#RacistRager - Duke Kappa Sigma party ignites firestorm of criticism
 

A Kappa Sigma theme party held Friday has drawn major backlash from the Asian community and others at the University.

http://www.dukechronicle.com/article...torm-criticism

http://cdn.dukechronicle.com/images/...e0938b7e89.jpg

Students are really fighting back on this, and socially conscious people all over social media are giving this story a signal boost:

http://angryasiangirlsunited.tumblr....irlsunited-was

#RacistRager

Kappa Sigma suspends the chapter at Duke, as you might well imagine ...

All over the news . . .

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?se...cal&id=8982791
excerpt from ^^
:
”DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- The Duke University chapter of the Kappa Sigma fraternity has been suspended by its parent organization following a party that some have called racist.
Wilson Mitchell, the national executive director of Kappa Sigma, told ABC11 Wednesday all activities and events have been put on hold while the national organization determines the status of the Eta Prime chapter. . . . “

Sure, what they did was racially insensitive and such, but the outrage seems a bit over the top.

Agreed. I read some of the comments and one of my favorites is "If you are not outraged...then you're a normal person.

I don't think that there would be a lot of outrage if a bunch of Asians were to dress in overalls and straw hats and throw a "White trash/hillbilly party".

I'm half Asian and I'm not offended by this.

Of course, not, because it's okay to make fun of white trash and hillbillies, few of which you're likely to find among the student body at Duke anyway.

Seriously though, context matters. At Duke, this kind of party plays into every stereotype possible -- including those about Greeks. And I can see how the way the invitation was worded pushed it over the top for some people.

The reality is that if they didn't think they'd provoke this kind of reaction at Duke, they were seriously deluded.

Sidebar: Is the name of the party "Racist Rager" (going from the hashtag)?

I'm not one to get offended by everything race-related, but if this group hosted the party with the intent of being racists, they can't backpedal and act like all the backlash is a shock.

the outrage is justified.

and i'm asian.

No it wasn't. It was Kappa Sigma Asian Prime (their chapter name is Eta Prime)


I do think the theme is very insensitive, and the wording in the email is outright stupid.
Outrage? No.

I don't think so. I think that is what the flyers against the party were calling it. Also while I think that the emails went far beyond the line, I don't really understand why there was so much outrage over the theme. A couple of the pictures were pushing it, like the girl with the peace sign, but I don't see anything wrong with an Asian theme. It is a very different culture, which would be fun to dress up as every once in a while.

OK, makes sense. Thanks.

Still stupid as fuck, though.

because you're not dressing up to celebrate it, you're dressing up to mock it.

I don't think you dress up to mock it per se. I think it's stereotypical and in some cases insensitive, but not downright mocking.

The language used in the email is mockery, to me, putting pencils in your hear is not.

if it's stereotypical, then it's mocking.

Kappa Sig has been officially suspended by their HQ as of today.

Not necessarily.

If I dress up like Frau Antje I'm dressed up in a stereotypical form. But I'm not mocking anything or anyone. If I wear a sari I'm dressed in something considered stereotypical of the Indian culture, but it's not worn to mock, but because I like how it looks. If I wear a dress inspired by a traditional Chinese dress (like the ones that were quite fashionable in the 90s) again, it's something considered stereotypical, but not mocking. My point is, the thought behind it, and the behavior accompanying it is what decides if it's mocking.

And I think they should be, that email was in very poor taste.

and the intent of the thought behind the party was to mock. and your examples are not really applicable or even comparable to this situation. wearing something you like that happens to be from another culture isn't the same thing as wearing something from another culture to mock said other culture.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/2236e450d...k06ro1_500.jpg

I'm not so certain why this is so hard to comprehend.

I disagree with you. I think the intent behind the email is to mock and to ridicule.
I don't think the intent of everyone attending was to mock and ridicule. But I get that you don't want to see my point.

i don't care if you agree or not. i see your point, and your point is silly and not applicable to the situation at hand. i didn't say the intent of everyone at the party was the mock and ridicule, i said the intent of the party itself was to mock and ridicule. some party goers may have not even took part in the dressing up. but the ones who did, did with the intent to mock and ridicule.

unless you think that they dressed up as a caricature to celebrate asian month or something like that.

because some people aren't socially conscious.

