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YouTube Video of Racist Chant Results In Fraternity Closure
HughPickens.com writes The NYT reports that after a video was posted on YouTube that appeared to show members of the members 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.
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.
SigEps are racists. Wait, frats in general are racists. No shit, Sherlock. PKA on my campus was 100% Jewish. If you weren't Jewish, you weren't getting in. Some were all white. Some all black. The entirety of the greek system is racism and sexism in action. Give me a break with your feigned outrage.
Exactly. ...and had this been a Black fraternity chanting about honkies and crackers, absolutely NOTHING would be done about it, nor would it be getting national attention.
Fact: The Republican Party was founded primarily to oppose slavery, and Republicans eventually abolished slavery. The Democratic Party fought them and tried to maintain and expand slavery. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, passed in 1865 with 100% Republican support but only 23% Democrat support in congress.
Why is this indisputable fact so rarely mentioned? PBS documentaries about slavery and the Civil War barely mention it, for example. One can certainly argue that the parties have changed in 150 years (more about that below), but that does not change the historical fact that it was the Democrats who supported slavery and the Republicans who opposed it. And that indisputable fact should not be airbrushed out for fear that it will tarnish the modern Democratic Party.
Had the positions of the parties been the opposite, and the Democrats had fought the Republicans to end slavery, the historical party roles would no doubt be repeated incessantly in these documentaries. Funny how that works.
Fact: During the Civil War era, the "Radical Republicans" were given that name because they wanted to not only end slavery but also to endow the freed slaves with full citizenship, equality, and rights.
Yes, that was indeed a radical idea at the time!
Fact: Lincoln's Vice President, Andrew Johnson, was a strongly pro-Union (but also pro-slavery) Democrat who had been chosen by Lincoln as a compromise running mate to attract Democrats. After Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson thwarted Republican efforts in Congress to recognize the civil rights of the freed slaves, and Southern Democrats continued to thwart any such efforts for close to a century.
Fact: The 14th Amendment, giving full citizenship to freed slaves, passed in 1868 with 94% Republican support and 0% Democrat support in congress. The 15th Amendment, giving freed slaves the right to vote, passed in 1870 with 100% Republican support and 0% Democrat support in congress.
Regardless of what has happened since then, shouldn't we be grateful to the Republicans for these Amendments to the Constitution? And shouldn't we remember which party stood for freedom and which party fiercely opposed it?
Fact: The Ku Klux Klan was originally and primarily an arm of the Southern Democratic Party. Its mission was to terrorize freed slaves and "ni**er-loving" (their words) Republicans who sympathized with them.
Why is this fact conveniently omitted in so many popular histories and depictions of the KKK, including PBS documentaries? Had the KKK been founded by Republicans, that fact would no doubt be repeated constantly on those shows.
Fact: In the 1950s, President Eisenhower, a Republican, integrated the US military and promoted civil rights for minorities. Eisenhower pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1957. One of Eisenhower's primary political opponents on civil rights prior to 1957 was none other than Lyndon Johnson, then the Democratic Senate Majority Leader. LBJ had voted the straight segregationist line until he changed his position and supported the 1957 Act.
Fact: The historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 was supported by a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats in both houses of Congress. In the House, 80 percent of the Republicans and 63 percent of the Democrats voted in favor. In the Senate, 82 percent of the Republicans and 69 percent of the Democrats voted for it.
Fact: Contrary to popular misconception, the parties never "switched" on racism. The Democrats just switched from overt racism to a subversive strategy of getting blacks as dependent as possible on government to secure their votes. At the same time, they began a cynical smear campaign to label anyone who opposes their devious strategy as greedy racists.
Following the epic civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the South began a major demographic shift from Democratic to Republican dominance. Many believe that this shift was motivated by racism. While it is certainly true that many Southern racists abandoned the Democratic Party over
those who would rather cling tenaciously to racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia
Rappers?
Free speech does not extend to hate speech. No rights are being denied here, since you do not have the right to hate speech.
Huh? Where is "hate speech" defined in the Constitution? Hint.. It's not. This video does NOT depict speech that is illegal.
By law in the USA you can only restrict speech that poses an imminent danger of unlawful action, where the speaker has the intention to incite such action and there is the likelihood that this will be the consequence of his or her speech, may be restricted and punished by that law. That's not what these guys where doing.
That's not to say it wasn't stupid to do and even more stupid to record it on video, or that the college isn't justified in their actions and people shouldn't be outraged by this stuff. Only that people are free to SAY (or even publish) just about anything, including this drivel, as a matter of law.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You're a very broken person, but I suspect you know this.
"Old man yells at systemd"
But talking about expulsion and searching frantically for actual crimes to charge them with, for singing a stupid racist song?
So, where does it say anything about criminal charges, or even expulsion? The are closing down the frat chapter. Beyond just being racist, this is probably what did them in the most, FTA:
The chant vows that African-Americans will “never” be allowed to join the campus chapter.
First off, it is illegal (though not criminally) to deny somebody admission to anything based on race. Secondly, they don't have to commit a crime to be banned, in general universities have policies and codes of conduct, and if you violate those you can be expelled. In this case it appears the frat is being closed down because they violated university policies, not because they committed crimes.
As a sociologist, I am very interested in the work you've done that supports your findings that NOTHING has been done and no national attention has been given to a Black fraternity that chanted about honkies and crackers.
My colleagues and I eagerly await your reference link.
Thank you in advance.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Clubs are held to a higher standard. The general student body can get away with a whole lot. You can go and have a racist rant out in public every day and so long as you aren't disruptive, threatening, etc then they can't do anything, they have to let you stay and if a teacher were to retaliate grade wise they could get in trouble. However clubs, like frats, have additional rules imposed on them if they wish to remain school recognized clubs. The school doesn't have to allow them, so they can choose what additional restrictions they face.
Now you are free to have a club not recognized by the campus, but then you won't be able to use campus facilities, participate in official campus events, and so on.
You don't seem very familiar with black fraternities.
In my experience, they're mostly concerned with being a better man, Jesus, that type of thing. That, and step-dancing. Not chanting about crackas.
I assume you're kidding, I'm missing it, and the WHOOSH! sound is about to happen, but...
Lambda Lambda Lambda, or "LLL" as the name for the black fraternity was simply a play on the KKK name for the Klan.
9 deaths in 9 years? Is that supposed to be shocking?
Most fraternities and sororities have no deaths in nine years. Rather than drinking too much beer, the SAE kids that I knew were nouveau-riche who preferred to party by snorting blow off Peruvian hookers.
Last I looked at the student newspaper, they were continuing in the same mould.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Don't you feel any shame?
It's trivial to expose your lies, it's even on Wikipedia:
Recently, gang-related incidents have been on the rise. Between the years of 1997 and 2005 over 300 gang-related deaths have occurred. [..] In late September 2005, Toronto police arrested 44 members of the Rexdale-based "Ardwick Blood Crew" also known as A.B.C.
Hmm, also according to Wikipedia, "Rexdale's first residents were mostly English and Scottish, but evolved into a multicultural neighbourhood in the following decades."
But there is more:
Then in May 2006, 106 additional gang members were apprehended, who were part of Rexdale's "Jamestown Crew" (a Crip gang), in the largest gang sweep in Toronto's history.
Hmm, what ethnicity could a gang be that is called "Jamestown Crew"?.... Hmmm, you will probably never know...
In June 2007, Toronto police arrested about 95 people, including leaders of the Jane and Finch-based "Driftwood Crips" and the sister of murder victim Jordan Manners, for a lengthy list of 700 criminal charges.
Aha, a "Crips" franchise gang. What ethnicity could that be... It's a mystery...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...