Uh. They were in her pocket?
[QUOTE=elucidator]
Uh. They were in her pocket?
[/QUOTE]
Yes. Inserted there by the force of her own fingers when she saw them on her boss’s table.
Everything’s so loaded in this stupid society. Even the goddamn dice.
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Well, what about the possibility of shock value in lieu of racism??
Maybe a party like this was their way of getting off on “giving it to The Establishment”…a cheap publicity stunt?
I don’t know either way, but just thought that might be a possibility.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
[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.
[/QUOTE]
Did you ever see the versions where they made her legs white and dubbed her dialog with an Irish accent? I have NO idea what their thought process was, if it racist stereotyping of black maids then it’s racist stereotyping of Irish maids too. How was this supposed to make it “better”? It was damned amusing seeing it as an adult though, I can tell you that.
[QUOTE=RickJay]
Why? Why should the university have any responsibility for enforcing a moral code on their customers?
Does a dry cleaner have a responsibility to refuse service to chauvinists? Should a movie theatre refuse to sell tickets to religious bigots?
However stupid the kids might be, nobody has a responsibility to punish them to prove they don’t like stupidity.
[/QUOTE]
I suppose it depends on how you view a college education at a residential campus. It’s not a knowledge store where you pays your money and they pour knowledge into your dome. It is an intellectual community with standards of collegiality and respect. If you cause damage to the community by violating those standards, maybe you shouldn’t be part of it for a while.
I’m not advocating this as the best solution, but I can’t for the life of me understand why this type of crap is so enticing to some jackasses.
You’re not serious, are you?
It seems to me that your possible explanation is a pretty high level stunt. I don’t think Lambda Chi Alpha, the fraternity that one of the partygoers belongs to, was too happy to be involved in this stunt. Moreover,
[QUOTE=Associated Press]
Some of the students shown in the photos apologized.
[/QUOTE]
Instead of apologizing it might be time to explain their stunt and how they were actually engaging in a subversive commentary of the limits of political correctness, no? I would think that such a sophisticated act might warrant a little better effort than a t-shirt with “I LOVE CHICKEN” scrawled on it. Aunt Jemima, though, who was given a full-screen 10 seconds on the Fox affiliate here in Boston, might have been in on the act. That costume took a while to put together.
There’s a pretty good outline of what took place here:
[QUOTE=The Smoking Gun]
Photos of the January 15 event were discovered on a Facebook.com page by a Tarleton State University sophomore who heads the school’s NAACP chapter. A selection of party photos can be found on the following pages. When he discovered the images, Donald Ray Elder told TSG, he sent an e-mail to Tarleton student Jeremy Pelz, on whose Facebook page the photos were placed in a folder titled “MLK.”
In a reply e-mail, Pelz (seen in the picture at right) told Elder that he would rename the folder in which the photos were placed “so it does not bring any disrespect to Mr. King.” Pelz noted that the party was started a few years earlier “because one of best friends is black or African American, whichever you deem politically correct, to be his day not to dishonor him.” He added, “So I do apologize if you felt any disrespect because none was intended.”
School officials have launched an investigation into the party and the university’s president, Dennis P. McCabe, has denounced the photos as despicable. In a subsequent post, Pelz–who has yanked the party photos from his Facebook page–stated that the party was not meant to be “racist or discriminating.”
[/QUOTE]
Okayyyyy…
And it looks like the school is considering some type of punishment for the revelers:
[QUOTE=Houston Chronicle]
The university continues to investigate to determine if students will face disciplinary action, which could range from a warning to suspension, said Wanda Mercer, vice president of student life.
[/QUOTE]
I know it’s the Pit, and maybe you’re joking, and maybe you know the ladies in real life, but this comes off as sounding really jerkish. (I know, they can take care of themselves, but still…)
[QUOTE=Hippy Hollow]
You’re not serious, are you?
It seems to me that your possible explanation is a pretty high level stunt. I don’t think Lambda Chi Alpha, the fraternity that one of the partygoers belongs to, was too happy to be involved in this stunt.
[/QUOTE]
Quite serious, thank you very much. If they were setting out to tweak some people, then they’ve pretty well succeeded at that (a little too well, all in all). Dumbass college students is just as plausible as bigoted ones (probably a little more easily, since there’s a hell of a lot more of them out there…I hope).
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
[QUOTE=Marley23]
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.
[/QUOTE]
If they’re that stupid, then I change my answer and they should be kicked out of school. We have enough idiots with college degrees now.
That’s pretty damn funny.
The other costumes sucked though.
