They're just frat boys being stupid, right? Syracuse University suspended Theta Tau fraternity after online videos surfaced of its members just being stupid. If by "stupid" you mean mocking the mentally and physically disabled, throwing around violent racial slurs with glee, and role-playing Gestapo sending Jews to the gas chambers.
Their parents are probably very proud to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for them to get blitzed and read pathetically-written scripts off their iPhones wherein they reenact their version of the origins of a rival frat involving bestiality and public defecation. Yay, college.
That wasn't even the best part of the reenactment (I think it was a reenactment, but these kids clearly aren't writing/theater majors, and I was not going to make myself watch this disgusting video more than the four times it took me to figure that much out) No, the best part was the "Oath" the frat guy on his knees was told to recite:
"I solemnly swear to always have hatred in my heart for n*ggers, sp*cs, and most importantly, the fucking k*kes."
Awwww. How sweet. What's next, a Holocaust joke?
Why, YES! Yes, a Holocaust joke, with said frat guy immediately ordering others, "Fuckin' k*kes! Get in the fuckin' showers!"
The director of the National Theta Tau organization said,
“While the language that has been described is troubling and inconsistent with our values, we tend to distinguish between words and deeds as well as between individuals and groups when determining appropriate remedies and penalties.”
What the hell does that mean? They tend to distinguish between words and deeds? The deed is that they used words that were vile, racist and anti-semitic in a way they knew would cause harm. Those are transgressions that should be recognized as harmful, violent, and punished as such. Something tells me there will be lip service paid to the high value of diversity, and maybe sensitivity training for the chapter, but these white college kids will go on to live lives free of consequences as white working adults whose mouths feel very comfortable spewing racist, sexist, and anti-semitic trash.
Are these the "very fine people" Trump feels compelled to defend on the regular? Is this the college kid Trump once was?
*****
Meanwhile, about two hours north of Detroit, Michigan, Bay City High School was closed on Thursday because of White Supremacy.
Cameron Myers, an 18-year-old senior at Bay City Western High School, an overwhelmingly white high school about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Detroit in Auburn, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he complained to school officials that someone had cut the large Confederate flag from a pole on his truck, but no one was disciplined. He then took to friends on social media, asking them to fly their own flags outside the school.
Got that? There are exactly seven black students attending that school of 1200 students. SE-VEN. But because this entitled prick's racist flag was stolen, he decided it was appropriate to encourage all his racist friends to display as many of THEIR racist flags as possible outside the school. To terrorize the seven (SEVEN) black students.
"But Aliza," you say..."maybe their GOAL wasn't to terrorize the seven black students. Perhaps their message was only for the person who stole his flag from his car."
To which I respond: Can you say with a straight face they didn't know the effect on the black kids would have been one of intimidation and fear?
I call bullshit on anyone who answers "yes" to that question.
And did everyone catch the most twisted and sick irony of the whole situation?
"...he complained to school officials that someone had cut the large Confederate flag from a pole on his truck, but no one was disciplined."
No one was disciplined! My stars! Cameron, Sweetheart, you are just going to have to wait in line for your turn. I can think of a long list of people who have been the victims of crimes much more heinous whose perpetrators were never disciplined. Alton Sterling. Sandra Bland. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Rumain Brisbon. Philando Castile. Terence Crutcher. I've no doubt the list will grow at its steady pace.
Well. Maybe Cameron's having second thoughts. according to the Seattle Times piece. He is definitely not racist, but he might have taken a different approach in hindsight. Not knowing what that approach would have been, Can't say if that necessarily makes me feel any better...
Myers’ grandmother, Lynn Boyce, said everything has been “blown out of proportion.”
“These boys are rednecks,” Boyce said of Cameron and his friends. “The Confederate flag does not mean anything racist to them. We’re not racists.”
She believes whoever stole Myers’ flag from his truck is really to blame for the trouble.
Isn't that something? I am not in favor of, or advocating theft, by any means. But when theft is of an object that represents hate, danger, racism and oppression to most thinking people, your hurt fee-fees about it not being addressed promptly to your satisfaction don't move a whole lot of people over into your column. (Is there any way the Confederate Flag can be argued to be a symbol devoid of racial oppression??? Bueller???)
And he may be a "redneck", but I can guarantee you that he is a "redneck" with access to the "Googles" where he can type in "problems with Confederate Flag" and get all kinds of enlightening information. So this notion that he cannot learn about how he is being hurtful is bullshit. He simply does not want to learn.
Is THAT the kind of student Trump was?
It certainly is the kind of president he is now.
