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The NYT reports that after a video was posted on YouTube that appeared to show members of the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon at University of Oklahoma singing a racist chant, the organization’s board decided “with no mental reservation whatsoever that this chapter needed to be closed immediately.” The video shows a group of young white people in formal wear riding a bus and singing a chant laden with antiblack slurs and at least one reference to lynching. A grinning young man wearing a tuxedo and standing in the aisle of the bus pumps his fist in the air as he chants, while a young woman seated nearby claps. The chant vows that African-Americans will “never” be allowed to join the campus chapter.
The nine-second video was uploaded to YouTube on Sunday by a student group, the Unheard Movement, that first identified the people in it as members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, although the group did not indicate how it obtained the video or when it was filmed. University president, David Boren, said in an emailed statement that the administration was also investigating the video. “I have just been informed of the video, which purports to show students to show students engaging in a racist chant. We are investigating to determine if the video involved OU students. If O.U. students are involved, this behavior will not be tolerated and will be addressed very quickly,” said Boren. “This behavior is reprehensible and contrary to all of our values.” Students marched on the campus of the University of Oklahoma on Monday to protest the video.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @05:35PM
> But record a chant and upload to youtube, then, and only then, do the SJW knives come out.
Er, no. The "SJW knives" have been out. It's the deniers that keep them from being effective. The conservative belief structure regarding race in the US is that racism is over. So when such a blatant contradiction of that ideology becomes a national event, the conservatives finally get on board and action is finally allowed, even ram-rodded.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2015, @09:18PM
Has nothing to do with being conservative, just not being an SJW. You only react to racism when you actually see it or you end up just making shit like Institutional Racism up to justify running around being a dickhead all the time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:45PM
You may not call it racism but there is discrimination that is not easily seen. Identical resumes get evaluated differently based on the name on the top. Missing out on a job opportunity because your name is Jamal or Tashanique is a very real possibility in the US.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:52PM
That's just reputation at play, not racism. After an employer hires one Jamal who doesn't show up for work, and another Jamal who speaks incomprehensibly at work, and another Jamal who consumes drugs at work, and another Jamal who steals equipment from work, and yet another Jamal who swears at customers, and finally a Jamal who wears his pants around his ankles, that employer will be very hesitant to hire yet another Jamal! It's not the employer's fault that pretty much every Jamal out there has the same skin color. When the employer sees the name Jamal on a resume, the employer will think about the numerous past bad experiences hiring people named Jamal, and will choose not to go down that road once more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:48AM
(Score: 4, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2015, @10:53PM
As well it should be. It says that you come from parents who are morons and have a high likelihood of being one yourself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ezber Bozmak on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:16PM
As well it should be. It says that you come from parents who are morons and have a high likelihood of being one yourself.
That is a point worth repeating.
Judging someone for having a stereotypical black american name rather than the content of their resume is absolutely not racism.
Really.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:21PM
Have you ever seen the resumes that these people will give businesses? I wish I was joking, but we're talking about resumes written on McDonalds napkins, with the letters of their name written backwards, containing just the person's first name, a phone number, and a list of work experience that consists solely of "i has old jobs".
They aren't turned down based on name alone. They're turned down because their resumes have ketchup and mustard stains on them.
(Score: 4, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:48PM
Naming your kid Shoniqua or Tyreson is not a black thing. It is a moron thing. Those names simply did not happen here until recently some jackasses decided George and Bill just weren't black enough for them and decided to give the finger to whitey and his names. Giving someone the finger is bloody stupid if you expect them to then hire you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ezber Bozmak on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:32AM
Those names simply did not happen here until recently some jackasses decided George and Bill just weren't black enough for them and decided to give the finger to whitey and his names. Giving someone the finger is bloody stupid if you expect them to then hire you.
Quoted for truth.
It is not racist at all to make people choose between a cultural identity and a job.
It is actually black people getting what they deserve for being racist against whites.
The names given to their ancestors by their owners ought to be good enough for anyone.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @01:14AM
Your words not mine, slappy. I'll stand by what I've said to the last word but only to what I've said.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ezber Bozmak on Thursday March 12 2015, @01:48AM
Your words not mine, slappy. I'll stand by what I've said to the last word but only to what I've said.
Since my words don't mean what your words mean, surely you can describe where the meanings differ. After making the effort to share your opinions with everyone here, you wouldn't want people to think they are racist opinions. That would be counter-productive since you are proving how racism against black people is a figment of the misinformed imagination.
(Score: 3) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:18AM
Sure, I'll bite. My beef is not with a skin color but with the utter stupidity of naming your child something nobody can spell or pronounce given three guesses. I don't care if you're bloody purple and come from somewhere left of the Crab Nebula if your name's Bill or Susan.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Ezber Bozmak on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:44AM
My beef is not with a skin color but with the utter stupidity of naming your child something nobody can spell or pronounce given three guesses.
