Posted on 01/25/2007 6:31:46 AM PST by Arec Barrwin
MLK Party Causes Uproar on Texas Campus Email this Story
Jan 25, 5:47 AM (ET)
By JEFF CARLTON
DALLAS (AP) - Authorities at Tarleton State University said they plan to investigate a Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel.
"I feel like there is no excuse for this type of ignorance," said Donald Ray Elder, president of the Stephenville school's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Photographs posted on social networking Web site Facebook.com showed partygoers wearing Afro wigs and fake gold and silver teeth. One photo showed students "mocking how African-Americans do step shows," Elder said. In another picture, a student is dressed as Aunt Jemima and carries a gun.
"That upsets me," Elder said. "That's someone who knows nothing about Dr. King, because Dr. King was totally about nonviolence."
Wanda Mercer, the school's vice president of student life, said an investigation was planned into the Jan. 15 party.
More than 400 students attended a university-sponsored forum Wednesday night that Elder described as "a shaky baby step" in bridging a divide between black and white students on the campus, which had about 400 black students out of 7,800 overall last semester.
Elder said he sensed a racial divide at the forum, with black students sitting on one side of the room and whites on the other.
"It was civil, but it also escalated into a shouting match," he said in a telephone interview afterward.
Some of the students shown in the photos apologized, Elder said.
University President Dennis P. McCabe said the photographs were reprehensible.
"I am personally insulted by these photographs and am disappointed that Tarleton students have demonstrated such insensitivity," he said.
Stephenville is about 60 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
"FYI: Tarleton is known as one of the Cowboy Colleges. Another is Sul Ross University."
my g-grandfather rode with Sullivan Ross for 4 years...Ross commanded the 6th Texas Cavalry...I'm expect it's just a matter of time before the NAACP demands that Ross' name be removed from the school.
Yikes - without the hype, these shots wouldn't look much different than most of the white kids you see walking through any suburban mall. Big jerseys, jewelry and oh no, 40oz's in paper bags.
This is no Klan rally, it's a bunch of kids screwing around - some wearing a bandana or a gold chain. Oh, the horrors!
Exactly but if black students had a party making fun of white folks nothing would be said. There is a double standards for issues like this.People have a right to act stupid.
I wouldn't call this a racist party. I would call it a protest. Course, whites aren't allowed to protest.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
After all, isn't money and a handout what this is all about? The so-called conference was a "shaky baby step?" What's a steady adult step? Bet it has to do with a big fat check and a bunch of privileges for the black commernity.
Yeah, they used to say the same thing about King. He wasn't cool in the black commernity because white people liked him. That's his biggest thing, he got white people to agree with him.
I believe that MLK is equally worthy of veneration with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The truth will never come out. Toooo controversial.
"Plus not one Basketball was in sight."
And no one thought to include a 100-meter dash! Ignoramuses!;)
Yep. This is insane. Most of them don't even know how to properly sneer for the camera.
Not to mention his wife.
I've never understood the thing about fried chicken and watermelon. Everybody likes fried chicken and watermelon. How can it be a black stereotype? As far as the 40z, the attraction there is you get a lot of bang for your buck, so obviously college students are going to be attracted to that.
Well at least these college students celebrated MLK Day
signed
A Black Female Freeper!
As part of Black History Month, there was an MLK luncheon a few years back where the menu consisted of plenty of "stereotypical" selections, including watermelon but not fried chicken. I always wondered if "PC" had anything to do with that.
' I do not become upset with the parody of the Irish on St. Patrick's Day, some of them are very funny and true."
I bet on March 17, Mr Elder dresses up in green face, gets drunk on cheap beer , prances around as an elf ,
vomits corned beef and cabbage into the street and thinks it's a riot.
My feelings get so hurt every St Patrick's Day by the insensitivity and cruelty of my fellow Americans,
that I'm forced to drink a lot of Guinness just to numb the pain.
I need to sue somebody.
Douglass would kick their butts, literally.
I can understand the outrage at this time of year as it appears to be a reactionary response to a Federally mandated holiday for "tolerance" and racial politics.
But I've never heard the black community speak out against Pimp and Ho Balls in which people dress in much the same way.
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