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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.

30 of 606 comments (clear)

  1. You don't say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:You don't say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not a "Greek", and I never have been or wanted to be, but your characterization of them is not consistent with what I have known. Even if they were exclusionary, as you suggest, actively seeking the company of those with similar background and actively mocking/hating/disrespecting others others is different.

    2. Re:You don't say... by g0bshiTe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Free speech doesn't mean free from repercussion.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    3. Re:You don't say... by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And blacks are entirely excluded from some cities because of ingrained prohibitions by real estate and landlords. Of course, that's not really true, there is no entire city that's this way, any more than there is even one entire city that whites can't enter because of threats of violence.

      Framing things in black and white is just stupid. Black people are just as much threatened by violence in their neighborhoods as are whites who wander in.

    4. Re:You don't say... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not a "Greek", and I never have been or wanted to be, but your characterization of them is not consistent with what I have known.

      Neither was I, and I agree to a *small* extent. Mind you, I'm from Arkansas and it was a long time ago, but there were still frats (and sororities) that were, shall we say, a wee bit on the exclusionary side of things, and the exclusions were occasionally based on religion, skin color, ethnic origin...

      As for TFA? As much as I myself detest racism and bigotry based on someone's religion/ethnicity/etc... Personally, I think they *should* be allowed to be total asshats about it. Seriously - as long as there's no assualt or other crimes against others, let them chant whatever the hell they want.

      I say this for two reasons:

      1) College is supposed to be a place where all viewpoints and ideas are explored - even the ugly and stupid ones. Freedom of speech should hold highest priority in such a place.

      2) The video (and anything like it) can serve as an example to point at and instruct against; a competent prof can debate the racist activity into the dirt, in a setting that educates everyone else, and (hopefully) teaches the racists in question along the way.

      By kicking out the frat charter, you only drive the problem deeper underground... and where is the frickin' benefit in doing that among a body of kids that are going to be naturally rebellious in the first place? You only make it more attractive to such a mindset.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    5. Re:You don't say... by CaptainDork · · Score: 5, Insightful

      These people's "free speech" is still intact.

      No warrants have been issued, no one has been arrested, and no one is in jail.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    6. Re:You don't say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      By kicking out the frat charter, you only drive the problem deeper underground... and where is the frickin' benefit in doing that among a body of kids that are going to be naturally rebellious in the first place? You only make it more attractive to such a mindset.

      The charter is an endorsement by the university. There is a world of difference between endorsement and non-interference.
      Those boys are free to continue their racist association all they want - they haven't been expelled, they haven't even been disciplined.
      They just can't do it with the university's blessing.

    7. Re:You don't say... by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Huh? Where is "hate speech" defined in the Constitution? Hint.. It's not. This video does NOT depict speech that is illegal.

      Which is why nobody was arrested

      Only that people are free to SAY (or even publish) just about anything, including this drivel, as a matter of law.


      Yes, they are allowed to say whatever they want. And this univiersity has the right to tell them it's unacceptable and revoke their frat priveleges.

    8. Re:You don't say... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This isn't a free speech issue, it's not the government disbanding their frat. It's the college, which is perfectly within its rights to do so. No where in the constitution or the law does it say that the college has to allow this behaviour on its property if it doesn't want to.

      I've noticed a lot of people calling for more freedom of speech tend to ignore the freedom of others to react freely to that speech. Not allowing on your property or boycotting people who say things you don't like is absolutely the right way to behave, and is your legally and constitutionally protected right.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:You don't say... by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The SAE's only sin in the eyes of the university was to bring bad press. If the University of Oklahoma president truly meant it when he said that "we don't provide services for bigots" then the only fraternities on campus would be the ones dedicated to professions or academic achievement.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    10. Re:You don't say... by grcumb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      On the other hand, EVERY area on earth with a predominately black population is a poor violent ghetto.

      In the Jamaican neighbourhoods in Toronto to Haitian enclaves in Montreal, the greatest danger you face is burning your tongue on some jerk chicken. In the Muslim banlieues in Paris, you're no more likely to face violence than anywhere else. In most of Africa—the vast majority of the 'black' world—you're safer than in any American city.