[QUOTE=Brain Wreck]
Which explains why it’s suddenly undone itself after running rampant for thousands of years. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
Thank god for the smilies. If we couldn’t tag our prose with qualifiers explaining it, who could read it and know we’re being sarcastic?
[QUOTE=whole bean]
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.
[/quote]
“Some here” would not include me, so you might want to be a little more careful in how you the word “racist” around. But I posted in anger, and I apologize for it.
The thing I don’t get is why you continue to defend it. You concede the party was “terribly offensive in design,” that some were “grossly insensitive” and some may be racist. Every time you try to say how ever-so-okay it was, you have to qualify – except the T-shirt, except the Aunt Jemima, except for the fact that it was MLK Day. IOW, in order to make it okay, you have to remove from the reality of the situation many of the most egregious things that make it obviously not okay. It certainly makes more sense, IMO, to judge the party and the conduct based on what actually happened, instead of spending a lot of time trying to defend what didn’t happen.
I have no idea whether your parties or your motivations were racist or not. It seems obvious to me, though, that one reason for defending this sort of conduct is that you behaved in a similar fashion yourself, and therefore the conduct must be okay. This would also explain why you have to minimize the conduct by removing the more offensive elements before attempting to defend it – I assume that once those more offensive elements are removed, the conduct is more like why you used to do. As far as I can tell, that’s the only dog you have in this fight, the only reason for half-heartedly defending conduct you actually concede isn’t really defensible.
A couple of years ago, I went to a Burns’ night celebration, where we all ate haggis and cock-a-leekie soup, drank whiskey, wore kilts, and recited poems, odes and toasts in terrible fake Scots accents, afterwards, we put on some folk music and danced jigs and square dances. Nobody present was actually Scottish.
Now I’m not really familiar with the stereotypes in play in the topic of this thread (and perhaps that’s why it looks just like a rather feeble storm in a teacup to me), but how is what I describe above any different? It was just a bit of fun, or so I thought.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
Yeah. So if she were a dutiful maid, might she not pick up her boss’s dice so his wife wouldn’t find them?
Talk about a double standard. You and your sister oughtta look into some therapy.
[/QUOTE]
Maybe I should get some therapy, because only a crazy person would think that a cartoon from the '50s would contain stereotypical imagery.
Your post has made me realize that Bugs Bunny never played on an awful stereotype about blacks, in particular their fondness of craps. I thought he did, but–just like the Mammy thing–I was wrong. No, that wiley wabbit was really playing marbles that looked like dice. So I am insane to think that meant Mammy was being made fun of in the same exact way.
The irony is that it wasn’t me who mentioned the mammy maid in the first place. It was our beloved elucidator. Yet I’m the one who needs to be committed to an insane asylum, because, you know, I’m the Angry Black Woman Always Looking For Racism.* Gotta love that double standard!
And while I’m ranting like the loony-tik that I am, I’d like to say one more thing. While you with the face is my twin sister, a fact we don’t hide (anymore), we are and have always been individuals. We usually don’t even post in the same threads, folks. And when we do, 100% of the time we’re not saying the same thing. So I’d appreciate if people stopped lumping us together. I’d like for my “craziness” to not reflect on her…and vice versa.
*I challenge any Doper to find evidence that this is true.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
… It was just a bit of fun, or so I thought.
[/QUOTE]
The sheep may have had a different view.
[QUOTE=elucidator]
The sheep may have had a different view.
[/QUOTE]
'phones Commission for Racial Equality
I think at least some of the students at the party probably concieved of themselves as making fun of themselves as white (i.e. “haha, white people are so dumb when they try to act black, they might as well wear Aunt Jemima aprons!”) rather than making fun of black people.
-FrL-
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
A couple of years ago, I went to a Burns’ night celebration, where we all ate haggis and cock-a-leekie soup, drank whiskey, wore kilts, and recited poems, odes and toasts in terrible fake Scots accents, afterwards, we put on some folk music and danced jigs and square dances. Nobody present was actually Scottish.
Now I’m not really familiar with the stereotypes in play in the topic of this thread (and perhaps that’s why it looks just like a rather feeble storm in a teacup to me), but how is what I describe above any different? It was just a bit of fun, or so I thought.
[/QUOTE]
Its a little different because the things you guys were imitating are thought of generally as things celebrated by those who take pride in Scottish culture.
The things imitated at the MLK party are not thought of as things celebrated by those who take pride in Black culture.