The first problem is when the men in the chapter felt it was okay to appropriate [an]other culture[s] as a theme for a party.

At colleges and universities as large and diverse as Duke, there are already organizations and programs which are open to everyone to participate in if they want to experience playing "dress up." I went to a school where a South Asian festival which began ten years ago had all South Asian performing groups, then expanded to including an act for "friends of" and now is almost totally integrated. [We can discuss why that is problematic another time.]

But a majority white, non-multicultural (as in NMGC) fraternity doing this is problem. It smacks of white privilege. It is racist. And thankfully organizations at Duke like NPHC are standing with the Asian community as allies in this matter.

Taking my comments out of context and ridiculing them is not helping the conversation. But you got what you wanted. I'm out, because if having an open conversation on a subject as this makes you want to call someone on the internet who you haven't met and who's background you don't know, silly and not socially conscious this tells me that you're not interested in anyone else's opinion.

i didn't call you silly. i called your opinion silly and inapplicable. but IMO, from your posts that you're not socially conscious. you're making excuses and deflecting for a group of predominantly white men and women to run around dressing up as geishas and sumo wrestlers and saying things like herro as if somehow that's a cool thing to do.

but yay, asian month. too bad we're three months early. they should have done it in may for more effect. i wonder if the local asian american association was cool with it. wait, they weren't.

"Socially conscious" = blowing any slight to your heritage WAY out of proportion?

The notion Asian Student Association at Duke somehow gets cultural approval over other organizations is just absurd. To seemingly believe that they actually speak for all Asians at Duke is just about as bad as anything Kappa Sig did. I'm sure many Asians would be offended to be remotely associated with these over the top protests.

Am I suggesting they be silent? Not really. Maybe send a letter to the editor of the student newspaper, maybe hold an event promoting awareness, whatever. But day after day of protest? Demanding the offending organization be disbanded? I'm just saying there's a more moderate and reasonable course here.

I think context is important here. We're seeing a lot of incidents like this coming from the Duke Greek system. I could see where they'd be sick and f*cking tired of explaining racism to white people.

Or maybe minority students get to blow things out of proportion due to the University's harsh and unfair handling of incidents regarding alleged racism tends to reward the accusers even when they're wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_buffalo_incident

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_case

And when I want to think about oppressed minorities, Asian students attending one of the top universities in the country are not near the top of my list. Further, if you're saying the enhanced reaction to this was because of the actions of other students, is it fair to victimize Kappa Sigma for those other students' actions?

Protip: white people do not get to tell people of color what's offensive.

Exactly. And like I said upthread, the chapter should have seen this kind of reaction coming a mile away.

Whether one thinks the party was horribly offensive or just a stupid, insensitive idea, or whether one thinks those who have protested have over-reacted or are fully justified, anyone familiar with Duke campus culture should have been able to predict how this would play out. The idea that the chapter president issued a statement that said "Upon learning of the deeply damaging effects of our email to our fellow students, we should have completely canceled the aforementioned party," is mind-boggling to me. Yes, they should have canceled the party, but if they're smart enough to get into Duke, they're smart enough to figure out how the party and the email would be perceived by the campus community at large without having to "learn it" after the fact.

They should also be smart enough to anticipate how the whole thing would go over with Kappa Sig HQ and with Duke, especially since they just got their charter back last year after 10 years as an off-campus local. You'd think that even if sensitivity towards other students wasn't a concern for them, self-interest and self-preservation would have been.

I honestly think that comments like this are just as damaging as any thing like this party. It helps build a us against them mentality that gets in teh way of true equality. Like I think was said, nobody would get upset with minorities making fun of negative Caucasian stereotypes, yet you have stuff like this, which while I agree was insensitive and in poor taste, probably does not deserve the amount of outrage that it is receiving.

