I wasn't trying to single out anyone in particular -- I know there are people who are offended by jokes mocking the Irish, and that's fine; that's their right. But I think anybody should be able to see the huge difference in parties mocking the Irish versus those mocking Mexicans/blacks/Asians/Native Americans/whatever.

Why?

If my history serves me correctly, the Irish and Scots faced many years of persecution at the hands of the English.

Just because they're white its ok? even though they themselves have been through similiar instances? The Irish, and specifically catholics as well as Jews were hated right along with blacks by the KKK.

That's a freakin double standard, to say its' ok to hate on the Irish, but not other minorities.

Kitso
KS 361 my ancestors were Greek, NOT Anglo and our only problem was with the Romans and later the Turks......damn dirty Turks ;)

The biggest difference is that we're several generations removed from the time where Irish-Americans have suffered any sort of serious discrimination. That's not the case for blacks, Asian-Americans, Latinos or Native Americans. If you see a frat party making fun of your culture, and you and your family still suffer from discrimination on a day-to-day basis, you were called "dirty Mexican" and "spic" in elementary school, people made fun of your accent (or, if you didn't have an accent, told you that you spoke remarkably good English for your race :rolleyes: ), employees followed you in stores to make sure you weren't stealing, cashiers don't touch your hand when they give you money as if you were dirty, people claim you only got into college because of affirmative action, blah blah blah, I could go on -- that's going to be a whole hell of a lot more hurtful and open more wounds than if you see a frat party making fun of your culture and 100 years ago your great grandfather was denied jobs and called whatever it is that they used as a derogatory term for Irish back then.

Irish-Americans today don't know what it's like to face discrimination for their race because they aren't discriminated against anymore (not in any significant way, at least. There will always be the random crazies who hate the Irish or the Polish or the Germans for some made-up reason that they deem suitable). American people of color do and are. It's not a double standard because you're comparing two completely different situations.

Why indeed?

The truth is that much of American humor has, in the past, been ethnic humor. And, again in the past, most people found it pretty funny.

I'm not interested in taking shots at "Political Correctness," because you can hide pretty much anything behind that phrase.

The fact is, though, that in this era you have to be very careful of anything involving ethnicity. Which, on the face of it, is not necessarily always a bad thing.

However, when taken to an extreme almost any ethnic group can point to some kind of persecution in its' past and some kind of stereotyping -- and it doesn't have to be what we have labled "minority."

So, does that mean that we should stay away from ANY ethnic references in our humor and party themes?

Probably so.

Which is sad, because I don't believe that the majority of ethnic humor is meant to be insulting, degrading and/or hurtful, but in this day and age, someone will almost certainly be offended. And, while I do understand the phenomenon, I wonder why it's OK to tell jokes about your own race, but not others. You're still perpetuating the stereotype.

It's too bad, in a way, that we've come to the point where we can't or won't laugh at ourselves anymore -- because some ethnic humor can be really funny.

Edited to add: S&S probably posted the above while I was writing this. I see the point, but in case of the Irish (part of my background), they might point out discrimination (religious and other) on the part of the British (and between themselves) which is ongoing today.

But the discrimination felt by the Irish today is still more removed from the average Irish-American (which I am, by the way :p ) than the discrimination the average non-white American faces -- that is much more immediate. Some of us who are Irish-American may have close relatives who still live in Ireland and thus might be directly affected by anything that promotes stereotypes, but the majority of us Irish-Americans are pretty removed from that conflict.


I think the bottom line, as DeltAlum alluded to, is that regardless of whether or not you agree with the fact that some people have a right to be offended by this kind of party -- if you have parties like this, you are promoting a view of the Greek system that will cause many to label us as racist, which is definitely not what we need. So for the sake of the Greek system's reputation, can we stop throwing parties like this?

Also, I remembered what I was going to add to that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the fact that some Irish-Americans get offended by, for example, St. Patrick's Day celebrations which do promote the stereotype of the "drunken Irishman." I can definitely see how that might be offensive to some, although personally I'm not offended. However, I think that too often the whole "Irish thing" is used to invalidate the experiences of people of color. "Well, I'm Irish and I don't care when people tell Irish jokes, so why should they care if we tell jokes about black people?" And as I was trying to point out, that's ridiculous because black versus Irish is like apples versus oranges. They're not comparable.

