University of Okahoma-Sigma Alpha Epsilon-Racial Chant
 

I saw Nationals' reply to this story before I even heard of this. To say I am sickened and sadden by this is even just touching the surface. University of Oklahoma investigating video appearing to show fraternity members' racist chant http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagela...093c7b4c5.html

welp.

Revoke the charter.
That's a start.

Brad Cohen @SAE_ESA_brad · 27m 27 minutes ago I know I speak for all when I say I'm disgusted and shocked by the video involving our @sae1856 chapter at Uof OK. They will be dealt with.

:cool:

Current and former OU football players respond to the incident on Twitter.
http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports...oner-response/

Make examples of them and kick them out of school.

Per Twitter, cops are now surrounding the OU SAE house.
http://t.co/MvesHm41rj

Maybe a good time for OU Panhellenic to expand ...

Update: SAE members moving out of the house under police protection due to death threats. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_oRFj2UgAAmORp.jpg

Student demonstration planned on campus for 7:30am Monday.

http://www.thelostogle.com/2015/03/0...n-charter-bus/

Chapter closed, all members involved will be expelled from SAE. This is a HUGE chapter, probably around 200 members if I recall correctly. The police had to surround the house to protect members who were moving out from violent protesters. The house has been vandalized and I'm sure as soon as the cops or security people are gone, vandals are going to do some serious damage.

Local SAE alumni have been very vocal that this is being handled.

--btw, watch The Lost Ogle's blog for updates.. it beats the pants off of our local traditional journalism sites.

They didn't learn it in a vacuum.... this can't stop here...

Some apparently lack remorse...

http://www.ocolly.com/news/article_9...4dfefd9fb.html

Honestly, anyone who was on that bus, be it a member of SAE or their dates should all be completely and utterly ashamed for their behavior. Regardless of whether they were singing along or not, to sit by and allow this to happen and not speak up, is reprehensible. It really saddens me to know that racism is still active and evidently something to chant and cheer about these days. Does this generation of millennial not have any moral compass? It's obvious that they are dumb as dirt to think that in this day and age of the internet and viral videos that behavior like this would go unnoticed.

What a bunch of douche canoes.

A very sad day in the Greek world.:o

Seems *somewhat* broad a brush by the Fraternity. If there is a brother of the chapter who was home for the weekend (I'm talking on an ATM camera in Tulsa while this is going on), then removing his national membership in Sigma Alpha Epsilon doesn't seem right.

If you lie down with dogs, you're gonna get fleas. Even if Brother John at the ATM was not on this trip, I would doubt that this is the first time the chapter has acted in such a manner. You surround yourself with racist assholes, you risk being lumped in with them, racist or not. Then again, if you weren't a racist ass-hat, why WOULD you want to be a member of a fraternity that acts this way?

Except that they didn't create that chant on the bus. Those members knew the chant very well. Therefore, all members have had exposure to the chant and have had ample opportunities to do the right thing. The right thing, of course, isn't just stopping the chant but exposing the chapter for the racist bigots that they are. That could start in-house with "hey guys, this is utterly wrong thinking," "we should be very open to pledging any race," "we NEVER use that word or refer to lynching," etc., to full exposure if nothing changed with the first approach.

So, yes, broad brush was definitely the correct response.

Also, this is not just one member using a racial epithet - it's a group, in a public setting, and to compound the already morally reprehensible actions, they directly involve the fraternity. In the case of the Bama Chi Omega who tweeted, removing only the offending member is the proper response. She was solely responsible for her personal tweet. In this case, I think the only tenable action is removing the charter. The chapter would not be able to function going forward even if for some reason HQ didn't pull it. It also stands as a stark warning to all GLO chapters that racism has no place in Greek life.

To be clear, this was reported re the same fraternity in Stillwater.

Doesn't surprise me one bit, actually. Interesting when watching the video how they were all in unison. That tells me it wasn't the first time they chanted racial slurs. Oh well.