I agree.

In my opinion, if we want true equality, we should be blind to ALL races - that includes whites. There shouldn't be parties making fun of any race - even if the race isn't a minority. Those who are white aren't deserving of comments such as DeltaBetaBaby's.

There are lots of themes that can be done for parties without offending anyone.

I'll tell you and whether you listen is up to you. I think the Asian Student Association looks about as dumb as the Kappa Sigmas at this point.

THIS.

This is what always surprises me when stuff like this happens. One would think that if there is any slight chance of a group finding a theme offensive, they would go for another idea. There's got to be TONS of themes out there!

What I have learned with regard to these party themes and such is that those of us who have seen these sorts of incidents and their aftermath and the outrage these things can generate, most of your current active college students haven't the foggiest idea. Many of our organizations are cliquish and insular and in some places very racially segregated.

Those of us who advise have the institutional knowledge to understand why a "Border Crossing" party can go from a fun time being had by all to being the subject of a grand inquisition led by the University's chapter of La Raza. Our collegians don't have that knowledge or experience.

I was recently reviewing the paperwork required to register an organized social event with the University. It requires student orgs to answer whether this event has any kind of racial or cultural theme because what your group thinks is a harmless party where folks dress up in silly costumes might trigger a race war on your campus.

What exactly has the Asian Student Association done that's an over-reaction? So far as I can tell from the news reports, the sequence of events had been something like this:

• Eta Prime planned the party, which apparently it hosted for many years while it was an unrecognized local;
• The email invitation for "Asia Prime" went out;
• Other students saw the email, and the Center for Multicultural Affairs filed a bias complaint with the Duke Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life;
• As a result of that bias complaint, Duke officials encouraged Eta Prime to cancel the party, but the chapter instead sent out a new invitation which renamed the party "International Relations";
• After the party, pictures were posted on Facebook by various people;
• After seeing the pictures, a group of students -- both Asian and non-Asian, and including the president of the Asian Student Association -- posted fliers around campus condemning the party, which they labeled #RacistRanger;
• Eta Prime organized a group to go around campus and remove the fliers;
• The group of students, who said they were acting on their own and not on behalf of any organization, put up some new fliers and engaged in social media responses.
• Those same student announced a rally at 1:00 PM on Wednesday in a central location on campus;
• That same day, Kappa Sig HQ suspended the chapter;
• The Asian Student Association co-hosted an "open discussion" with Duke Student Government. It also forwarded some of the fliers to people on its listserve.

The flier campaign did indeed receive criticism because it included pictures of people who hadn't planned the party. From the ASA's statement:

Due to recent events surrounding the Kappa Sigma party, the executive board of the Asian Students Association believes it is necessary to re-iterate our stance and the actions we have undertaken in response to the party. In fact, the ASA was the first student group to react to Kappa Sigma’s party by sponsoring an open discussion event.

However, the ASA did not participate in the flyering of campus, nor did we host the rally that happened on Wednesday. Our president, Ting-Ting Zhou, was involved in the flyering and played a part in organizing the rally but did so as a concerned student and not in her capacity as president of the ASA. Indeed, these actions were taken by individual students who were outraged at the premise of the party, and they have demonstrated great courage and initiative in raising campus awareness. To attribute these actions to the ASA is not only false, but it also ignores the important role of student activists in bringing this discussion to the larger Duke community. . . .

As the Asian Students Association, our mission includes voicing the political, social and cultural interests of Asian students at Duke. While we do not presume to speak for all of the Asian students at Duke, we believe it is our duty as representatives to condemn acts of injustice like the party. If you believe that we have exceeded our capacity, or otherwise disagree, please feel free to voice your concerns. We welcome an open discussion, so please email any concerns to . . . .

Relevant to what DBB said above about context and other recent events at Duke, these quotes reported in The Chronicle, the campus newspaper, by students who did participate in posting the fliers and planning the rally seem relevant:

“This is not just about Asians, one party or one frat,” Tsai said. “This is a consistent thing happening. We want serious things to be done by the student body and the University so that this never happens again.”

