That’s PROBABLY true. It’s also possible that once they saw the video for themselves and looked at their behavior from the perspective of a third party, they became ashamed. People who have a conscience can be shamed once they take a good hard look at themselves.
And for the record, I have not said I feel any sympathy for these guys. I simply commented that there could be nothing they could say that would satisfy everyone. And that is true.
Pizzagirl, are you comparing hand jobs to lynching? I must be missing something here, about pleasure and death? L
Forget it. I’m not comparing the two, sigh. I’m saying that sometimes stupid drunk freshmen say or sing things that they don’t necessarily mean. I’m not excusing the song or the chant in any way. I just think we don’t know whether this is “truly racist, awful guy who is looking for the next tree” or just a stupid kid who said something stupid and just didn’t heed the adage “think before you speak.”
There is a very high chance he did not mean, that he would actually hang someone from a tree (although in a mob, just being stupid, not being his normal self, he might). But he certainly has disdain and lack of respect for minorities.
“I’m not excusing the song or the chant in any way.” Yes, but you are making light of it. Would you make light of a bunch of WASP college kids singing in private about gassing Jews on their campus? Nothing funny or dismissible about either, even if the people saying such things are drunk.
Very thoughtful… http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mariadixonhall/2015/03/a-teachable-moment-how-ou-failed-transformation-101/
I didn’t SAY it was funny or dismissible. Good lord. I SAID it was offensive and odious and all other kinds of stuff. Really tired of the insinuation that I think it has no more meaning than singing ring-around-the-rosie.
Well then, please cease with the jokes and smart azz comments about something so serious.
Arabrab -that is an outstanding article. Thank you for linking it.
@Pizzagirl Even though I’m around the age of these college students, I really don’t see how saying blacks don’t belong in your fraternity can be shrugged of as just a "stupid statement’ or ever phrased as a joke. Mainly because the only people that would find the statement humorous would be the ones that actually believe it. The probability that a bus, consisting on only white students, would start a chant stating how they don’t want to mingle with black students, but not really mean it is a hard sell. Even so, you know what they say. Sometimes being drunk just gets out what you wanted to say…
Though it may not have to be an issue for you, racial acceptance is an issue for blacks looking to colleges to attend.
I don’t for a second believe the “hostile environment” argument that has been espoused. Seeing @Zekesima post (and reading the article linked by @Hanna) about how these individuals would feel threatened by someone singing that song got me thinking (and researching). I’ve never even heard of a lynching, and I follow the news very closely, and have for over 3 decades. So, I looked it up and found that in the last quarter century there has been one lynching and it was a couple of white supremacists who picked at random a 19 year old. They were caught and convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Lynching became so infrequent after the 1950s that Tuskegee Institute (now University), which is considered one of the foremost authorities on lynching statistics, stopped issuing its annual report. It looks like the NAACP stats stop in 1968 because there weren’t any to track after that (from what I have been able to find in 45 min of searching).
Maybe because I am a middle aged white guy I don’t understand, but I will be asking all the 20 somethings at work tomorrow who are AA what their feelings are about this issue and I am willing to bet that not a single one will say they would feel threatened if they attended OU.
TVF, Gassing Jews hasn’t happened since 1945, but I think mentioning it in the way lynching was referenced in the song could be seen as creating a hostile environment for Jewish students in 2015.
Creating a hostile environment means a target population FEELS threatened, does it not? Until we know how OU AAs feel about the song, we won’t know whether they felt threatened by it. Perhaps Boren spoke with AAs on his campus and determined that this was indeed the case.
You’re on. And I think you should take the word of the African American parents on this board when they say they wouldn’t feel safe sending their children to OU if OU hadn’t acted swiftly to punish these malefactors.
Random thoughts
“The fraternity officers are the ones who taught the underclassmen to sing this song, and were the leaders who should be held primarily accountable. They were also in a position of authority on the bus and could have stopped it at any time.”
We collectively saw 10 seconds worth of video.
Let’s say a second video was released, time-stamped 10 seconds after the first ended. The frat president stands up, says - ok, buddy, sit down, you’ve had too much to drink, we don’t talk like that, apologizes to everyone, and makes a note to talk to the guy once he’s sobered up and tell him that behavior doesn’t fly.
Humor me here and play along. Does this change anything? How and why? Does the presence of a “dissenter” make it less of a hostile environment?
Very thoughtful article linked in 485. Thanks Maybe a better approach for real change.
“5. This situation seems similar to the “No means yes” chant at Yale a few years ago, and the “Rape bait” frat issue at Georgia Tech.”
Those are interesting parallels, thanks.
I guess the question is - if one speaks in private and doesn’t intend for words to be heard, given technology today one’s words can be disseminated easily and widely. Does that render all speech public?
Who taught the song to the kids? And why would it make things better if the frat president said to the kids, “No, no, you idiot, don’t sing that song we taught you in front of other people”? If you don’t want freshman and sophomores to sing a racist song in front of other people, maybe the right strategy is don’t teach them the traditional racist songs of your fraternity in the first place.
I know you don’t get this at all, CF, but fraternities (and sororities) don’t move en masse. There are sub cliques within. You could have a “good” sub clique who would never think to teach such songs, and would put an end to them. You could also have a “bad” clique that is wilder or more profane or likes to push the envelope and would pass on these songs. If you’ve got 100 people in an organization - any organization - you’ve got factions.
“And why would it make things better if the frat president said to the kids, “No, no, you idiot, don’t sing that song we taught you in front of other people”? If you don’t want freshman and sophomores to sing a racist song in front of other people, maybe the right strategy is don’t teach them the traditional racist songs of your fraternity in the first place.”
No, no - I’m not saying “don’t do in front of others,” I’m saying “don’t do it all.” What makes you think the president knows every single thing that every single member has ever done? You don’t think, for example, there’s a frat somewhere where the president has said - hey guys, no smoking pot in the house, I mean it, we will get in trouble - and a few bad seeds (har har) went and did it anyway? Have you not been part of a social or work group where different people think differently about things?
See, since you start from the presumption of bad, you assume that hating on black people is their rallying cry, their key unifier, their raison d’être, and that it comes straight from the top. You really don’t get that songs like these are often the province of a few loudmouths who go for that sort of thing.
Now I’m just speculating, of course. I don’t know. But the point is,neither do any of us off the basis of 10 seconds of video. I’m not excusing it; I’m providing context to suggest that sometimes, stupid things are just stupid things versus evidence of Pure and Evil Hatred.