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.
I do not become upset with the parody of the Irish on St. Patrick's Day, some of them are very funny and true.
There are much more important issues facing Blacks than this parody.
Mr. Elder, get a life.
I thoroughly agree with your posts, Kidster.
There are some around here who gleefully jump on any thread that shows blacks in a negative way.
Their story is they are being virtuous, righteous and non-PC. Yup, that's their story.
>>>Martin Luther King Jr. Day party that mocked black stereotypes by featuring fried chicken, malt liquor and faux gang apparel.
Why would they wear faux gang apparel to an MLK party? In just about very picture that I have seen of Dr. King he was wearing a shirt and tie, and frequently a suit.
Good post, making fun of stereo types produces some of the best humor and it helps kill the stereo type, what Mr. Elder does only reinforces it.
Every group goes through this in this country until they learn to laugh it off (IE: Irish, Dutch, Italians, Poles, Jews, and many others).
So start laughing at this and it will quit.
Word to the wise.
They forgot to invite a stripper!
Posts like yours make me long for a "recommend" button like the old Yahoo message boards.
These students have the right to satirize any stereotypes they wish to, its a free country (or only free when MLK is not concerned). IMO MLK is undeserving of the honors that are bestowed upon him. If the black community wished for a hero, they had one in Daniel James IMO but they wished to forget him because he worked well within the system.
Call out the calvary. Here comes Nifong to the rescue! He'll show those white boys what justice is.
Better check www.blackfacebook.com!
A-freaking men.
OTOH, a student dressed as an NBA player or rapper, and not carrying a gun, would be too subtle.
AND...
BAD SPELLING. :()
As a person-of- non-color, I am Rythem-challenged. You comment has made me feel Double-Less Good about myself, and I await the big check that my lawyer assure me I am owed by society for this!
[/SARCASM]
Yeah, and he kept on saying that line about wishing to be judged by the content of his character rather than by the color of his skin.
"No Irish Need Apply". My ancestors were abused. Where is my check?
Cripes!! Who forgot the watermelon?
Yeah, and he couldn't even spell it.
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