Thank you. Now I know that racism is only ever about the color of a person's skin and not their culture.
Chosing a bantu-origin name like Shaniqua [20000-names.com] for a black baby is utterly stupid. If you want to be able to work and support yourself, needing to conform to another race's naming standards is absolutely not racist.
(Score: 3) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @04:00AM
If you didn't know that before, you're a fool. Did the spelling of the word not give it away? How about the dictionary definition?
Culture? You either adapt to the culture of the nation you live in or you have a shit life. Period. Not the culture of any race but of the nation you live in. In the US, that means you do not get a white collar job being named Bufanaquishria. In South Africa or Japan, that means you're going to have a hell of a time if you're named Steve. That my pedantic and quite silly friend is life on planet Earth. You should probably try getting used to the rules; they're not going to change for you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ezber Bozmak on Thursday March 12 2015, @04:48AM
Now I know that racism is only ever about the color of a person's skin and not their culture
If you didn't know that before, you're a fool. Did the spelling of the word not give it away? How about the dictionary definition?
Thank you for teaching me the truth. Race is purely biological. [vox.com] That's why those names aren't black - they are names, how they can have biology? The Oxford English Dictionary really makes my error clear when it says that race is "a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc" [oxforddictionaries.com]
You should probably try getting used to the rules; they're not going to change for you.
Preach it brother! When people refer to America as a melting pot, they mean only for the melting of white chocolate. That's why American English would never incorporate words from other languages. [wikipedia.org]
And thanks for the tip about avoiding the name Steve in South Africa. If only your sociological expertise had been there to save another fool from the error of his name. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pnkwarhall on Thursday March 12 2015, @01:58AM
All the "+1 Funny" mods on buzzard's comments in this thread, along with the lack of support for Ezber's points, have given me a window into the nature of some of the users of this site. And it's not a pretty view.
Don't get me wrong--I'm white, and I have laughed at comments poking fun at names like "Shaniqua" and the mutilated spellings, etc. But to support this by modding up these comments in a serious thread about how **the name someone's parent gave them** can affect their career opportunities is not something I support, and I'm ashamed to see on Soylent. SJW or not, making fun of someone for something they have no control over is not something I want in my environment.
Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @02:15AM
I've modded his comments up because I like my bigots loud and proud so we can all see them for what they are. I believe that since he posted them for all to see, he wants to have his character judged on his words. As he said, he stands by them.
I can't say why anyone else modded them up, but I would be disappointed to see them hidden from the general audience here.
Besides, with all the whining about mod-bombing I thought I'd take it in a different direction.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:13AM
Well, I suppose I am a bigot but not a racial one. My hatred is pretty much reserved for stupidity, greed, intolerance, and elitist attitudes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @05:56AM
>> Naming your kid Shoniqua or Tyreson is not a black thing. It is a moron thing.
>> stupidity of naming your child something nobody can spell or pronounce
>> parents who are morons and have a high likelihood of being one yourself.
> My hatred is pretty much reserved for stupidity, greed, intolerance, and elitist attitudes
It is pretty elitist and stupid to judge someone a moron because you can't pronounce their name.
Is all your sputtering about racism actually self-hate?
In the same way that the most strident anti-gay conservatives are invariably secretly gay themselves, the rhetoric just being an outward manifestation of their inner struggle; publicly condemning their true self in a futile attempt to squash who they really are for fear of being shunned by their friends and family. You must have a lot to lose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:22AM
In the same way that the most strident anti-gay conservatives are invariably secretly gay themselves, the rhetoric just being an outward manifestation of their inner struggle; publicly condemning their true self in a futile attempt to squash who they really are for fear of being shunned by their friends and family. You must have a lot to lose.
In the same way the most strident anti-racist humans are invariably secretly racist themselves, the rhetoric just being an outward manifestation of their inner struggle; publicly condemning their true self in a futile attempt to squash who they really are for fear of being shunned by their friends and family. You must have a lot to lose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @01:54PM
> In the same way the most strident anti-racist humans are invariably secretly racist themselves,
Absolutely, but I wouldn't say its a secret. Recognizing that we are all at least a little bit racist is a pretty important step in understanding the human condition. We all prefer what we know, it is human nature and before we had a sophisticated civilization it was actually a useful characteristic because it encouraged tribal cohesiveness.
The difference is that condemning racism is not a selfish act. Denying equal rights to others be they gay or just another culture, is extremely selfish.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:09PM
Nah, I dig me. It's the rest of you lot who suck.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Nugoo on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:49PM
Thank you for saying this. I'm half-black, half-white. My parents gave me my white mother's last name instead of my father's precisely to help me deal with TheMightyBuzzard's peculiar brand of bigotry. Seeing someone say my parents would have been morons to give me my father's last name, and then seeing that drivel get modded up is sickening. Not the sort of thing that inspires participation in a community.
