[Updated 1/21/08]
It is distressing to see the number of racist parties that are being held on college campuses.
- Ghetto Fabulous Party, Cornell University, March ’04
- Cowboys and Indians Party, Middlebury College, 10/2/04
- Ghetto Fabulous Party, Univ. of Texas Law School, September ’06
- Tacos and Tequila Party, University of Illinois, 10/5/06
- Halloween in the ’Hood’ Party, Johns Hopkins University, 10/28/06
- Gangsta Party, Clemson University, 1/14/07
- Martin Luther King Party, Tarleton State College, 1/15/07
- Martin Luther King Party, University of Arizona, 1/15/07
- Politically Incorrect Party, Macalester College, 1/16/07
- Bullets and Bubbly Party, U. Conn. Law School, ~1/20/07
- South of the Border Party, University of Santa Clara, 1/29/07
- South of the Border Party, University of Delaware, 5/5/07
There are more, but I’m tired of tracking them down (Vox ex Machina has a much more extensive list). The last entry, the latest, involved dressing as gardeners and gangsters, and wearing racially derogatory epithets on the back of some costumes.
I can’t prove it, but it seems to me that at least some of the motivation for these sorts of parties is a backlash against the constraints of politically-correct thinking, multicultural/diversity pressures, and hate crime laws. When told that they can’t do or think something, college students are notorious for digging in their heels and doing or thinking that very thing. To a lesser extent, so is the general public.
It is also true that there is no widespread agreement on what constitutes racism in America. The cottage industry that centers on racial issues has a much less tolerant definition than many people would consider reasonable, but they “own” the issue of racism, so it is always their criteria that are used. But if those criteria are so stringent so as to be counterproductive, causing resentment and backlash instead of unity and understanding, they are part of the problem.
Our educational, judicial, and legislative systems have striven mightily for 40 years to eliminate racism, but apparently remain frustrated in reaching that goal. This suggests that either their approach is wrong, or that their criteria for success are unrealistic.
I think the answer is that both are true.
May 9, 2007 at 5:04 pm
I actually wrote about this a while back. What you old ‘uns don’t realize is that for my generation, racism is a silly boogeyman. I, at least, grew up not seeing color. We were always told that all humans are created equal, and that skin color matters nothing. My generation has never seen the destructive effects racism has, and we just do not understand how people used to think.
I’ve read the old Tom Swift stories (they’re on Project Gutenberg), and the casual racism is breathtakingly appalling to someone who grew up the way I did. Rad, the “old colored man,” is looked down upon and treated as little more than a child, while Koku was stolen from his people and brought to America to be Tom’s personal servant. It never occurs to any of the characters that Koku has rights. Because he’s black, and, furthermore, uncivilized, he does not have any God-given rights to life and liberty; and he is, of course, perfectly happy to serve Master Tom.
People back then really did honestly believe that blacks were lesser than whites, and were barely even human. They honestly believed that. My generation cannot comprehend that. The idea is laughable. And the horrors of nationwide institutional racism, in which every person in the nation – in the world – unthinkingly accepts the obviously false proposition that blacks are inferior to whites, are so completely foreign to us that we cannot believe they ever existed.
So, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to call these parties “racist.” They’re stupid and insensitive, yes, but both of those are hallmarks of college students. The parties are another type of theme. College students apparently (I, of course, never attended any parties other than LAN parties) like costume parties, with themes like togas, Hawaiian, cowboys, jungle (this was actually an underwear party), and, yes, ghetto. Again, stupid and insensitive, absolutely. But racist?
I really don’t think racism exists anymore, in the way that it did in Tom Swift’s time (before WWI). Today’s racism is more along the line of prejudiced generalizations about groups of people. Good luck eliminating those.
May 9, 2007 at 5:53 pm
What’s this old ‘uns stuff, Mrs. Peel? You an ageist or something? (I prefer the term “esteemed elders”.) (grins)
I can vouch for geoff that, as he was growing up, he didn’t see color either.
geoff, I was looking at some of those articles you listed, I couldn’t work up much of a sense of outrage for the South of the Border and the Tacos and Tequila parties. Maybe I’ve gotten a thicker skin through the years, but I don’t care what other people (i.e. dumb-ass college kids) think about my background.
It’s a tribute to this country that I’ve achieved goals that my father couldn’t because racial/color barriers have been removed through the years and I have the opportunity to sink or swim (based on my own ability) just like everyone else.
May 10, 2007 at 1:26 am
What you old ‘uns don’t realize is that for my generation, racism is a silly boogeyman.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere before, even one as old as I went through elementary school after the Civil Rights Act. In our schools we were assured that racism was dead, and that peace and harmony awaited us when we grew up. Didn’t really happen, and I’m wondering why. Racism seems to be rising, not falling, and I’m not as impressed by your generation’s performance as you are.
As I’ve also said before, I believe that one of the problems lies with the conflation of culturism and racism. The racism lobby has wed the two together, so that criticizing, say, misogyny in rap music, is taken as racist. This is ridiculous – cultures are perfectly legitimate targets for criticism, while racial heritage is not.
