Are you kidding me? You’re now arguing that they were eating the wrong brand of chicken and drinking the wrong type of cheap beer/mal liquor, nicely dressed in paper bags?
So what? It’s only racist if it’s super-duper racist?
You are if you wear your whites to a tennis party, homey. Context is all. That’s what amazes me about the excuses that are being made: “We have costume parties too!” Really? Do you make fun of other cultures or races? “It’s not that bad!” Well, except for the Aunt Jemima, and the chicken shirt, and the fact it was an “MLK Day party” . . . . “It’s the wrong brand of chicken!” I mean, come on; are you shitting me?
You know what? If pictures of you dressed in black face ended up on the Net at your party “in honor of” Marley, people would be ripping you a new one too. Just because you’ve been the same variety of culturally insensitive idiot doesn’t make it any more excusable.
What lowered your ire heightened mine. Open party - anyone could come with an offensive outfit. (Prince Harry showed up at a costume dress party as a Nazi… doesn’t mean the party itself was problematic.) But you have virtually every kid at the party with a bandana and throwing up bizarre hand signs. I think it’s pretty clear that the intent was to have fun reveling in stereotypical depictions of poor Black people. Nobody came in a suit with a Bible pretending to be MLK, for instance.
I think this is one of those things where you either see it as distasteful and motivated by some level of racism, or you see it as distasteful because it violates some standard of political correctness. For those in the thread looking for alternate explanations that assume these kids were not behaving in a racist manner or harboring some racist beliefs, I think you’re kidding yourselves. If I work at a company with very few women, and I hold a Susan B. Anthony party with just men where we dress up like women - stuffing balloons down our shirts and all - and some of the costumes aren’t even of turn-of-the-century suffragettes, but random depictions of women that just have boobs and skirts, I think you could correctly assume that I harbor some negative feelings about women to think that it’s not hurtful or offensive to women to do such a thing. (I also think the party would suck with all of those guys.) Maybe I’m not going to beat a woman up when I leave, but am I the sort of guy you’d want your daughter dating?
What would the handful of women that I work with think of me and guys like me?
I also think it’s interesting that I never see the group being mocked or objectified at these parties. (I know, I know - some Black guys were there earlier, but they forgot to take pictures of them.) I’ve seen tons of Ghetto Party, Run to the Border Party pictures (like the ones ywtf mentioned from Auburn) but they’re always just White kids in the pictures!
If you’re are too dense to appreciate the importance of context but would rather pick this apart (“It’s okay! Except for the Aunt Jemima. And the Chicken shirt. And the fact it was on MLK Day.”) in order to justify your own former stupid-ass behavior, then I can’t stop you. But I’m not required to focus on each item or person or behavior separately, as if they don’t have a cumulative meaning and effect. Don’t misconstrue my argument as if I said any one element alone equals racism, because that is something I never said. And calling me a racist? Go fuck yourself. :mad:
Do you honestly think I was calling you racist? You might, as you seem to honestly have thought that ecv was offering the “wrong chicken chain” defense. Well, I wasn’t. I was pointing to your use of the word “homey” and judging that use with what some here have as a criteria for what qualifies as racist.
I’ve thought about this for a while now, and I feel like my quibling with **mhendo ** over what I did and, more importantly, did not say, led me astray from the actual conduct of the partygoers. As I have maintained from the begining, I think this party was terribly offensive in design. I also think some partygoers demonstrated a level of such gross insensitivty that it’s only fair to conclude that those folks are racists. But others, I am, given what I’ve seen, not ready to say that about. It’s a daming accusation. I don’t like to wish someone’s life to ruin for acting in a harmless, albeit stupid and poorly thought out, manner. YMMV.
What I am unclear on thoguh is whether you’re saying that my clowning around with my friends, pretending to be “gangsta”, rapping along to songs, drinking forties is the “stupid ass behavoir” I am trying to “justify,” and if so if you consider that behavoir racist. I really want to hear you out on that before I respond further.
