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Black Students Take Over University; "Real Pain, Real Change"
Topic Started: Feb 27 2010, 12:51 AM (11,270 Views)
Joan Foster

I thought about writing a long response to your post, Carolyn, and detailing much odious behavior I see in "White" culture...or articulating the many things I admire in "Black culture" but what would be the point?

It's evident you speak for a vast majority of this Board.... as it exists today.

The invitation here is not in dispute. But, the majority of criticism, or even outrage is directed at those who were the brunt of that invitation. The majority of you hold back...to call out the White kids WHO STARTED THIS. Like the 88, you can't see or "listen" beyond your own issues. You have successfully swung this around to Black Culture.

"Black Culture" did not send out the invitation. Some reprehensible part of White Culture did.

I have a long history with this Board and a sincere fondness for many here...BUT I didn't get involved here to be on a Board to air my grievances against any race. In my youth, civil rights was the issue I cared most about. My anger, disappointment and disillusionment has been with seeing a new reverse racism, a ridiculous state of political correctness that has sold out the goal of bringing us together...and destroyed much of the Dream.

Will posts like Carolyn's... on a thread about a real incident of Racism... bring us together? Yeah, just like a Barry Saunders column brings us around.

Here we have an inexcusable situation...a party with no purpose other than to demean others, hurt others. And so many here just want to focus on ridiculing the aftermath and overlooking the "culture" of the kind of white kids who would sponsor this? Or remind me...it's a free country. I didn't see LEO posting that same defense of the 88 or the demonstrators who were "not waiting." What are we griping about them for...it's a free country? What should be done to them...LEO agrees with Brodhead.... nothing.

It's easier to pick out the mote in the other guy's eye...to "rant" about Black culture, isn't it? What is the upbringing of those who feel entitled to hurt others for sport? Who find this "humorous." Where you raised that this was how we treat each other? That this was somehow acceptable? How about these kids , Carolyn, "taking responsibility" for their actions too? I see a "thug mentality" here as well. What a pathetic manifestation of White Culture. I mean you sweep everyone from Compton into your condemnation of Black culture...may I smear every white kid on fraternity row?

Your "facts" are wrong as well, Carolyn. The students "erupted" over this hideous insulting party. The noose incident took it to a new level. I have no problem with understanding why. I am amazed that you do.

I've volunteered in enough areas of town , in different capacities to know that kids in many of these areas are just trying to fit in, get by, survive. The answer is not to ridicule and isolate and ask children to join in laughing at the way their parent or friend presents himself. You don't tear a kid down and expect to gain trust...and it takes trust to change. Get out and interact with children living in these areas. Use what you have to try to help them have alternatives. And get out to Appalachia too..where you will see all the same social problems and young men styling themselves as thugs, and 16 year olds going to prison and 13 year olds having babies...and the hip hop affectations ...but their faces are WHITE, Carolyn.

I'm sure this post will just provoke more ridicule at the Black students hurt by this party...and more slams and finger pointing at them and away from those responsible.

I see now that when I write a piece like The LS Listening Statement or any piece on this Board ...it doesn't stand on its own. It is enveloped by the tone and sentiments of this thread and posts like Carolyn's...so therefore it takes on an aura I would never intend...and actually abhor.



Edited by Joan Foster, Feb 28 2010, 10:28 AM.
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Baldo
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Like I said, treat others as you would want to be treated. That invitation was rude and I can't imagine any college organization sending it out in today's environment. IMHO most people wouldn't have sent it out 40 years ago either. I went to the UC System in the late 60's and I couldn't imagine any fraternity doing that then. It is an insult. So what happens when you insult people? Some shake their heads, some get mad, and some throw a punch back.

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Mason
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Parts unknown
.
I don't agree with all the posts on here either. I certainly don't think that all black people are alike or that they should all pay a price for the behavior of some. Most have not a thing to do with this.

Having said that, I don't want to dive on the media and social bandwagon to make this an overly-emotional issue that we can't discuss because people get so upset when someone tries to air their opinion that doesn't support black people wholeheartedly and all their actions. Like the Columbia professor that attacked a female co-worker because she didn't agree enough with his position on race.
Maybe some strike back when you disagree with them, but the law needs to be applied and those people need to be charged. Academia endlessly suggests mandatory classes and sensitivity training - yet there's a dearth of people suggesting that these fine young lads are trained in how to deal with people that dare to take a view opposed to their own. I suggest that punching someone in the face - and taking over school offices with 32 demands (demands the media suspiciously hasn't published, to my knowledge) is not the proper way for these young people to behave.