      I live in a town that's 95% black. I don't even close the windows or lock the doors on my car at night. I can walk away from my bag containing $10K in photographic gear, and not even turn my head. The only thing I get tired of is people's friendliness and desire to chat all the time. True story: A young man stole a tourist's hand bag a while ago. The story made the front page of the newspaper. That's how rare crime is here.

      In fact, you can pretty much trace violence in black American (North, Central and South) communities to the legacy of the slave trade, to racial inequality that has led to economic inequality and chronic injustice. There's a strong correlation there. In countries such as Brasil, where the economic inequality was not necessarily race-based, you find more equal-opportunity crime and predation. In Mexico and elsewhere, you find the problems exist primarily where indigenous people are clustered.

      TL;DR: You don't have a clue what you're talking about, you ignorant fuckwit. Wilful ignorance such as yours only perpetuates the problem.

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
    11. Re:You don't say... by lgw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Free speech only extends to hate speech. "Freedom of agreeable speech" is nonsense. It's only deeply offensive speech that needs "freedom of" in the first place.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    12. Re:You don't say... by rockout · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For the millionth time, nobody disallowed these assholes their freedom of speech. You can chant whatever racist things you want to chant, and you won't go to jail for it. You won't even be forced by a court to pay a fine.

      However, freedom of speech doesn't mean "I get to say whatever I want and not face any consequences from society after I say it." If you're a racist asshole, and you make your racist assholery public, expect the public to treat you like a racist asshole. There's a reason these guys are only chanting that bullshit on a bus, and not out in the open in the quad. They know they're racist assholes, and they know if they spew this bullshit in public, they'll have to face repercussions. Which they now are. Exactly the right thing happened in this case.

      --
      I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
  2. My two cents... by ckatko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The guys were racist, they got the hammer of justice thrown at them. They suffered consequences and will have to deal with and learn from them. Case closed.

    Not all men are now magically racist, nor college students, nor frats. The system doesn't need to change. Everything worked as intended.
    Personally, I don't think we need to make every event that happens into some huge debate over whether our culture is circling the drain and chanting, "There needs to be a law!".

    That's just my opinion. Feel free to disagree, and I hope you have a good day.

    1. Re:My two cents... by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The guys were racist, they got the hammer of justice thrown at them.

      One problem there - In the US, you have every right to hold racist views. You can't act on them in certain protected contexts, but you can rant day in and day out about hating blacks or Jews or Asians or, yes, even Whites.

      Now, I have no problem with the university choosing not to support a racist organization - If I attended OSU, I'd much rather the university disband the entire "Greek" system (see? I have a right to that particular prejudice, except I won't find myself homeless a week from now as a result). But talking about expulsion and searching frantically for actual crimes to charge them with, for singing a stupid racist song?

      No. We need to collectively get a fucking grip, and move on. Stupid kids doing stupid things.

    2. Re:My two cents... by bws111 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You do realize that the 'hammer of justice' came from their own organization, right? You also realize that they used the name of the organization in their stupid little chant, which reflects very poorly on the organization, right?

      What is 'disproportionate' about the organization not wanting to be associated with these morons?

    3. Re:My two cents... by bobbied · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Mod parent up!

      They have the FIRST AMENDMENT right to say and chant anything they want. As long as they are not inciting a riot or stirring up violence or breaking the law by others, they have the right to hold any opinion and express that opinion.

      What we need to realize is that this freedom of speech we have means that the other guy (or gal) has the right to offend me with their opinions, because if you restrict THEIR speech based upon your being offended, then there really is no freedom of speech anymore; you have the thought police then. We need thicker skins and a large doses of tolerance, not restrictions on speech.

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    4. Re:My two cents... by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do folks keep on bringing up the First Amendment when people act like clowns?

      1) the first amendment only prevents the government from slapping you down. This was a slapdown by a private entity.

      2) Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of consequences. Act like a clown, expect them to slap a clown suit on you.

  3. Re:My two cents... Black Racism is out of Control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Black racism is "socially accepted." Some drunk white dude says the N word under his breath, and the AG, President, race-baiting Sharpton and Jackson shows up, and the entire white population is put in the same bucket as a drunk frat boy.

    Blacks calling whites crackers, making fun of them in rap music, ostracizing and subjecting whites to crime in "their" neighborhoods and constantly falsely accusing whites as being racists and "the man" and keeping them down,etc.