If a Mexican-American (or several Mexican-Americans, in this case) gets upset about a fiesta-themed frat party taken too far, DO NOT bust out with the "Well I'm Irish and I don't care so blah blah blah." It is not in any way the same thing.

Not so great analogy
 

It is NOT okay to tell jokes about your race within your own race. And you are right, the stereotype is still being perpetuated. For example, there has been a tremendous (?sp) effort within the Black community to discourage the use of the 'N'-word among us, whether in jest or not. But, for those within the race who continue to do so, I am just not as offended as I would be if a White person referred to me using the 'N'-word. See, to me when a White person says the 'N'-word, then the image in my mind is of post-Civil War America when the KKK was started and their main objective was to kill all 'N's. Recall 'Birth of a Nation'. Not to mention film footage from the 1930's - 1960's which showed that lynching Black people was the 'norm' in some communities and the sentiment by some of the White population was 'A good N is a dead N'.

So, if a Black person uses the 'N' word, there is no harsh connotation (i.e., image) that comes to mind when he/she says it, the converse is true for a White person.

Or, I'll try to describe it this way. Say you (general) have a blood brother or sister and sometimes y'all argue. The argument gets heated and you call your brother/sister stupid. Eventualy things cool down, the fight is forgotten and life is back to normal. All in all you and your brother/sister really understand each other, so your brother/sister was not that offended when you called him/her stupid. But, if I had a fight with your brother/sister and called him/her stupid, then both of you would want to beat my a$$. I don't know if this makes sense, but I hope you see my point. An 'insider' is not going to offend you more than an 'outsider', because you have a common bond with the 'insider' that you don't have with the 'outsider'.

Re: Not so great analogy
 

In short, "We may do a little fighting amongst ourselves, but you outsiders best leave us alone." ;)

That sentiment applies to any group, in addition to ethnic/racial ones.

IMHO, in this day and age, **any** type of racial or ethnic stereotyping, regardless of the intent, is not a good thing. And that means all of 'em. Af Am, Irish, whathaveyou. If offense is only noted and taken seriously for one ethnic group and not others, eventually you're going to give the appearance of a double standard, just like the examples given earlier. Either all stereotyping is offensive, or none of it is--that's the only way to get people to take it seriously.

To continue the previous example, it may be true that Irish-Americans do not receive the same amount of discrimiation that they did 100-150 years ago, but to dismiss that past injustice as less relevant is to put a subtle stamp of approval on stereotyping at some level. Eventually you'll be called out for it: "So, it's not that you don't approve of racial/ethnic stereotypes, you just think it's OK for certain groups and not others." Hypocrisy, anyone?

I agree the ethnic-themed parties have to go. Greeks are in a unique position of visibility where they can make a difference here. Not only to refuse to host such parties, but if anyone shows up at their party in an offensive costume/makeup, toss them out on their @$$. (How many stories have we seen on GC where a GLO was accused of racism because someone not affiliated with them had their picture taken in the wrong place and time :rolleyes: )

Bottom line: the only way to eliminate the perpetuation of offensive stereotypes is to condemn ALL OF THEM and not make excuses for some and not others.

</soapbox>

Adrienne
:D

Some people are too damn touchy.

Re: Re: Not so great analogy
 

Adrienne, you know I love you, but I'm going to have to disagree with you here. In fact, I would go so far as to say the exact opposite. :D

If I wanted to, I could say that I'm hurt because, as a University of Wisconsin student, I'm stereotyped as a drunk party animal and that it's just as valid for me to be upset about that as it is for someone who's black to be upset about the way their race is stereotyped. And it's possible that I may be just as HURT about the stereotypes applied to me as they are about the stereotypes applied to them -- but that doesn't mean that my anger is equally VALID.

