Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
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.
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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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin
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.
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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.