<p>UC San Diego leaders and civil rights activists have condemned a student party that mocked Black History Month with a ghetto-themed "Compton Cookout."</p>
<p>Campus administrators said Wednesday that they were investigating whether the off-campus party, held Monday, and its Facebook invitation violated the university's code of conduct and whether its sponsors should be disciplined. Members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity were identified as among the organizers, but the fraternity president has criticized the event and said his club did not sponsor it.....</p>
<p>Promising a taste of "life in the ghetto," the Facebook invitation contained many racist stereotypes. For example, it urged women to dress as "ghetto chicks" who "usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes." It said the menu would include chicken and watermelon.</p>
<p>In an e-mail Wednesday, Garron Engstrom, president of Pi Kappa Alpha, emphasized that the party was neither planned nor endorsed by the social club.</p>
<p>"The fraternity regrets the display of ignorance and error-of-judgment made by any individual members who may have attended or were associated via social-media with the racially-offensive party," he wrote. "These actions are in direct violation of Pike's code of conduct, and appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken."</p>
<p>I normally stay out of political threads here but I have to respond to this, though I’m fairly certain this is going to end up being a long debate. </p>
<p>Some people are stupid. If they do stupid (but not illegal) things off campus, the university shouldn’t concern itself with it. Public ignominy is more than enough. The incident was minor until the University Administration sent out several emails, which prompted the local media to get involved and turned what was a sad, but insignificant Facebook event into a national issue. It wasn’t the University’s responsibility to get involved, but it did.</p>
<p>I’d compare this incident to a recent Twitter “trending” topic, “#IfIwaswhiteat[another university, name redacted]” which was full of all sorts of ignorant and stereotypical things about white people (i.e. that they were all rich, hated black people, lived off their parents’ money, were culturally ignorant, etc.) and reached a wide range of students. Yet nobody in the media or at the university administration cared. Nor should they; these were students expressing their own opinion, as uninformed and disturbing as it was, and doing so on their own time. Other students responded to them, exercising their own right to free speech. Life went on. </p>
<p>What should happen now at UCSD? Call out the protesters? Throw money at “Diversity”? UCSD already spent $10,000 on a “Hispanic Pride” mural that has non-political slogans like “Health Care 4 All” on it to demonstrate their “commitment” to skin-color diversity. (Glad to see the state of California’s $$ is being spent in such a productive way when it’s not going to a “Che Cafe”). Organizations and events designed to foster “diversity” almost always follow a politically correct line of action and never force people to ask tough questions across racial lines. By far the most racial segregation I’ve seen has been at “diversity” events. They are part of the problem, not the solution.</p>
<p>The best response would be no response at all, but rather an affirmation of the principles of free speech and a racially blind society by the University. Students are adults now and should be treated as such, instead of malleable minds that must be molded to follow politically correct protocol. Sadly, I doubt UCSD will follow that track.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s stupid kids acting stupid.</p>
<p>What is Che Cafe? </p>
<p>BTW…I think spending $10k on a Hispanic Pride mural that says “Health Care 4 All” is rather political and might encourage more racism. Californians already feel that illegal aliens are getting free health care at their expense, so that slogan just encourages more anger at the illegal alien situation by putting it on a Hispanic Pride mural. Frankly, it suggests a stereotype (that isn’t true) that Hispanics all need free health care. If it had been on just any mural that might be different (altho still kind of political).</p>
Wasn’t there just some story on here about ignorant kids at some Dartmouth sporting event? High SATs don’t necessarily endow a person with wisdom or character.</p>
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Che Cafe is a student run natural food restaurant/coop. It is on campus.</p>
<p>What is ironic to me is that even when I attended 30 years ago UCSD was such an apolitical campus. It was basically a bunch of pre-meds and science students with maybe a 5% politically aware contingent.</p>
<p>It was funny to me because I was a science nerd, but my roommates and friends were all Hispanic poly-sci type guys. I ended up joining MECHA and was the only white guy in the group at my time. I was amused during the recent immigration debates to hear people talking about MECHA like some radical organization (it might be, I don’t know) because I knew absolutely nothing about politics and just joined because my buddies were in it.</p>
<p>Yes, those Dartmouth kids got out of line heckling the opposing team at an athletic event. That was pretty dumb too. But there is both a qualitative and quantitative difference between the degree of stupidiity and poor judgement demonstrated by emotion-driven mouthing-off at a sports event and a highly planned, organized social event that would make anyone with more than two neurons worth of common sense blush with embarrassment.</p>
<p>I agree with vig180. As long as it was off campus and not officially sanctioned by any organization affiliated with the school, it’s best to leave it alone and not give the story any more publicity than it’s all ready been given. This is not the only stupid theme for off campus parties. </p>
<p>If it was off campus, not sanctioned by the college, and not illegal, the students are free to host any stupid themed party they want. We don’t have to approve of it, but they are free to do it. </p>
<p>Don’t forget to add to the above list: the Guido and Guidette party and the Jersey Shore party (offensive to Italian-Americans?).</p>
