Duke fraternity suspended after Asia-themed party prompts charges of racism
Pictures posted online showed people attending the Duke party dressed in Asian-style clothing and a greeting that mocked Asian dialect. / Facebook (Asian Students Association of Duke University)
DURHAM, N.C. The parent organization of Kappa Sigma fraternity has suspended its Duke University chapter over a party some claimed was racist after photos surfaced of partygoers in Asian-style clothing.
Last Friday's party was reported to have featured an Asian theme, but university vice president of student affairs Larry Moneta said the title was changed to international relations after some students complained.
An Asian student group filed a complaint and held a protest rally Wednesday.
"The events of the past week have deeply hurt students in our community," the Asian Students Association and the Asian American Alliance wrote on Facebook. "We won't use our platform to alienate, to provide more fodder for stereotypes about Duke, or to trivialize any person's experience. Instead, we will use this opportunity to spread awareness of why the events of the past week were hurtful and to establish a concrete plan for how our community can move forward."
Pictures posted online showed people attending the party dressed in Asian-style clothing and a greeting that mocked Asian dialect.
Kappa Sigma executive director Mitchell Wilson said the national organization will investigate the party and take final action based on the outcome of that probe.
Moneta said the university is considering unspecified action.
As CBS affiliate WRAL notes, controversy over racial insensitivity isn't new for the university.
In November, Duke women's lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel apologized after photos from a Halloween party at her house showing a player in black-face were posted on the school's athletic department's website.
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I bet John Belushi is turning over in his grave...
This country has turned into idiots.
The party's theme and the flyer announcing it are offensive to anyone with a brain and the fact that the Sigs were just allowed back on campus after more than a decade away should have made them a lot more sensitive to a situation, any situation like this.
My friends black grandmother has a saying, "a hard head makes a soft ass." When the dust finally settles after this last incident, the Sigs collective ass my feel like a sows ear.
The party's theme and the flyer announcing it are offensive to anyone with a brain and the fact that the Sigs were just allowed back on campus after more than a decade away should have made them a lot more sensitive to a situation, any situation like this.
My friends black grandmother has a saying, "a hard head makes a soft ass." When the dust finally settles after this last incident, the Sigs collective ass my feel like a sows ear.
"Racism" actually involves embracing the idea that different races inherently differ in intellectual, psychological and societal manifestations. Basically, this is a scholarly issue, although, in the current climate, few have tried to address it. Political climate influencing the derivation and spread of truth. You are ordered to believe this or we will ruin your life! But, in the past, "racism" has become associated with those who either put it into practice with everything from mockery to violence and, so, it has been conveniently made synonymous with those. In other words, if you merely hold that different races have different intellectual levels and are called a "racist", the malleable automatically look at you as if you have harmed people, even if you haven't! "Racism" has become a bludgeon for unsrupulous political factions to use to seize power, calling another group "racist", depicting themselves as "victims", also without proof, and using the backs of non malefactors as steppingstones.
Crying "racist" has been criminally misused to illegitimately seize power over whites by political crooks for decades now!
And this seems only anohter demonstration.
Taking the next "logical" step in the misrepresentation of "racism", any invocation of a particular culture's picturesque facets, like clothing and even speech, is being made synomymous with "mockery" and, "therefore", "racism". So, to wear a mandarin outfit, or a feathered headdress or a grass skirt is to be "racist"!
It's gone on too long and caused too much damage.
"Racism" has been a means for political crooks to assume power at the expense of, frankly, the whites and this is only another demonstration.
For goodness sake the party was called Asia Prime which mixed with the imagery and language of the flyer mocked all Asians. Do you understand now?
In your post you make the point that races are inherently different and that we should understand those differences. While I agree with the last part, I don't feel that making fun of those differences is cause for celebration or a party.
I'm also happy they won't be able to do this crap anymore as they have been once again removed from our site!
They did not have the party to make fun of differences between Asians and the West!
They had a party with an Oriental theme, of dress, probably food, maybe music. Incidentally, the creeping propaganda war is so advanced, I was attacked for using the term "Oriental" in another comment elsewhere, even though "Oriental" is legitimate. Either ANSELRHODES places comments many places or the propaganda is widespread. To be sure, it can be said that substituting "l's" for "r's" and vice versa is not meant to be laudatory, but it can very much be questioned if it was intentionally derogatory!
And, frankly, whether or not something is unjustifiably derogatory is a fundamental of whether something can be considered truly offensive. To be truly offensive, something has to be ill meant, with a desire to hurt!
If anyone anywhere is allowed out of thin air to declare themselves "offended" by this, that or the other thing, without what they complain about being intentionally hurtful, then there is no longer any freedom of speech.
And where is the indignation, for example, to the Seinfeld episode, "The Chinese Woman", in which a woman goes by the name "Chang", having changed it from "Changstein", and gives advice from Confucius and exchanges "l's" for "r's" and vice versa? No one seems to have a problem with that! In a number of forums and chat rooms and such it is discussed without the slightest indication of outrage. Why? It should be mentioned, too, that Wikipedia's reference to the episode depicts the exchanging of consonants as "a Chinese accent". And no one has corrected it! In other words, it's saying it is absolutely, perfectly legitimate to exchange the consonants! It is not "racist", it is absoilutely valid!
Incidentally, when you use a phrase like "long time no see" you are using a pidgin English representation of a Chinese phrase, just as, if you say you give a "look see" into a situation.
Incidentally, too, where are the cries of prejudice, bias and bigotry over SAMTCAT's universal derogation of "high-school drop-out trailer trash in Okefenogie [sic], Alabama"? Or don't people who drop out of high school and live in trailer parks deserve respect? But, then, consider the source. It's spelled "Okefenokee" and it's a swamp region along the border between Georgia and Florida, not a town.
What viciousness must inform SAMTCAT's attitude towards others!