The group dynamics thing is hard for some to understand. For instance, I believe it's much more hurtful for someone to say - Joe Buck you are fat and lazy, rather than someone saying white people are fat and lazy. These people injured so were not called out specifically but they seemingly took offense to a subsection of a race being termed negatively.
I also believe that the horrible track record of the media, academia, and the race pimps makes thinking people very wary of investing emotionally when so many of the claims turn out to be hoaxes. When so many of the campaigns turn out to be money driven.

These are state-run schools, schools paid for with tax-payer money. If kids on campus or on facebook call my kid fat repeatedly - and I inform the school, they are going to say, that's too bad, but what do you want us to do? What do we have to do with this? However, if some black people are generically insulted, the school should launch investigations and search private web-sites and investigate off-campus activities? That is not fair; that is not right.

Why would my kids face charges if they took over the school offices for something important to them, but these darlings get some demands met and ultimately are rewarded?

Sounds simple - but there's something wrong when my and your kids can't do it without getting arrested or facing sanctions - and others can. Something is terribly wrong.

Does Jersey Shore perpetuate negative stereotypes? Is it hurtful to some?

What school is going to investigate black students behavior off-site and in their off-time? We know the answer there.

The cookout has been widely criticized and denounced. History tells us that state-level politicians, and maybe national level politicians will get involved and see that some are punished and marred. I don't think there's any shortage of people that are going to go after those kids. Recent history also tells us any non-white individual involved will be preserved and protected, they will be sure not to run down any of the good people in the race to attack these no-good kids.

Yeah, and why do the schools allow black rappers to come in and sing at school events when their lyrics mimic the language used by the hated white kids? Why do they allow and pay black comedians to perform that insult people in the non-protected races?

Maybe some of these kids see the double-standards and see through the hypocrisy.

Finally, isn't it worrisome that college age kids have learned the Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson shakedown routine? They've learned that community organizers take and they don't give back, they learned the 2% can control the 98% and can even run them broke. They learned it's better to live off the public largess than to pay taxes.

.









Edited by Mason, Feb 28 2010, 12:21 PM.
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Texas Mom

Joan, I hesitate to respond because I know I risk our friendship if I disagree with your opinion on this matter. I have reread this entire thread and accessed the links here, trying to decide what I believe to be true. Ultimately, I must agree that the facts surrounding parts of this (most particularly, the noose incident) are being purposely obscured. If the noose was placed by a black student, it ceases to be a “racist” symbol, but the university will not disclose the race of the student, so it is ASSUMED by some that it was a white student. Yet, frequently, we have seen ‘racist incidents” exposed as frauds, perpetrated by the very people who are yelling “racism.” I agree with Carolyn and Mason, yet I understand your feelings related to your goddaughter. I cannot know how she feels and whether she thinks the party was "racist."

Insofar as the invitation itself is concerned, the party was tasteless, crude, and stupid. However, I also felt the same way about a party, given by an acquaintance, which she called “A White Trash Party.” Attire was to be too-tight clothing of all types- short shorts, wife-beaters, dirty bra straps, pink hair curlers (you know the ones, ladies), blacked out teeth, pimples, dirty fingernails, and leopard print on anything. I feel certain that there are similar instances of crude and mocking parties given surrounding other identifiable groups. In fact, there was a huge controversy at a private school here over football captains dressing up as female cheerleaders- the LGBT club objected. I ALWAYS hated it when my mother would hit me with her cliché, “No one can make you feel inferior without your CONSENT,” but she was right. I don't self-identify as "white trash" but I thought the party was tacky.

I watched the latest interview with Bill Cosby, the one with which some people wanted to label him as “losing it.” Instead, I thought that he was about to go off on “ghetto/gansta/rap” culture again, when his publicist tried to shush him, thus breaking his train of thought. It has taken Cosby years to reclaim his status with the black community because he has taken the ghetto culture to task. His publisher didn’t want him to chastise the black community and reopen the controversy again. Listen to Charles Payne’s story sometime about growing up in Harlem and being so proud when his mother was able to give him a plastic briefcase and calculator. When he took it to school, the calculator was stolen and the lock broken on the briefcase. He was mocked for “acting white” and told that he could never be the businessman he wanted to become. He proved them wrong! He lived IN the ghetto, but he wasn't "ghetto."