. . .

“Every year something like this happens. The frats apologize and then the next weekend it happens again,” Zhang said. “I hope that this time people can really be thoughtful and honest and try to come up with a lasting solution to racism and sexism here.”

So I'm not sure why the ASA should look dumb at this point.


And I'll say again, as one fairly familiar with the campus culture at Duke, that any ignorance on the part of Eta Prime would almost have to be wilfull ignorance -- especially since they had discussions with Duke officials about it before the party.

They want action punished simply because they are offended--possibly placing the academic careers of some other students in jeopardy. They want the power to control others based on their belief that an apology is apparently not enough.

And yes, calling a party where people play dress up an "act of injustice," is IMHO, over the top.

Where has the Asian Student Association called for punishments that could affect any academic careers? I haven't seen reports of any calls for action from the ASA beyond calls for conversations with the goal of minimizing instances of racial insensitivity on campus. The most I have seen punishment-wise has been individual students suggesting that the chapter had placed its charter in jeopardy.

Maybe -- they're not words I would choose, because I don't think injustice is the right word. Again though, context matters. And part of the context is that I think what they were calling an "act of injustice" was not just "a party where people play dress up," but a party that the chapter was already on notice was perceived as racially insensitive. It's kind of hard to take an apology seriously that basically says "now that we know how this offended people, we're sorry," when they were told beforehand how people already were offended and went ahead anyway.

And speaking of context, if you're going to cite the "act of injustice" comment, you have to acknowledge that immediately after that comment, they said "If you believe that we have exceeded our capacity, or otherwise disagree, please feel free to voice your concerns. We welcome an open discussion."

From your quote:

Admittedly, this didn't come from the ASA, but rather some apparent pamphleteer. I did a little reading about the water buffalo incident at Duke. If you don't recall, I linked a wiki article above Apparently being racially insensitive is a very serious student conduct violation. There were also lawsuits based on retaliatory behavior by faculty against members of the LaCrosse team following that whole boondoggle.

Asking for "serious things" to happen doesn't require a lot of speculation to lead one to think they are suggesting the University seriously sanction anyone deemed to have offended someone else.

And if it was racially insensitive, so freaking what? Asians make up 22% of the undergrad student body at Duke. You can't tell me that they felt threatened or marginalized or anything of that nature. It boils down to the fact that some students didn't like what Kappa Sigma did. Kappa Sigma is free to do what it wants internally (I'll bet they're restored as soon as this blows over), but what I'm seeing here is a lot of overreaction and very poor crisis management by the fraternity--you never do yourself favors by removing flyers.

I think his statement is very well worded. It attempts to refute just about any criticism one could have of the ASA's actions. That they say they don't intend to speak on behalf of 22% of Duke's student body is fine, but folks aren't going to perceive it that way. Kappa Sigma didn't intend to represent Duke's Greek community when it threw its party, but folks aren't going to perceive it that way.

And I mean, very clearly, some folks' attitude about this is this is less than wanting an open discussion.

And here's a quote from the rally of several hundred people (not an overreaction?)

She may feel that way, but that's certainly not anyone but her fault. If that's how she wants to interpret and internalize some grown men and women dressing in adult diapers and bathrobes, that's fine.

My family's experience in coming here from Europe wasn't a lot different than her family from China. On my dad's side, they were Irish, it was the late 1880s and they homesteaded in Northwest Oklahoma after coming over the Atlantic with nothing more than they could carry. Not only did they relocate to a place where civilization was far away, they were also Irish, thus, except among their own kind, they were outcasts. Go ahead and throw a party somehow making fun of Irish immigrants, or do as many children in Oklahoma do--reenact the land run on '89er day (my family did participate in the land run of the Cherokee Outlet). Think I'd consider that offensive or be reasonable if I did?

Oy.

Oh, is this another thread where we pretend there is no such thing as white privilege? Sorry, sometimes I get confused and think people who are educated enough to be members of a GLO are also capable of some sort of self-reflection.