DALLAS — AP- [1] 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.”
(sigh)
Granted that Doctor King was that, as I have said here previously. But this had nothing to do with Doctor King per se’, but rather, many of those who invoke his name.
Look, let’s be honest…. this was being offered to generate laughs. One thing about comedy of any sort; For it to work there has to be some measure of truth wrapped up in it to work. In fact it’s one of the ways we learn… we learn by laughing at ourselves. Elder’s ticked off because this DOES in fact work.
Think about this; What are the students in question imitating? They’re simply imitating what they see in public… in the wake of any NBA team, for example. Or simply, on the street of any large city.
[1]I’m sympathetic to Elder’s plight, to the extent that there’s a serious image problem going on that the students are not helping. Then again, that’s not their job. I agree, it’s a bear trying to convince mainstream America that blacks are not prone to look and act as depected by the students, when you see the “bling” chasing morons on every city street corner, and in every rap vid ever made, (As a quick example, this pic of “50 Cent”…) and in every NBA locker room, and so on, acting just as the students have depected them. He’s got a serious image problem, which is nearly impossible to overcome.
However, I submit that at the root of the image problem is that the image exists in real life, not that it’s being imitated. And that’s not going to change by calling out the PC troops to attack a bunch of white suburban school kids. The only way that such nonsense will change, is taking the route Bill Cosby has been taking of late: Pointing out how foolish idolizing such nonsense has always been… and keep hammering on that message…. which, in a very large way, is what those students were doing, too.
Appendum: (David L) The Pine Blog [2], has more: pictures, personal experience, local perspective and a bit of commentary:
Truth be told, if you went to a few of the MLK parties thrown on MLK Boulevard or Jones Park, you would have found the same thing: fried chicken, BBQ, 40 ouncers, and gang garb.
I am just a bit too old to get in lather a bunch college kids letting off a bit of steam. That is provided none of them were driving.