The ghetto/gansta culture NEEDS to be called out and not celebrated as it is currently. This party was not the way to do it. It is the “culture” that bred Crystal Mangum and the “boys” who killed Eve Carson. I feel compassion for neither. Not all blacks are “ghetto” and not all whites are “white trash.” I don’t believe that any one race has a monopoly on corruption or good works. Anyone who truly believes in the “content of your character” mantra will not be offended by pointing out the bad behavior of others who just happen to share your skin color.
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Carolyn says
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Two years ago, a black reporter for the New York Times, Bill Maxwell, became a professor at Stillman College (a small black college in Tuscaloosa) in order to teach and mentor needy students in the same way he'd been mentored himself years earlier. Maxwell stuck it out for two years - than collapsed under the horror of what he was forced to endure. His honesty and his integrity compelled him to write about that ghastly experience in two articles poignantly entitled "I had a Dream" and "The Dream Lay Dying". The NY Times refused to print either article. Here they are.

"I had a Dream" Part One.

http://www.sptimes.com//2007/05/13/Opinion/I_had_a_dream.shtml

"A Dream lay Dying" Part Two.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/05/20/Opinion/A_dream_lay_dying.shtml

In the first article, Maxwell described entering the campus to drive past gangs of young thugs who wore "baggy pants, oversized white T-shirts, expensive sneakers and assorted bling standing around shooting the breeze. At least two had "jailhouse tats" on their arms, crude tattoos suggesting that these young men had spent time behind bars. They carried no books or anything else to indicate they were on a college campus."

When Maxwell entered the class, several of the thugs were there and the rest were horsing around. Things got worse when Maxwell demanded the students write an essay in order for him to assess their writing abilities. The students erupted, saying their high school English teacher "had let students spend most of their time discussing current events and writing short paragraphs. They wrote one essay all term." The papers these students wrote were atrocious - bad spelling, sloppy syntax, meandering sentences and no coherence. When Maxwell informed the students of how poor their work was, many left and didn't return.

Things got worse - the students refused to not only read the text for the course, they refused to buy it even when it was paid for by school vouchers. When Maxwell marched 26 of them to the school bookstore to use their vouchers to buy the books, many students didn't follow. The ones that did wandered through the store deliberately refusing to pick the book up and buy it. Even when Maxwell bought 2 copies of the text out of his own pocket for the students to check out the students flatly refused to read it. Besides not reading the text, the students didn't show up for class. A painful joke Maxwell heard when he sat in his classroom waiting 20 minutes for anyone to show was that the students were on CPT - "Colored People's Time". Even when the students were in class, they didn't pay attention. "I hardly ever saw anyone take notes during lectures in the English class. Instead, I had to regularly chastise students for text messaging their friends and relatives and for going online to read messages and send messages."

And things only got worse the second year.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/05/20/Opinion/A_dream_lay_dying.shtml

Maxwell began assigning his students to the school newspaper in desperate hopes of inciting an interest in journalism. "With a campus newsroom, we assumed that our students would begin to take the profession seriously and would love hanging out in their own space....We soon learned that we had been naive. Nothing changed. Students rarely came to the newsroom except for classes. The majority preferred to socialize with their friends during their spare time, and others knew that one way to avoid an assignment for the newspaper was to avoid the newsroom where story leads and tips were posted on the bulletin board."

The thuggish mentality of the students was also a problem. Many were gang members or ex-cons - one was shot on campus shortly before his trial for rape began. After his death, countless female students admitted how the dead man had terrified them. The dead man's mentality was echoed in too many of the students. As Maxwell writes in despair:

Instead of taking pride in being exemplary students, many were devotees of hip-hop culture. They were anti-intellectual, rude and profane...I always was amazed that so many of the women tolerated the crude way the men spoke to them. One afternoon in my English class, a male student called a young woman "a big-assed ugly bitch." I expected her to slap him, and I would not have intervened. Instead, she dismissed the whole thing with a wave of her hand and turned to chat with her roommate....The lesson was clear and disheartening: Personal insult, crude language and threatening behavior were a way of life for many students. I saw this kind of exchange repeated dozens of times in the classroom and on The Yard. I had no doubt that the influences of hip-hop contributed greatly to this ugly reality and other deleterious trends.

