Posted on 12/09/2003 8:12:36 PM PST by StopGlobalWhining
Penn State College Republicans chair Brian Battaglia issued an apology yesterday for offense taken at photographs posted last week on his Web site.
"While we stand staunchly behind our freedom to express ourselves in a lawful manner, after contemplation, we understand that the content of the Web site was offensive to members of our community," Battaglia said during a press conference yesterday in the HUB-Robeson Center.
Controversy arose last week after members of the Black Caucus found photographs on Battaglia's Web site taken at a Halloween party hosted at Battaglia's apartment.
The photographs showed a white man in blackface depicting Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Vice President Takkeem Morgan, an "oversodomized frat pledge," and made a reference to the Ku Klux Klan.
Battaglia said the organization's officers met with Vice President of Student Affairs Vicky Triponey Friday to discuss forming an open forum between the College Republicans, Black Caucus, Allies, USG and the Interfraternity Council.
Black Caucus held its own press conference at noon, at which members of the offended organizations responded to the situation.
In front of about 300 people, Black Caucus Vice President Anesha Ali said she would accept the College Republicans' apology through actions, not words.
"Apologies may come, and while resignations may come, institutional change on behalf of the university is the only acceptable outcome to this situation," she said.
Ali called the situation the first episode of its nature at University Park, but added it is not an isolated incident, referring to threats sent to Black Caucus officers in spring 2001 and this semester's highly publicized sexual assaults.
Among requests made yesterday were that all organizations add the university's anti-discrimination statement to their constitutions and a review of the College Republicans by the College Republican National Committee.
University spokesman Tysen Kendig said the apology is a "positive first step," but it only happened after the group was urged to do so by university officials.
Allies President Sara Ryan said she was concerned about the photographs depicting an "oversodomized frat pledge" because it is an insult to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied community at the university.
"This happened only a few weeks after anti-gay fliers were placed all over campus and on the Allies office door by the same group advertising their Conservative Coming Out Day," she said.
I don't think he should be expelled but I also don't want to see this nonsense associated with the Republican party. Too many blacks believe that the Republican party is racist. They don't need confirmation of their worst fears.
I'm sick of white students being singled out and persecuted for speech found to be not politically correct while non-white students are not only allowed to offend white students with impunity, but are congratulated for it by their professors
Apparently you've never heard the saying, "Two wrongs don't make a right."
Apparently, you have no problem with such a double standard.
I don't know about the person you were replying to but, personally, I have no problem at all, in part because it isn't really a double standard at all. It is simply having standards. Period. I hold conservatives to a higher standard than the freaks on the left. They are freaks because they have no standards and have no class. Just because the left acts like freaks is no reason for conservatives to emulate them and if we find their freakish behavior unacceptable coming from them, we should find it unacceptable coming from our own.
But I do.
No. You simply think that bad behavior on the part of the opposition justifies bad behavior by people on your side. You need to pay more attention to the fact that it's bad behavior, no matter who does it, and that their freakish bad behavior is what makes helps make those on the left such a menace. The "anything our side does is good" is what let the left turn a blind eye to the murder of 100 million people in the last century. No thanks. I hold conservatives to a higher standard than that.
In fairness, I don't think they dressed up as KKK members. That particular bit appeared in a picture caption. But the blackface is bad enough, no matter what the intent.
Offended conservatives are laughed at and ridiculed, as in the case of the death threat made by the black student in which the Penn State "...police decided that Black Caucus members were voicing opinions but were not disorderly."
This is a disgrace. If a white student had threatened the life of a black student at Penn State, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackon would be all over TV demanding a federal investigation and protection for the black students.
And to you people out there opining on how the College Republicans should have acted, what they did was on their own personal website, and their party took place off campus.
It's none of the University's business!
I am, too. But here we have a student who is strongly identified with the Republican Party and conservatives who is either so racist or clueless that he does not realize that blackface is offensive to more than just the lunatic left. Do you think that blackface is an appropriate Halloween costume for a white student in the 21st Century?
Offended conservatives are laughed at and ridiculed, as in the case of the death threat made by the black student in which the Penn State "...police decided that Black Caucus members were voicing opinions but were not disorderly."