Additionally, any sorority women who were on that bus who were laughing or singing along, are just as much to blame in my eyes as these young men for encouraging the racist behavior.

I don't know about singing along. There's a long history of "basement songs" at OU, which are typically about other fraternities and are meant to be inappropriately provocative. I read one (which I will not share) about SAE in my FB feed this morning.

I can tell you that not all chapters at OU are like this and would hazard to guess that most aren't. The Sigma Nu chapter is as diverse a group as you'll find on campus.

Many of our "Southern" fraternities existed for hundreds of years as part of a culture glorifying antebellum ideals involving racial superiority. Many groups have moved out of the 19th century. Other groups refuse to make progress.

I applaud SAE HQ for taking such swift and definitive action. I understand that there's a press conference being held right now. Details to come.

Lots of remarks on message boards and GLO's take yet one more (well deserved) hit.
Are college students now just dumber, or does it seem that way sometimes? They're the ones who are allegedly so savvy about social media, yet they actually think they exist in a vacuum and this hateful stuff will somehow NOT get out?
Hey, guys: You are too DUMB to be in college and are certainly not elite enough to be in a GLO.
Oh, and ditto about any sorority girls who were joining in.

I just listened to OU President David Boren's press conference. I can't and won't defend the indefensible behavior of the singers on the bus; however, I will point out that the thrust of Boren's comments was that OU generally does not represent those values and the behavior of a subset of OU students (the SAE chapter) should not discount the otherwise good qualities of OU. But, he is unwilling to give that same consideration to the SAE chapter, i.e. that the behavior of the 20 or so SAEs on the bus (assuming that they were all singing) does not reflect the attitudes of all 200 men in the chapter or SAE generally.
Candidly, are we really to believe that the attitudes of the bus singers, or those of the SAE chapter at OU, are all that different from many in the OU student body? As far as I am aware, the chapter has enjoyed a good reputation on campus. If OU was as enlightened as President Boren would have us believe, they would have been pariahs.
Sanctions? Sure. Counseling? You bet. Apologies? Absolutely. But, if there really is a "U" in "OU", then surely it can come up with a solution more tailored and truly constructive than a one way bus ticket out of Norman.

Please read the comments in this thread that address your statement. Think about it. Do you believe that only 20 bus riders knew the words to that chant? Who taught it to them? Think it all the way through.

ETA: when you have cancer, the surgeon will also remove healthy tissue surrounding the tumor.

And, a second video has surfaced. I am willing to bet there will be more videos.

Please visit this link and give if you can:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/howard

Some SAE alumnus has apparently set up this site, and it is coming to me through OU Greek channels, so I'm going to say it's more than likely legit. It seems that unfairly, the long time chef for the SAE house, Howard, likely showed up for work this morning to learn that he is out of a job. This is apparently a collection being taken for his benefit.

That's a really nice gesture.

No, I don't believe that only the 20 bus riders knew the chant. I first heard the chant as an undergraduate in the early 80s. It was prevalent then; it's not prevalent now. Attitudes take time to change.

Would they have sung the song in public? I don't think so; I think they knew it was wrong. And, if given the opportunity to apologize and repent, I think they would. I think a teaching moment was lost because in today's environment anything less than the "death penalty" in cases like this is criticized.

There is no reason to believe that the SAEs at OU are particularly different from many other students at OU. The university administration may feel better about itself today for crushing a 100+ year old chapter, but I fear it will only drive the problem further underground and delay real progress.

I agree. These men are embarrassments to the greek system and, actually, to human beings in general.

Now I think you are cherry-picking. And I'm not buying your "no different than many other OU students" which you've brought up twice now. Does that make it right, or somehow lessen the nature of the act? I'm pretty sure it does not. And we're not talking about the OU student body, so unless you have data to support your claim, let's not go there.

Wrong is wrong: where is the teaching moment in what happened on that bus? The teaching moment happened when those "men" were children. And apparently it failed.