    Dude, black fatigue. Im sick of it. And I'm sick of the horrible near totality of racism blacks have for whites and nobody calls them on it. Black racism and black racketeering to milk the system AND keep the majority of blacks on the modern welfare plantation is more of a policy of those the blacks vote for and their own broken fatherless homes and broken crime-ridden graffiti-ridden communities than anything whites do.

    Blacks kill more blacks by far than whites.

  4. Re:What else will Cameraphones ruin? by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm waiting for the gangsta rappers and make believe, wanna be thugs to be ruined for their racist, anti-gay, misogynistic, anti-social, violent cliched rants. You'd think with all of the cameras out there it would have happened already. Ahhh, right. When they say it, it's art. When anyone else says the exact same thing, it's a hate crime. Got it.

  5. Re:Wow... by ScentCone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I guess the proto-Republicans don't fall far from their daddy's apple tree.

    Remind me again which party was the one perpetuating segregation and doing everything possible at the legislative and executive level in the south to prevent the progress of the civil rights movement? Oh, right, it was democrats. Remind me again which movement was championing mandatory sterilization of inferior women, eugenics, and other charming Master Race type strategies? Oh, right, it was the founding Progressives - a group that to this day is absolutely obsessed with labeling people, keeping minorities in low-class government dependency, and anxious at every turn to lock down free speech when people don't agree with them.

    The inheritors of those groups - contemporary Democrats and Progressives - haven't really changed their outlook a bit. They're entirely about thinking the least of minorities, and proclaiming their own elites as the group best suited to tend to them, like zoo animals, through the establishment and maintenance of an elaborate nanny state that knows best how to nurse them along. It was odious from the beginning, and still is. Jackass frat boys deserve the scorn they earn. Truly insidious left power mongers deserve a lot worse for the decades of misery they're proud to perpetuate.

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
  6. Re:My two cents... Black Racism is out of Control by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 3, Insightful

    not all white men are the heads of companies, running Fortune 500 companies, congressional officials, police chiefs, etc.

    But very few non-white, non-men are.

    That's why. It's not racism because when a black person calls you names to hurt your feelings, they also don't have the weight of systemic racial biases behind it. They call you names and that's it.

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  7. Re:Bad from the top down by sound+vision · · Score: 1, Insightful

    9 deaths in 9 years? Is that supposed to be shocking?

  8. Wrong argument by s.petry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the premise is false then the conclusion is most likely false. Similarly, if the premise is exclusionary then the conclusion will also be exclusionary. I do realize that "white males" are the favorite punching bag for claims of discrimination, but the point is that discrimination is everywhere and employed by all sorts of people. Women hating on men, blacks hating on whites, Christians hating on Muslims, Muslims hating on non-Muslims, etc.. etc..

    The problem is exacerbated by media who keeps issues in the spotlights, occasionally even inventing them. This is one of many ways that the powerful remain in power.. by making us bicker with each other.

    If you doubt that discrimination is universal then visit a place like Saudi Arabia carrying a Bible and wearing a cross. Go to Harlem, Detroit, Compton, etc.. if you are white. Tell just about anyone that you are Jewish if you are. That we make a big deal of these differences 2,500 years after we should know better is a different issue (referring to Plato's "The Republic").

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  9. Re:What else will Cameraphones ruin? by nobuddy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We will know that the persecution of Christians in America has finally ended when we get a Christian President. Or 44 of them in a row.

  10. Re:My two cents... Black Racism is out of Control by Jon_S · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right. Because chanting "you can hang them from a tree" is more or less equivalent to calling a white person a cracker.

    Note, the above is sarcasm, which usually doesn't come through on the internet.

  11. The scariest part... by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The scariest part of this, to me, is the sheer number of people, who chose to post here anonymously...

    Clearly, the fear of being prosecuted for thought-crimes is wide-spread... Among Whites.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  12. Re:My two cents... Black Racism is out of Control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Black racism is "socially accepted." Some drunk white dude says the N word under his breath, and the AG, President, race-baiting Sharpton and Jackson shows up, and the entire white population is put in the same bucket as a drunk frat boy.

    Blacks calling whites crackers, making fun of them in rap music, ostracizing and subjecting whites to crime in "their" neighborhoods and constantly falsely accusing whites as being racists and "the man" and keeping them down,etc.

