Racist Costumes at College parties

[BreadBros]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070210/D8N7382O0.html


ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - An off-campus party that asked students to come dressed "politically incorrect" has prompted an investigation by Macalester College officials who learned one student was costumed as a Ku Klux Klan member and another wore blackface with a noose around his neck.

Students at the private school told administrators about the Jan. 16 party on campus.

"My initial reaction was shock," said Paul Maitland-McKinley, a member of the Black Liberation Affairs Committee, a student group. "I thought, this can't really happen on my campus."


Earlier this school year, Trinity College and Whitman College had parties where students showed up in racially offensive costumes or blackface. At Texas A&M University, students made a racist video that apparently was intended as satire, and a fraternity at Johns Hopkins University was suspended after a "Halloween in the Hood" party displayed a fake skeleton hanging from a noose.

More examples of how wide-spread and acceptable racism remains today in society, particularly in the halls of social institutions such as colleges. Has anyone here encountered racism in education? How can we organize as a whole to fight it? Its really sad to see "political correctness" fetishized to the point where students treat racism as a comedic thing rather than taking it seriously.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Growing up in the American South, I can attest to practically any claim of racism in American society. Racial fights, rampant and open racism among white students, among white teachers and parents. I was most likely only exposed to a small fraction of it, for being a minority myself in the eyes of most Americans and generally making it clear that I didn't tolerate racism.

My former peers who are now attending colleges around Florida have told me that racism is very common at colleges, particularly at less prestigious and more middle-class institutions, like USF, UWF, UCF.

The fact of the matter is that white kids growing up in white communities around the United States have absolutely no clue what racism is, how it is propagated, and how it is detrimental. Or even that it's a bad thing. It may seem absurd, but considering carefully what they have been exposed to, it's quite understandable. The racist homes and communities they grow up in, the still-segregated communities they live in, the stereotypes they're taught to believe, the contempt for polical correctness and affirmative action that is common among most white Americans, and the absolute lack of importance placed on learning exactly what constitutes as racism, racial oppression, prejudice, and discrimination. These kids are confused, ignorant, and nobody gives a shit.

[YSR]

I actually attend Macalester College and was one of the few students on campus at the time (it was J-term) who didn't attend. The school holds itself up as such a bastion of liberality (42% of us have no religion, we don't have an active Republican group, etc) but it's incidents like this that reinforce to me the consistent position of privilege we enjoy.

On campus, the response has been mixed. Some students are complaining that the response has been "too extreme" to what they deem a few people who went "too far". Needless to say, these students are white or from abroad. (We have a large international population and a minimal domestic students of color population.) What really freaks me out is that amongst the white radicals, who I do a lot of work with, the response has been rather apathetic because they hate the administration so much that they refuse to work on the same side as them. Ultimately, this incident just goes to show the color divide which still exists in higher education in the United States.