When you shatter the glass, saying "sorry" doesn't put the glass back together again. You sweep up the glass shards and you throw them in the trash.

New Video Appears To Show Face Of Man Who Led Oklahoma Frat's Racist Chant http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...ampaign=buffer

Boy is he going to be a popular guy on campus once his name is made public! His parents must be so proud!

Glad I don't go to that site regularly. The comments are on the same level as the horrible song this kid sang.

IQ, meet room temperature. :mad:

I've brought it up twice because it's a good point and one that you choose to ignore. Today you're fine with it because it doesn't affect your organization. One day it will be different and you will want a more thoughtful and nuanced approach.
The combination of condemning entire groups for the conduct a few and condemning because of speech (vile speech, but still only speech) is dangerous. The First Amendment is there to protect unpopular speech.

Really? They're not sympathetic from what I see, mostly ironic.

MU2Driver,

I wasn't quick enough to QFP your original comment you made, but you said "They didn't say "Let's kill black people"; they said "we don't want black people in our private club". Most GLOs are still essentially segregated; that's just a fact. Most churches are still segregated. In fact, Sunday morning has often been called the most segregated hour in America."

Did you miss the "You can hang them from a tree" part? The lynching of black men in our country's history is abhorrent and yes, them singing about it doesn't directly say "Let's kill black people", but it may as well be.

First, THE FIRST AMENDMENT DOES NOT PROTECT YOU FROM THE REPERCUSSIONS OF YOUR SPEECH. It specifically addresses what the GOVERNMENT can do (or not do) to regulate your speech. You are still subject to the consequences of your speech.

Second, is today logical fallacy day at GC? Because MU2Driver, your argument is not, in fact a good one; Tu quoque and bandwagon fallacies do not help your case.

Third, we are not talking about one or two rogue members. We are talking about a self-identified group representing SAE as being horribly racist (not to mention stupid). Surely at some point during their new member period it was impressed upon them that they represent SAE in all their actions. Would I feel the same if it were my sisters? No. I would feel WORSE because I know that is NOT what my organization stands for, I would not want to be lumped in with them, and I would WELCOME any "sister" who acted that way in being shown the door, and any chapter which condoned, either actively or passively, that sort of unconscionable behavior having their charter pulled.

Yes, it reflects badly on SAE, but the fact of the matter is that any negative actions by any GLO reflects badly on ALL GLOs, and to John Q. Public the individual letters don't matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NRl66yUtG8

I am not ignoring your point, I am sticking to the topic. You are bringing in the "everyone else does it" reasoning and that doesn't fly with me.

As for the bolded, you could not be more wrong on that. You are a relative newcomer to GC and apparently you do not know me well at all. Further, it doesn't matter whose ox is getting gored here, contrary to your claim. This time it's SAE, but last week it was Theta, or Chi O, or Kappa - whatever. I am not changing my stance depending on the letters. I have zero tolerance for this type of behavior.

And this is NOT a First Amendment issue. The Federal government is not punishing SAE. And, the First Amendment does not protect you from the consequences of your speech. Don't ignore that fundamental principle.

There your problem right there -- we knew in the 80s that this was WRONG. The people who sang it then are the parents of the kids singing it now -- they learned this behavior from adults -- they aren't smart enough to have original thought. And, their parents didn't care enough to teach them to not voice those opinions in public. I hope they -- the kids and their parents -- get what they deserve. Public ridicule -- which hopefully will result in some soul searching.

If you are a religious person, pray for their souls because if this is the type of person they are, they are going to need it.

Wrong. The first amendment is there to protect you from the Government limiting your speech. The first amendment does not protect from the fall out of speaking an unpopular opinion. I'm so sick of the free speech argument.

I guess what is really surprising to me is that everyone is acting so "surprised" this goes on.

Also, my prediction is they are back on campus in about 5 years. As disgusting as it is, to many wealthy alumni.