-FrL-
And I can’t believe I spelled ‘whisky’ with an e. Apologies to anyone that noticed.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
A couple of years ago, I went to a Burns’ night celebration, where we all ate haggis and cock-a-leekie soup, drank whiskey, wore kilts, and recited poems, odes and toasts in terrible fake Scots accents, afterwards, we put on some folk music and danced jigs and square dances. Nobody present was actually Scottish.
Now I’m not really familiar with the stereotypes in play in the topic of this thread (and perhaps that’s why it looks just like a rather feeble storm in a teacup to me), but how is what I describe above any different? It was just a bit of fun, or so I thought.
[/QUOTE]
The difference is, presumably, nobody at the party dressed like Martin Luther King, and nobody recited the “I Have a Dream” speech. The costumes perpetuated only negative stereotypes like pimps, hos, gangtas and even Aunt Jemima is arguably a less than flattering image of black culture.
[QUOTE=monstro]
Yet I’m the one who needs to be committed to an insane asylum, because, you know, I’m the Angry Black Woman Always Looking For Racism.* Gotta love that double standard!
[/QUOTE]
Kinda like how Weirddave zeroes in on how I “know” that the partiers intended to parody blacks and I alone am making all these unwarranted assumptions…when compared with some other of the views in this thread, mine have been rather mild. I haven’t even called them racist because that’s besides the point, to me.
Or kinda like how in this very thread Biggirl has stated that this is not a big deal, but she still has been accused (along with me and you) for always jumping on the Looking for Racism bandwagon.
In another thread, I’m actually expressing the benefit of the doubt to Rush Limbaugh of all motherfreakin’ people, but no doubt that will go unnoticed because my track record for playing the race card (cue my gag reflex) is obviously so damn high.
Maybe we are crazy, monstro. I’m scared.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
“Some here” would not include me, so you might want to be a little more careful in how you the word “racist” around. But I posted in anger, and I apologize for it.
[/QUOTE]
It was a tongue-in-cheek statement meant to poke fun at the fact that many (and I’m not saying you) hurl the insult without regard for what it means or whether the target is indeed racist. Obviously, the mere use of the word “homey” is not racist. I was charging you as a racist as a device to communicate what you (almost) said, “be a little more careful in how you [use] the word racist.” In short, it was a joke. Since it angered you, it was a poor joke. I appologize for both my feeble sense of humor and any perceived insult. Neither was intentional.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
"The thing I don’t get is why you continue to defend it. You concede the party was “terribly offensive in design,” that some were “grossly insensitive” and some may be racist. Every time you try to say how ever-so-okay it was, you have to qualify – except the T-shirt, except the Aunt Jemima, except for the fact that it was MLK Day. IOW, in order to make it okay, you have to remove from the reality of the situation many of the most egregious things that make it obviously not okay. It certainly makes more sense, IMO, to judge the party and the conduct based on what actually happened, instead of spending a lot of time trying to defend what didn’t happen.
[/QUOTE]
I guess I have not been clear in what I am “defending” (though I think “defend” is a little strong). I am not saying everything was ever so okay. I just think people need to temper their outrage – reserve it for times when it’s warranted. I am saying that the pictures I saw do not lead me to the same conlcusion arrived at by many in this thread – that these kids are hellbound racists that should be purged from the secondary educational system. (again, I am not attributing these conclusion to you or mhendo)* More information may come out that does lead me to that conclusion, but to date, I haven’t seen it. I have seen two kids act in a grossly insesitive way and others, not so much. That’s all I can get from the pictures. I’m sure a video of the party would help me know more of what was going on.
*It is my understanding that expulsion from an accredited college or university for disciplinary reasons is effectively the end of your academic career
[QUOTE=Jodi]
"I have no idea whether your parties or your motivations were racist or not. It seems obvious to me, though, that one reason for defending this sort of conduct is that you behaved in a similar fashion yourself, and therefore the conduct must be okay. This would also explain why you have to minimize the conduct by removing the more offensive elements before attempting to defend it – I assume that once those more offensive elements are removed, the conduct is more like why you used to do. As far as I can tell, that’s the only dog you have in this fight, the only reason for half-heartedly defending conduct you actually concede isn’t really defensible.
[/QUOTE]
I have done and said many things in my life about which I am not proud, but bouncing around to Black Sheep with a backward bandanna and a forty of crooked I isn’t one of them. My reluctance to judge these kids on par grandwizards does not stem from a desire to rationalize past behavoir. It stems from a desire to see a rational reaction to limitted information. These kids may very well be just right of David Duke, but from the pics, I am not willing to conlcude that.