By the way, when I think of names that are native to North America, I don't think of George and Bill.
I explicitly place the above in the public domain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @04:06PM
As a guy who modded some of those posts up so that the bigotry could be more widely seen for what it is, I apologize for making it seem like an endorsement. I was hoping that we would see copious use of the disagree mod in response since that registers disapproval without making the whole thing disappear.
But at least the up-mods on pnkwarhall's post show solidarity against it.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:56AM
Judging someone for having a stereotypical black american name rather than the content of their resume is absolutely not racism.
It is, because the assumption is that "stereotypically black" names are stupid, implying that the culture they come from is stupid. I've seen plenty of otherwise seemingly intelligent people with good jobs give their kids stupid names. Oliver and Noah are both in the top 5 UK boys names for crying out loud, both a sure fire way to get your kid bullied at school. I'd argue that naming your kid after a fictional character who survived God's biggest ever genocide isn't a particularly smart move, not least because he was a drunk. Seriously, the first thing he did after the flood was plant a vineyard and get pissed.
You are projecting all your prejudices onto what you consider to be "stereotypically black" names. How about Obama? Actually, his middle name is Hussain... Any thoughts on stereotypically Islamic names?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:04AM
There's nothing wrong with a name like Jamal. Malcolm-Jamal Warner is a noted actor who starred in the great series "Jeremiah" for instance (as well as the Cosby Show).
Now something like "Sharkeisha", "Rotunda", "Shanqueesha", or even "Obamaneisha" is just a sign of really bad parenting. But it's not just black people: white people are doing the same stupid shit, with names like "Donathan", "Havoc", "Rysk", "Blayde", "Yoga", "Kaixin", "Brook'Lynn", "Harvest", or "Luxx".
Americans as a whole have gone off the deep end with idiotic names for their kids.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:10AM
And that's the damned truth.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:02PM
The UK is getting there too. I have met kids called Diesel and Dann-nay.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:24PM
A labor an delivery nurse told me one new mamma was going to name her baby girl 'Clamidia' because she liked the way it sounded. (She did listen to good advice and picked another name)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 12 2015, @03:57PM
My wife was told a similar story (and this was back in the 80s I think) of a black couple who wanted to name their new daughter "Vagina" because they liked the way it sounded. They changed their mind after someone informed them what the word meant....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @04:13PM
Hooray for racist urban legends!
Betty had just given birth to a daughter, and she was discussing the choice of a name with her roommate, who was equally clueless. Mulling over the possibilities, Betty considered a word that she'd recently heard on the obstetric ward. "Vagina, that be a nice name . . . hmm, I think I'll call her 'Vagina.'" Admittedly a euphonious word, the two women agreed that "Vagina" would indeed be a nice name for a girl.
When the time came to relay the name choice to one of the hospital's personnel, the shocked worker exclaimed, "Uh, you can't name her 'Vagina'!" To which the Mom replied, "I be her mother, and I can name her whatever I wants to!" This prompted the worker to explain just what a vagina was, but the Mom was skeptical. "That ain't a vagina — it's a cootchie!"
Also this: http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2009/10/ledasha-legends-and-race-part-one [babynamewizard.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 12 2015, @05:54PM
It isn't racist if it's true.
This story is secondhand (thirdhand?), but comes from a former friend of my wife. When he was in the hospital and his girlfriend/wife was having his first son, the couple in the room next door were talking about naming their kid "Vagina". This isn't just something I read somewhere, it's a friend-of-a-friend personal account.
Do you really think it's impossible, out of a few hundred million people in this country, that some people would actually pick this as a name?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @06:06PM
> it's a friend-of-a-friend personal account.
Are you trolling me? Are you honestly not aware that FOAF is practically the mascot of urban legends? [wikipedia.org]
You couldn't have done a better job of proving it isn't true if you had tried.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday March 13 2015, @03:56AM
Well considering I know the guy, I'm not going to call him a liar.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday March 12 2015, @04:38AM
As well it should be. It says that you come from parents who are morons and have a high likelihood of being one yourself.