    Dude, black fatigue. Im sick of it. And I'm sick of the horrible near totality of racism blacks have for whites and nobody calls them on it. Black racism and black racketeering to milk the system AND keep the majority of blacks on the modern welfare plantation is more of a policy of those the blacks vote for and their own broken fatherless homes and broken crime-ridden graffiti-ridden communities than anything whites do.

    Blacks kill more blacks by far than whites.

    You're a fool.

    When any black person can make a phone call to the Police, give them a _description_ of a generic white person, and put innocent white lives at risk, talk me to death about the social acceptance of black racism. When enough blacks are in positions of management to deny white people opportunities because they feel that for arbitrary reasons, they just don't fit in, talk me to death about the social acceptance of black racism. When white people feel compelled to alter their natural appearance chemically or otherwise to "appear acceptable" or otherwise "make it in a corporate America", talk me to death about the acceptance of black racism.

    The bottom line is despite supposedly being "equal" and ENTITLED TO "equal treatment under the law" SO SAYETH the CONSTITUTION OF THESE UNITED STATES, black survival in America is STILL largely dependent upon the comfort level whites have with them. While many whites today may not be the racists that their ancestors living A MERE GENERATION AGO were (and make no mistake there remain plenty of whites who ARE EVERY BIT the racists their ancestors were), THIS ESSENTIAL FACT is as true today as it was during SLAVERY.

    >>>>Blacks kill more blacks by far than whites.

    To assert that blacks kill more blacks by far than whites is meaningless and stupid due to the fact that people commit crimes where they LIVE. White people kill more of each other by far than blacks kill whites... and in China, Chinese people kill more of each other by far than whites OR blacks kill Chinese. That's the easy observation made by people who ride the short bus and watch Faux News. They're also typically the same people who claim to want a small government with a BIG MILITARY empowered to make laws governing the _social_ behavior of everyone else.

    I'll say this, and say it daring anyone to challenge it:

    Black people in America are amongst THE MOST PEACEFUL PEOPLE within its borders.

    How can I say that? Because if white people were subjected to a TINY FRACTION of the bullsh*t they've subjected black people to OVER HUNDREDS OF YEARS AND CONTINUING TO THIS VERY DAY, they'd have burned this country to the ground a long time ago. America itself was essentially founded over a TAX DISPUTE, just imagine if the English had been forcing the colonists to work from sun-up to sun-down for free while denying them their BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS?

    YET AND STILL, despite the slight, the wrong, or the indignity, BLACK PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT PEACEFUL PROTEST. Al Sharpton comes to your town to _DISCUSS_ HIS GRIEVANCES. Black people are ALWAYS talking about DEMONSTRATING PEACEFULLY... and WHY NOT? IN AMERICA, BLACK PEOPLE IMPORTED THE CONCEPT OF PEACEFUL PROTEST. They looked to Ghandi and thought: GREAT IDEA! In contrast, what happens when white people feel slighted? THEY ARE USUALLY THE FIRST TO REACH FOR THEIR GUNS, to SING THE PRAISES OF THE 2ND AMENDMENT, and to threaten violence against this government for supposedly infringing upon their freedom (mainly to be assh*les to everyon

  13. Re:What else will Cameraphones ruin? by epyT-R · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Not a troll because I'm not trying to incite anger. I get labeled as such by moderators who don't have rational counters.

    Yeah, meanwhile, feminists like oprah, the loons on the 'view', and race baiters like al sharpton are in front of the cameras generalizing and stereotyping their targets for all to see in public view. Which is worse? I don't have issue with neocons being called out for bigotry, but the left seems to think it is exempt from the same criticism. The only thing worse than a racist is one who accuses others of the same.

  14. Re: Wow... by TapeCutter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    African Americans routinely vote well over 90 percent Democratic for fear that Republicans will cut their government benefits and welfare programs.

    Interesting historical facts which I accept on face value, but then you fuck it up by claiming you can read the minds of blacks.

    Before LBJ's Great Society welfare programs, the black illegitimacy rate was as low as 23 percent, but now it has more than tripled to 72 percent.

    My first child, now 35, was technically illegitimate. I ask you the same question I asked my parents in 1979 - Why is that a problem?

    Every political party has its racists.

    You should have stopped there, the rest of your post is just a twisted apology for your own political party.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.