<p>Notice the White Trash party on the list? </p>
<p>In other words, theme parties aren’t limited to “ghetto themes or Compton themes”. They cross many controversial borders and include a variety of social/ethnic/geographic groups.</p>
<p>““For at least 90 minutes, about a dozen Dartmouth students pelted Harvard’s men and women players with obscenity-laced insults that some witnesses described as misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. Women on the Harvard team were called “whores’’ and “sluts,’’ witnesses said; the men were taunted with crude comments about their masculinity.””</p>
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<p>Maybe, I don’t see the huge distinction. I’m sure I can search the archives of this website and the news in general and find examples similar to this everywhere. I remember something about the Notre Dame newspaper a few weeks back, if I’m not mistaken. In fact, I suspect there are gun-toting Harvard graduate professors who shoot people when they don’t get tenure.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t exactly see where you get this bit about the highly planned organized social event. Sounds to me like a college party, unsanctioned by the school and criticized by the fraternity president. I don’t know if this was two kids or fifty.</p>
<p>So I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about a school from this. And I’m not assuming you were, but that’s what it sounded like.</p>
<p>In our heavily-white community, I have learned that acting “ghetto,” is supposedly a cool thing. The “popular” kids listen to rap music and even dress and assume affectations emulating stereotypical Black behavior - throwing signs, wearing heavy chains, etc. Maybe this is insulting to the Black community - I personally don’t know - but I’m certain it is not intended to be insulting by these kids.</p>
<p>Maybe the party was an outgrowth of what I described.</p>
<p>Bay, that’s a very optimistic take. Why do you think some of the reality shows and the Maury Show are filled with white trash and black ghetto stereotypes? People think they are highly funny/mockable to watch.</p>
<p>“theme parties aren’t limited to “ghetto themes or Compton themes”. They cross many controversial borders and include a variety of social/ethnic/geographic groups.”</p>
<p>That’s true…when I was a senior, some of my classmates advertised a party called “Harvard State University.” In other words, the party was supposed to imitate public party schools like Penn State and Arizona State. I can’t remember which authority cracked down (the House masters? Dean of the college?), but the kids had to take all the posters down and withdraw the theme on the grounds that it was offensive/derogatory towards people at public schools. They still had the party, but it was just called “Keg Party.”</p>
<p>It is fine for the school administration to make a statement in opposition to the theme of the party, but I’d drop it there. They have a first amendment right to speech, and the university should not be trying to control that speech even if they find it distasteful.</p>
<p>I well remember the time when the black students’ newspaper at UCLA (funded by school and student fees) featured an extensive article decrying the Asian entrepreneurs and small business owners that were moving into South Central and other traditionally black areas of LA – an article filled with vitriol and quotes from a number of students. I didn’t like that one either, but they weren’t penalized for that expression of speech and the UCSD students shouldn’t be either.</p>
<p>(Now if their fraternity national governing body wants to take action, that’s a completely different issue.)</p>
<p>I do. Some spectators in the stands getting carried away at an athletic event and shouting insults at opposing players is not the same as some guys sitting around their dorm room or frat house and writing copy for invitations to a racist party and dreaming up a costumes and party food based on racist stereotypes. Both are disgraceful, but one is much more premeditated than the other. The UCSD guys had plenty of time to rethink their stupid idea and decide not to go through with it, but they chose to continue. This from the news article: </p>
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<p>Looks pretty deliberately planned and organized to me.</p>
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<p>I didn’t say anything about UCSD the school other than it is a “smart school.” I work in the shadow of UCSD and half my staff are UCSD grads. I have the highest respect for it. What I said was that these students were very stupid, and I stand by that. They are unworthy of the school.</p>
<p>As for Dartmouth, that’s beside the point in this thread. The misbehavior of the Dartmouth idiots certainly doesn’t excuse or give permission to the UCSD idiots. And back when the Dartmouth story broke I condemned those students too on the respective Dartmouth threads. I consider them unworthy of Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Obviously it’s not the same. But to me it’s equally disgraceful. I don’t care how caught up I was in the exuberance of the athletic event, it wouldn’t occur to me to use misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic insults. Smart or not? I think both actions are equally ignorant. Maybe the UCSD students had a little more time to rethink. But it looks like that’s the only point where we disagree. </p>
<p>I didn’t read your post about Dartmouth, so in that case I was not fully informed about your opinion. My point in bringing up the Dartmouth incident, which was just the first school that came to mind, was that this type of ignorance is not uncommon at any school, no matter how “smart” the student body. And that I truly believe.</p>
<p>I wonder how many UCSD students were actually involved in this - I think it was probably a very small number. </p>
<p>It was clearly a stupid move on the part of the students who participated and worse - it sounds as if they were either not thinking about the meaning behind what they did or worse yet - they ‘were’ thinking about the meaning behind what they did.</p>
<p>Edit - The news just said around 200 students responded to the Facebook ad for the party. They didn’t say how many actually went.</p>