Not at all accurate! Most "very smart" people are the children of complete morons. And conversely, as noted by Plato in the dialogue Meno, spawn of great persons tend to be complete morons. (Exampla Gratia, or e.g.: GW Bush, no wait, that doesn't work either) Which leads us to two questions: One: can virtue be taught? (Plato's question) and Two: who would name their child "Mighty Buzzard"? (my question)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @05:37AM
Bit late to the party, ar. It's past my bedtime or I'd play with you some.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday March 12 2015, @07:32AM
Ya know, Buzz, I feel we are kindred souls. I have roots in the Nations. And that is what makes your hardline libertarian position incomprehensible to me. I have patience, however. I can wait till you wake up, and explain it to me. Of course the recent behavior of the Re-constituted Cherokee nation, as regards their former slaves, leaves me less than optimistic. But, explain it to me.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @12:07PM
Really have no idea on that. Never looked into the Cherokee side of my ancestry very deep since I'm up to my eyeballs in the Chickasaw bits. I expect they were just bastards like the colonials but I'm not going to apologize for them any more than I'm going to apologize for the white bits of my ancestry. If your grandparents couldn't remember it because they weren't born yet, it's time to get the hell over it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @02:12PM
> And that is what makes your hardline libertarian position incomprehensible to me.
> I have patience, however. I can wait till you wake up, and explain it to me
I doubt that he can explain it.
Whenever he gets pinned down by his own logic out come the empty slogans like, "I stand by my words," "I make no apologies," and "I have the strength of my convictions." He also tends to start calling people names when he is uncomfortable. And of course accusing people of being an "SJW" is a favorite tactic, it lets him dismiss ideas he dislikes without having to actually refute them. If you are lucky, he'll reveal himself by outright denying an obvious fact. As above when he said racism has nothing to do with culture, because dictionaries. A couple of days back he literally said that being white confers no benefit, tangible or otherwise, in american society. The coup de grace is ultimately blame shifting which boiled down is always: "I'm not racist, society is, so suck it up you whiner."
He is living the unexamined life.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Thursday March 12 2015, @11:16AM
pedant alert: exempli gratia
key & peel have a running gag that mocks 'black names' that is pretty funny; AND did an inverse schtick where a black 'inner city' substitute teacher pronounces 'white names' in a 'black style'... joshua becomes 'joe-shhh-eu-a', aaron become 'a-a-ron', etc...
they are two funny dudes...
also, no such thing as 'race', a man-made idea to otherize people...
we're all the same dog, dog; just poodles who don't want to be the same as mutts, dog...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @06:01PM
It says that you come from parents who are morons and have a high likelihood of being one yourself.
what kind of mental contortion does it take to proclaim yourself "an individualist above all else" who "believes everyone should be judged solely on their own merits and failings." [soylentnews.org] and then turn around and judge a person's abilities based on the actions of their parents?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:22PM
Simple, the name is the only truthful thing on a resume unless they accidentally forgot to embellish the fuck out of something.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:28PM
solely on their own merits and failings.
solely
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2015, @11:38PM
> Identical resumes get evaluated differently based on the name on the top.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @07:37PM
> You only react to racism when you actually see it or you end up just making shit like Institutional Racism up
The idea that if cause and effect aren't easily witnessed together then it isn't real must be some kind of conservative object permanence failing.
Smoking doesn't cause cancer.
Lead poisoning doesn't cause dementia.
Over-eating doesn't make people fat.
Sex doesn't create babies.
And the transitive property is a liberal lie by elitist mathematicians who just want to be dickheads.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @09:41PM
Smoking doesn't cause cancer, it increases the likelihood of it. That's beside the point though.
If you can not prove racism, you have no business punishing anyone for being racist. This is America and we damned well do not convict on suspicion here. Show me proof of an individual in power discriminating against people based on skin color or gender and I'll be right there along side you calling for his ass to be fired. Tell me an institution is racist and I'm going to call bullshit because institutions are not a real thing, they're a handy abstraction used to identify groups of individuals. Just like races are. You want to end racism, encourage individualism. It is the opposite of racism. It is impossible to be both a racist and an individualist because racism requires you first accept some degree of collectivism so that you can treat a race as a group.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:02PM
This is America and we damned well do not convict on suspicion here.
There are many people, black and white, who would disagree with you.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/black-boy-executed-s-conviction-overturned-article-1.2048611 [nydailynews.com]
And then go read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overturned_convictions_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:22PM
My mistake. s/do not/are not supposed to/
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 12 2015, @10:54PM
> institutions are not a real thing, they're a handy abstraction
And bodies are not a real thing either, just a handy abstraction used to identify a group of individual cells.
Tell me a person is racist, I'm going to call bullshit, its just some individual cells that are racist.
All the other cells have nothing to do with it.
Want to end racism? Encourage individual cells to be their own cells, and quit it with that collectivism.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 13 2015, @01:01AM
Have fun with that reductio ad absurdum? You failed at it by the way. The individual is both the smallest and largest entity that may hold a view on anything and the only type of entity that can serve a prison time for crimes committed. Abstractions are fine for debate and coming to general conclusions, they are not fine for the actual solving of problems. That has to happen on an individual level or it will not happen at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.