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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: 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.