And Maxwell also encountered abuse from the college staff. When he went in to complete a form, the staff was openly hostile to him. "...the majority of (them) were middle-aged to older black women with local roots. Instead of feeling like a professor, someone of relative importance and value, I felt insignificant. Even worse, students routinely experienced similar problems...In an essay, a female student wrote: "Each time I go to the financial aid office, I get my feelings hurt. The ladies behind the counter talk to you like you're dirt. I hate to go in there. They don't know how to treat people, and they don't try to help you. They make everything so hard. My mother said they're just a bunch of sadiddy Ni*gers, and I shouldn't worry about it. But I have to worry. They give me my check or they don't give me my check. You better not make them mad."...Many of my colleagues agreed. They told me that much of our students' hostility was the result of the constant rudeness and humiliation they experienced while trying to do something as routine and essential as completing the right forms for a loan or a grant."

"While disagreeable staff members and financial red tape were constant irritants, nothing was more appalling than the students' disregard for college property...During the spring semester, the Tuscaloosa Fire Department put out trash can fires in King Hall. I was angry and embarrassed to see a team of white firefighters trying to save a dormitory named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that black students had trashed...I went inside the dorm to see the damage. Students had stuffed trash cans with paper and fabric and set them on fire. The smoke damage was enormous. The walls were blackened, the windows were smudged and the pungent smell of smoke lingered and stuck to everything...Even without the fire damage, the place would have looked like a war zone. Holes had been kicked and punched in the walls. Windows were broken, floors were scarred and most of the furniture was damaged. The two dorms routinely underwent major repairs after each semester."

In the end, Maxwell simply could not tolerate it any longer; he left. His integrity and honesty, however, compelled him to write of the devastating destruction which the ghetto/gangsta culture inflicts on American blacks. As I've said, however, the New York Times refused to publish it. As the media painfully makes clear, it will write endlessly and loudly of what the white culture does to the blacks - but it will NOT write of what the black culture does to itself. For the bulk of the media, THAT kind of news is not 'fit to print'.

Edited by Carolyn says, Feb 28 2010, 03:20 PM.
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Joan Foster

Tony, it's context.

You know that I agree with you absolutely on the MSM. I agree with questioning the noose. What hurt me...and that is truly the word I want to use...is that so many here avoided dealing with the cruelty of that invitation...the culture that made so many of these kids think they could demean other students on that campus from a poor city.

These Black students are right to be furious.

I'm upset that they were the targets of this and then, suddenly, THEY are in the wrong. I'm frustrated that unless we are willing to call out racism when it is so obvious...we are never going to get to what we should all want...a time when all the nonsense that divides us is over.

If we have a culture where we are forever excusing our kids...nothing gets better.

Maybe you think a difference of opinion on this is a small matter...but it seems like a very big matter to me.

If "civility" is an issue here...aren't the rest of you disgusted at the incivility of those boorish oafs that planned this?
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retiredLEO
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Here is the DVD the Jigga Jones is pushing, being released on May 16.

http://www.realfights.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=JJ

Here is the organizers web site:

http://www.jiggaboojones.com/
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Joan Foster

I read that invitation and I see some young person from Compton who has overcome so many obstacles to get there. Probably cannot afford a fraternity. Maybe some one he loves is part of that "culture" but he or she has gotten himself into a good school. Still think how those words would hurt.

Whyever should he have to ever take that kind of abuse...read that trashy invitation..in the name of a party?

I'd be there protesting with him.
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Concerned
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JJones has a youtube video out explaining how the Compton party was mainly for his supporters (and promotion of his DVD). He claims that many of the students turned away from the door were some that protested and turned the event into a racial controversy. I won't post a link as I could hardly stand the MF and the N word repetitivly.

This guy is totally profane and claims not to be racist. I can't believe they had this guy! Lord have mercy!



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Texas Mom

Joan, I admire the heck out of you and I love reading what you write. I value your "friendship" even though we have never met. I need to ask you a question that you may not like. If you become angry with me and decide I am unworthy of your friendship, I am sorry.