Well, for one thing if you’re going to stereotype, you might as well get it right. Suggestion: on the way home, pick up an Olde English Eight Ball and a Bud 40. Take the Pepsi Challenge and call me when your head stops ringing.
No but I’ll qualify. Considering Texas’s history, without all the emotional loading that some people are projecting onto this debate, this might’ve been a positive thing. No burning effigies. No innocent human beings dragged to death, lassoed to the bumper of some generic 1970s beater.
I just don’t get the outrage, because it hasn’t been proven that these kids were trying to be destructive. For all I know, for some people Martin Luther King Day may be an opportunity to hold a rare Sunday-night party.
Go easy. Stereotypes don’t mean anything to people who don’t stereotype.
Actually, I was in scrubs and my date and I wheeled around a fake IV drip of Red Stripe until the reggae band jammed the whole neighborhood. At that point it was my legal responsibility to rock the house.
Next time somebody asks me for an example of damning with faint praise, I think I’ll link to this post.
Maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were just been idiots who didn’t think anyone would mind if they had a party with all these stereotypes on MLK day. That’s still pretty bad, even though it wouldn’t merit the same level of criticism.
Well, 50 or 60 years ago, a lynching in Georgia probably wouldn’t make national news. Today, 10 white kids drinking fo-dogs on MLK Day does. I’d say that speaks volumes about how far we’ve come.
And a ways to go, as well. If someone gave a gangster-themed party (as in Mafia, not “gangsta”) I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, nor would I be particularly concerned that people will be assuming “Italian” names, talking in broad paisan accents, that sort of thing. Poor taste perhaps, a bit vulgar, but meh.
Someday this will be true of a “black”-themed thing like this. Hell, maybe, just maybe these kids are already there. Doubt it, but, you know, kids these days…
[anecdotal aside]
Some years back, I was in a child care situation and became intrigued by watching kids watch the same cartoons I watched as a child. Classic Bugs and Daffy, etc. On one occasion, they were watching Tom and Jerry. If your memory serves, you will remember that there’s a “Mammy” character. You only see her feet, but its clear that she is black, fat, and never walks anywhere without a broom. From a couple of passing comments amongst the delighted, I realized that they had assumed the she was the owner of the house, whereas when I was a child I assumed she was the maid.
Even looking at college on a strict business model, it’s because the students are both customers and product at the same time. When colleges* shill their product, they advertise to potential customers that they are communities of learning in which all members are valued and treated with respect. They don’t come out and say “and where people don’t dress up like Aunt Jemima at social gatherings,” but it’s implied. If you have people dressing up like Aunt Jemima, your product is faulty and is not as advertised. Colleges can take action targeted at a specific customer/product part to make it more likely that the community experience of the other customers meets its stated goals. I know this is trickier at a public, and my professional experience is strictly private, but that’s the gist of it.
*I know not EVERY SINGLE college advertises this, but I bet 9 out of 10 brochures at the guidance counselor’s office do.
I believe that not being stupid is part and parcel of the higher education experience, and that a hallmark of not being stupid is understanding why dressing up like Aunt Jemima on MLK Day makes some other people uncomfortable. Maybe you don’t agree with this, and it’s a topic around which there is a lot of debate with good points on both sides, but it is the general model for higher education in the US these days. Your dry cleaner analogy doesn’t work for me because chauvinism isn’t related to the business of dry cleaning. Now, if a customer brought in a garment that was soiled with some toxic chemical that would ruin the garments of other customers, then yes, they should refuse service to that customer.
I knew she was the maid, but I always felt like Tom was still her cat. I envisioned that she’d bring him along for company, despite the fact that he was always getting in trouble.
One memory I have is when one time she was digging in her pockets for something, and a pair of dice fell out. Talk about a little nudge-nudge, wink-wink for the grown-ups in the room!
