the white choads in UB40. There was even a guy dressed as an oncologist and his date came as a nurse.
So if I’m going to rip on these Tarleton kids for anything, it’s for lack of imagination. And foresight. And boy is that Aunt Jemima chick gonna be sorry when it comes time for her to find a permanent sperm donor.
Lord, I don’t know. We may have to summon the god of who’s-kidding-and-who-isn’t. Fish wrote: “I forgot: it’s only racist when white people do it.” And Elmwood replied “'Tis true. That doesn’t make such parties right, though.”
Yep. And I said a similar thing about bigotry.
Admit it: you’ve never watched Pretty in Pink, have you? 
Heck, if it weren’t for Spandau Ballet, I might never have touched a boobie until high school.
wow… what a wonderfully subversive idea!
Invite a group of students of color to a party with a “Frat Daddy” theme or something of the sort. Post pictures on the 'net. What would happen? Would every ghetto party participant cream his/her pants, saying, “See! I knew they did it to us too!”
I wonder if we won’t see this happen. Soon?
Not just future candidates. We’re already using The Google on job applicants (and The YouTube, and The MySpace, and The Face Book). Amazing some of the stuff you can find to suppliment the resume.
Ok, I’m going to hell for laughing at the oncologist/nurse bit.
That was my university’s Water Polo House 24/7. (They drank Amstel Light.)
When I first posted to this thread, the overwhelming majority of responses to the OP were of shared outrage. I read the article and thought, “what a stupid “party” idea, how tasteless.” Then I looked at the pictures, thinking they would confirm and support the conclusions reached by many of the “first responders” to this thread and I felt a big ol’ fuckin “meh” with the exception of two photos – Aunt Jemima and the “I like chicken” t-shirt. * You know what? The whole group of kids was NOT dressed as Aunt Jemima, nor were they all wearing “I like chicken” t-shirts. Hell, one of the kids was wearing fake dreads and a rasta hat – that has jack shit to do with the American Civil Rights movement, Dr. King, or January 15, 2007. I also saw a lot of kids in those pictures doing a lot of the same things I did in school. Pretending to be gangsta, clowning with doo-rags and forties. That’s when I decided to look at the WHOLE picture, which doesn’t contain a house full of Aunt Jemimas and Uncle Bens, but instead a bunch of kids that appeared to be mostly clowning with the exception of a couple that went over the line. Does the fact that this occurred on the King holiday make this seem more dubious? Sure. I said that in the very first sentence of the very first post. So before you accuse me of ignoring shit, refresh yourself with the meaning of that word.
You know, I like a lot of your posts and agree with you much if not most of the time. But you’ve made a lot of assumptions about my stance in this thread that are unfounded and in most cases plain wrong.
I think we are a lot closer to agreeing than you make out.
*I fail to see how acknowledging something as racist is ignoring it, as you have accused me of doing. I should probably devote more to defending against this baseless accusation as you have baselessly accused me of a lot; though, I am glad to see you’ve dropped that “overt act” bullshit after seeing how incredibly wrong you were about the statements I had made and the positions I was advocating.