Unless you’re a Scandi, of course.
I also read a couple of Tom Swift books when I was a kid (they were still in Texas libraries back then!), and was startled at the references to “Tom’s faithful darkie.” Even my generation found that objectionable.
May 10, 2007 at 1:52 am
Maybe I’ve gotten a thicker skin through the years, but I don’t care what other people (i.e. dumb-ass college kids) think about my background.
But would *we* have had a party like that, mocking some racial group? …or cultural group? Maybe we’d have had a party mocking Harvard guys or something, but it never would have occurred to us to have a party like these. To some extent they’re mocking cultures (like the ‘gangsta’ culture), but I think the racial overtones would have turned us off right away.
May 10, 2007 at 4:55 am
I didn’t say I was impressed by my generation. They’re a bunch of idiots, in my opinion. But I do think racism as Social Darwinism is completely dead, which is exactly why these parties can exist – these kids are too oblivious to realize what they’re stirring up.
May 10, 2007 at 6:20 am
To clarify: It’s similar to the way feminists today get riled up over some minor comment the president of Harvard makes, but completely ignore the plight of suffering women in other countries. The idea of real, true suffering like those women are experiencing is so incredibly foreign to people in America today that we have a lot of difficulty accepting that it really happens. Same thing with the real suffering that institutionalized racism inflicted.
We’ve grown up taking for granted so much that other countries don’t have and other generations didn’t have. It’s a blindness that’s hard to overcome. (And yes, I do the same thing. My blindnesses are in other areas, though. In particular, I often take my parents for granted, and have been known to proclaim that acquiring an education in the midst of hardship is merely a matter of hard work and dedication, as if my parents did not play an enormous role in my life.) So, yes, these kids are being stupid and insensitive. But it’s not the same as honestly believing that blacks are inferior.
I mean, cowboys were (mostly) white. Are cowboy-themed parties racist against white people? Are Hawaiian-themed parties racist against Hawaiians? “Ghetto” is just one of many themes that these doofuses use for their drunken revels. I’m personally aware of (though I obviously didn’t attend) the jungle-themed party I mentioned earlier, which was actually an underwear party, and a tennis-themed party, in which attendees were asked to dress as “tennis pros and tennis hos.” Not making that up. (Those were co-op parties. The underwear one fueled the creation of the Non-Alcoholic Alternatives group, in which a handful of us did cool stuff like putt-putt and movies instead of sitting around in our underwear getting sloppy drunk.)
I guess that’s the problem. You guys are giving them (what I think is) too much credit. I, on the other hand, credit these morons with so little intelligence, discernment, and personal responsibility that I have no trouble believing that they are too stupid to realize the racial implications of a “ghetto” or “south of the border” theme. I have nothing but contempt for the average college student today, largely thanks to the “normal kids” I met as part of my co-op experience.
(Random addition: My favorite episode in the Tom Swift books is when he travels to an ancient buried city of immense archaeological value. He finds a gorgeous gold statue, perfectly preserved. So what does he do? He cuts the statue’s head off for his coffee table. Seriously, wth?)
May 10, 2007 at 8:01 am
I didn’t say I was impressed by my generation. They’re a bunch of idiots, in my opinion.
I don’t mean to suggest that they’re any worse than any other generation – just that they don’t strike me as being any more enlightened than the preceding two generations.
May 10, 2007 at 9:28 am
geoff, I can see us doing a south of the border theme party (with sombreros, fake moustaches and panchos) as an excuse to drink Corona beer, margaritas and tequila shots, but definitely the racial aspects of the gangsta parties we would have found objectionable.
January 14, 2008 at 1:34 pm
To think that these parties are not racist seems a little immature. The fact is these parties are eye openers. If people portraying different ethnic groups in a negative light for the sake of fun shows that if real issues arise then you have an idea of where their thinking and logic goes. It shows me that it is too easy to dismiss different cultures or ethinic groups because they have demostrated that they are funny and not to be taken seriously. Also the parties show what the partipates think of the ethinic group in itself.
January 14, 2008 at 2:55 pm
sorry to be commenting on such an old post, but hey, he started it.
I think it also depends on where you live whether racism is dead or not. I don’t see it as much because I’m not black, but I have extended family members who are black and say they deal with it all the time. Sometimes I feel they’re actually being too sensitive regarding the way they were treated and the situation would have had the same outcome no matter what color they were, but they were incapable of seeing it that way.
I’ve also experienced having to ride the bus to college when my car got stolen and having black men tell me they wanted to kill me for being a white girl and this was in San Diego.
Here in the south where I live now……..racism is still very strong and every generation teaches the next generation their own brand of hatred.
January 14, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I think that PJMomma’s varied experiences underscore the fact that racial policies and rhetoric cannot be applied universally throughout the country. In racist bastions of the South, Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity still play a useful role, while in other areas of the country they do more damage than good.