Why are you taking responsibility for your goddaughter's feelings? If she reads these boards, she can make her own decisions about different posters and different posts. If she is the talented and well-educated young woman that I perceive her to be from your few mentions of her, she may be just as offended by the hip hop/rap/ghetto culture as most respectable people are- black AND white. I suspect that your goddaughter can take care of her own feelings and that you do her no service by thinking that she isn't capable of separating the wheat from the chafe on this matter. Her opinion belongs to her alone, not to you nor to me nor to anyone else posting here. Again, I say, "No one can make you feel inferior, WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT."

The party invitation was crude- the people who designed the party have achieved their goal- lots of publicity. The students who used this as an excuse to bully the school are doing nothing very different than we've seen over and over again throughout our lifetimes. I have never been to Compton and know nothing about the neighborhood or the people who live there. This labeling of racism must stop.
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Joan Foster

Tex, you don't offend me. You are indeed my friend.

I'm not "taking responsibility" for her feelings. In truth, one of the gifts she has given me, is to see a little of the world through her eyes. I value that. I NEED that. Last Christmas, Gone with the Wind was on...and she mentioned..gently...that she found the movie offensive. I was stunned! My favorite! Then, with her and through her, I saw how Blacks were portrayed. I got it.

She read some of the stuff I wrote for the Team. At a dinner party, to tease me the host said..."Okay...we have to ask...how do you feel about Duke Lacrosee?" and she said "INNOCENT!"

When I wrote I would try to re-read and think...did I go too far here? She was the measuring rod I used. No, I would never want to hurt her. But I don't think I've exactly held back in my opinions in writing for the Blog and occasionally these days, long posts for the Board. But I hope that her presence in my life, her influence...is present in what I write too.

I have surely failed sometimes. But I don't want to deliberately fail. I don't want to think that "Black culture" can be defined here in an overreaching way and I was so concerned to be liked by certain Internet folks...that I just stayed silent. I would be ashamed to present myself that way to her.

So to be true to that. I had to go against the grain here.

It's interesting to me that a Board...including me...who does not trust the MSM...trusts this Black Rapper. Why? Because he mitigates the guilt of the White organizers? Not for me he doesn't.

I give these dolts no excuses...as I gave no excuses to the 88.

I'm not trying to convince any of you of anything anymore. I recognize the futility. Things change. Let's give Tony his peaceful afternoon.



Edited by Joan Foster, Feb 28 2010, 06:02 PM.
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jewelcove

Joan,

I have always appreciated your compassion, your sense of honor and justice, as well as your wit and your wisdom. You have always been an example to me of a person of outstanding character and grace.

I see you viewing this through your strong sense of compassion, and empathy. I admire that.
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Texas Mom

Perhaps, if we quit using terminology like "Black" culture, or "White" culture or "Asian" culture or "Hispanic" culture we'd start to make some progress. Perhaps we need to just have a "history" month and teach ALL of the idiot children about the history and traditions of ALL of our cultures that went into making up this nation.
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DMom

(one small voice)

continuing this thread is not helpful to anyone, my opinion only :offtobed:
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LTC8K6
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
Who wrote the invitation?

I think that needs to be established.

Quote:
 
Pi Kappa Alpha Denies Any Involvement With Party:

The UCSD chapter of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity denies any association with the controversial "Compton Cookout" party held by a "group of [UCSD] students", identified by the University. Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) strongly condemns such actions and prejudices as the fraternity prides itself of representing a diverse cross-section of the UCSD student body.

This party was not a Pike event, nor was it endorsed by the fraternity. The fraternity regrets the display of ignorance and error-of-judgment made by any individual members who may have attended or were associated via social-media with the racially-offensive party. These actions are in direct violation of Pike's code of conduct, and appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken with such members.

While Pi Kappa Alpha accepts no direct involvement in the planning of this party, the fraternity encourages all in attendance to reach out to the African American community, as well as the UCSD community at large, with a sincere and effective reconciliation program. Such a program will be focused toward the education and individual growth of the chapter members relating to cultural awareness at UCSD.

The Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity at UCSD has proudly represented the ideals of diversity, scholarship, leadership, athletics and gentlemanly conduct on the UCSD campus since 1997.

Garron Engstrom
President, Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity - UCSD Chapter
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