If we claim that all stereotyping is equally offensive, that's where I think we lose credibility, not gain it, because when we do that we're saying that the stereotype that all Southerners like sweet tea is as damaging as the stereotype that all fat people are lazy which is as damaging as the stereotype that all Asian-Americans are brilliant which is as damaging as the stereotype that all white people are racists. . . I could go on. What really matters is not the stereotypes themselves, but what happens as a result of those stereotypes. And these days, there are going to be a lot less "results" (discrimination, persecution) directed towards Irish-Americans than there are towards people of color in America. I think we can all agree that a St. Patrick's Day parade where everybody wears green and says "Kiss me, I'm Irish" and gets sloshed is (and SHOULD BE) less offensive than a parade where everyone dresses up in blackface, wears pimp/ho/thug outfits, listens to rap and speaks "ebonics" while eating fried chicken and watermelon.

(Not just to Adrienne now, but in general.) I think there's a problem that I see a lot of, especially on GC in regards to race issues: people either don't know how to or refuse to try and see things from other people's points of view. I know I can't speak for people of color because I'm not one, but when situations like this come up I do try to see things from there point of view. As a white American, yeah, I sometimes do think that people are overreacting when it comes to race issues. Then I look at it as if it was my culture and my race being discriminated against for hundreds of years and I can see things much more clearly. There's a big I'm-a-bigger-victim-than-you-are/I've-suffered-more-than-you-have/I've-overcome-more-than-you-have complex going around. It gets to the point where you have a white woman claiming that because she lost out on a job to an African-American once, she's been discriminated against just as much as all blacks have and has suffered just as much. I know there's no universal yardstick for discrimination (Losing Out on a Job Because of Your Race: 6.4, Called a Racial Epithet: 1.3; keep a running tally and the person with the highest count wins the America's Biggest Martyr award) but I think it's pretty clear that some races face more of it than others and that stereotyping is bound to be more hurtful because of that fact.

And on a solely GC-related note, I think you can see how racist some of the topics come off when most of the African-Americans who post here don't even touch race-related subjects outside of the NPHC forums anymore because the hostility is so overpowering. I think that speaks volumes about the way race topics are handled on GC.

Without a doubt. And, of course, some people are too damn insensitive.

But that really is quite beside the point. If we are really living up to the values that our fraternities and sororities stand for, then if we offend someone, we apologize and try not to do it again. It doesn't matter a whit if we think they were being oversensitive or not. We are walking and talking advertisements for our respective GLOs, and our own groups and the Greek system as a whole will be judged, rightly or wrongly, by the behavior of individual Greeks.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have fun. Of course we should! But if you wouldn't want to read about your party theme in a school newspaper editorial, then you probably need to pick a different theme.

If said it before, and I'll say it again. Simply put, a gentleman (or a lady) never makes fun of, belittles or seeks to offend other people. Never. Period. If he does so unintentionally, he apologizes and tries to avoid doing it again -- whether he thinks the offended party is overreacting or not -- because a gentleman puts the feelings of others before his own feelings.

Isn't that is part of what our fraternities and sororities try to teach us? If we don't take our own values seriously, why should we expect non-Greeks to take them -- or us -- seriously?

anyone care to explain to a midwestern white kid why the term "South of the Border" is offensive as a title for an event?

It is all about context
 

In of itself, nothing. But, depending on what it is pictured with it may be - CONTEXT is important. For example, if you advertise a "South of the Border" party and have a southwest-type scene of cactus and tumble weed, then I don't think people will get offended. But, if you advertise the title showing a man in a sombrero with a sarape draped around him, leaning against a cactus with an empty tequila bottle next to him then that is offensive. Why? Because there are three items in that picture that imply Mexico (and hence Mexicans) - the sombrero, the sarape and the tequila. The ~implied~ message is that all Mexicans get drunk, which is not true. And, if someone from a community that has never had any interaction with people from Mexico see this, then that is all the person has to go on about Mexicans. It's almost like thinking that all New Yorkers wear black clothes, talk fast and are rude a la Joan Rivers. It is not true.

Re: It is all about context
 

no no, I understand all of this - it's just that the article had a quote that seemed to imply the title was offensive, and I thought perhaps I was missing some allusion.

It's not quite cracking the DaVinci code to connect stereotypical imagery to prejudicial implications.

Re: Head them off at the pass.
 

Yup.