So rather than take the moral high ground, they should prove that they are bigger bigots than the Black Caucus?
This is a disgrace. If a white student had threatened the life of a black student at Penn State, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackon would be all over TV demanding a federal investigation and protection for the black students.
So we should emulate Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson by running to the defense of white students, no matter what they do, and excuse their behavior, no matter what it is? You are telling me that we should adopt the very behavior that makes these people unworthy of respect?
And to you people out there opining on how the College Republicans should have acted, what they did was on their own personal website, and their party took place off campus.
It's none of the University's business!
No, but it is my business, because it is conservatives and Republicans that they are hurting. They are confirming many blacks' worst fears that the Republican Party is filled with closet racists.
Please spare me the freedom lecture. Yes, what these students did was not illegal and they should not be expelled but they have no business acting as spokesmen for conservatives and the Republican Party if they don't grasp that the KKK and blackface are not any more funny that a crucifix in urine or a gay activist in a Dick Cheney mask pretending to sodomize another activist in a George W. Bush mask. Legitimate free speech? Yes. Behavior I'd want to be associated with? No thanks.
The left may give Jesse Jackson a pass for talking about "Hymie Town" but I don't want to stoop to their level. They are no class opportunists for whom I have contempt and I have no desire to emulate their situational ethics. When people on Free Republic start citing Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson as role-models whose behavior conservatives should emulate, something is very wrong. I understand your anger over the double standard but the answer is to continue to demand that they raise their standards, not that we lower ours. I don't want to stand arm and arm with people who have the ethics of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Conservatives are better than that, or should be.
I am not going to allow myself to become offended because someone else may have been offended by actions that someone else became offended by, whether it be perceived racist, insulting homosexuals, Femi-Nazis, or even Conservatives.
Since I've never owned a slave, harrassed a homosexual or a Femi-Nazi, I feel free of guilt. However, I do admit to offending liberals in general with my words.
I feel pretty comfortable about that.
One can be true to their convictions without acting like an obnoxious jerk or a freak. Or do you consider good manners incompatible with being a Conservative?
I am not going to allow myself to become offended because someone else may have been offended by actions that someone else became offended by, whether it be perceived racist, insulting homosexuals, Femi-Nazis, or even Conservatives.
I'm not offended by the blackface because others were offended. I'm offended by the blackface, myself, because it is offensive. It is as offensive as a Crucifix in urine. A Crucifix in urine isn't offensive because it offends Christians. It is offensive because it is rude, obnoxious, and in bad taste. Using your logic, the offense is never the fault of the offender and always the fault of the offended. I suppose this is where the "Libertarian streak" comes in since Libertarians seem to desire a world where everyone is free to offend and the offended can do nothing about it. Yes, some people are offended by anything but I see a distinct difference between being offended by the truth (unreasonable) and being offended by rude behavior that looks pretty darned racist to me (reasonable).
Since I've never owned a slave, harrassed a homosexual or a Femi-Nazi, I feel free of guilt. However, I do admit to offending liberals in general with my words.
I'm not asking people to feel guilty. I'm expecting them to show some character and class.
I feel pretty comfortable about that.
Do you also feel comfortable with the fact that 90% of blacks vote for Democrats when at least a third of those would probably vote Republican if they didn't believe it was the party of racists?
If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)
Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
You don't talk to many blacks, do you?
Please, there is not one on that list of "Leaders" of the Black community that doesn't support Everything I listed.
I don't care what their leaders say because we are never going to convince Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton to vote Republican. I care about what normal average black people say and having spoken to quite a few of them, many of them are reasonably conservative yet vote Democrat because they argue that the Republican Party is a home for racists and they don't want to be in the same party as racists. If this was an isolated comment that I heard from one person, I might dismiss it but I've heard the very same sort of comment again and again. Those "Leaders" you list maintain control the same way that dictators control people in the third world -- through tribalism and fear. They convince blacks that the Republican Party is out to get them. Since these "Leaders" are not going to magically convince blacks that these are lies, it is up to the Republican Party to convice blacks that they are not racist. And, yes, that means avoiding even the appearance of impropiety and making an extra special effort not to offend.
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