.
Still gathering information, but having heard while driving in the tall timber some emerging details about a show by the Saddle and Sirloin Club at North Dakota State University that insults presidential candidate Barack Obama, women, gays, and who knows who else, I want to go on record immediately with the following:
I graduated from this university. I edited its newspaper back in the day. I had encounters back then with racist attitudes, including by a fraternity. It was an issue I thought would have been left in the dark, ignorant history of those Vietnam era times. I guess I was wrong.
As an alumnus and an almost lifelong resident of Fargo, I am ashamed to know that this kind of activity took place, and it goes to show just how much Barack Obama's speech on racism actually speaks to reality. A sorry time for our university.
And asinine arguments that it was their first amendment right to do it are a pathetic apologist effort. There can be no excusing, no rationalizing, no equivocating on the wrongness of this program.
It was wrong. It was offensive. It was stupid. It was willfully ignorant...of the times and of basic human decency. Mockery of people by stereotype is discrimination.
That it occurred under the umbrella of a university, my university, is beyond offensive. That it reflects the current standard of "willful ignorance" that is promulgated from the White House, through rightwing hate radio and down to the schoolyard is no excuse.
My name is Sandy Scheel Huseby, NDSU, Class of '71, and today, I am ashamed. And I'm sorry.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Are you being selective in your outrage? I don't know you, so I will ask and not assume. Did you find the Obama Girls videos to be a disgrace? The Obama campaign seemed to like them. That is what they were imitating.
Do you think depicting Catholic nuns in sexually provocative poses (as regularly appear in gay celebrations and parades, including on campus) is very offensive? Is it a disgrace?
Thanks for a response. Best wishes.
Mike Johnson
The skit used blackface and simulated lapdancing and anal sex. You tell me, am I being selective? As I noted, I posted yesterday before even reading the more detailed story that appeared at the top of the front page of the local newspaper.
The skit was performed at a charity benefit for the Diabetes Foundation...at an audience that was open to everybody, including grammas and kids. You tell me, am I being selective?
What you describe would be offensive to me. Does it appear regularly in parades and/or on campuses? I don't know. And call me cynical, but I refuse to accept without question the premise "regularly"--too much distortion goes on these days as it is.
I happen to believe the skit was reprehensible...tasteless...and showed incredible lack of judgment on the part of those who did it.
But it can be a teachable moment that I hope the University will show leadership on.
Thank you for visiting and for asking, Mike.
Best wishes back atcha. ~ Prairie
Yes, they appear regularly. So regularly that if you google "Sisters Of" and gay parade you will find comments about them being late, or signing autographs. There are different versions of them, sometimes with nudity, sometimes just in drag.
As for Obama and "blackface", that is a deliberate attempt to silence criticism of Obama. They wore makeup, not blackface, as actors and actresses do, so that the audience could know who they were mocking. (Calling any and all attempts to portray a black person as "blackface" is ridiculous. I'm old enough to know what blackface actually is.)
And, as I said, they were mocking a pro-Obama video. He deserves to be mocked. He considers hatemongers like Wright to be his mentor. Then he lies to the public about his knowledge of what his preacher had been preaching for twenty years (LOL).
As for the bareback skit, San Francisco recently advertised their gay parade by printing posters of the Last Supper except with penises and leather instead of bread and wine. But mocking the very famous and profitable gay cowboy movie upsets you?
As to children being exposed to your target of contempt, there are a lot more children exposed to what I described (Parade?, Church?) than to that skit.
Obama is running for president. He is open to mocking. More so than any other candidate.
Thanks for the chance to comment.
Mike Johnson
I hope you'll listen to the entirety of Rev. Wright's sermon[s] and re-evaluate your attitude. Hillary Clinton's pastor has commented in support of Rev. Wright.
Rev. Mike Huckabee has spoken out in support of Rev. Wright, a retired minister and former Marine. I'd say he's earned his right to preach.
Since you're so adept with google, you should have no problem finding a wealth of these resources.
McCain? He's not had anything to say about Rev. Wright or Obama's comments about him, to the best of my knowledge...he has, however, sought out and trumpeted the endorsement of Rev. John Hagee, whose anti-Catholic screeds are offensive to me.
So I guess we shall agree to disagree...I don't have a problem with Obama or his pastor. Plain truths, pointedly told, are often painful to hear. But there can be no healing without them.
I do my best to live by a simple rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
And seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...and not slices taken out of context to distort and mock and deride nor other such hypocrisies.
I'm far more offended by words of politicians that send young men and women into a war in Iraq based on lies than I am by what one pastor has to say.
As to your comments about gay parade activities, while I don't understand why you would choose to conflate two totally unrelated topics, I can't disagree with the offensiveness of activities such as you describe, but I've never witnessed that. In fact, I think entirely too much public time is devoted to what belongs in private...and I include the media pimping of sex scandals in that.
I do hope you weren't suggesting some situational ethics standard that it's okay to commit a wrong if someone else does. Doesn't compute with me.
But certainly points out how deep and heated the divisions in this country are, and how little effort has been put into leading people to understand and respect the viewpoints and values of others.
And if you don't recognize the total inappropriateness of such a tawdry skit at a fundraiser for a health charity, then I don't see that anything further I have to say will reach you.
So again, I do hope you'll listen with an open mind to Rev Wright's sermons instead of the abundance of what Chris Wallace of Fox News has called Obama-bashing that simply seeks to further divide and poison people's hearts as well as minds.
I'm a former Marine, so save that. I came across a few Marines like Wright. That is to say, racist Marines. We had no problem calling them racist. It's part of being a Marine. Wright is a racist anti-Semitic fraud, plain as day.
"Plain truths, pointedly told, are often painful to hear."
Indeed. You should ask yourself why an American should vote for someone who took his children to hear a preacher curse out race hatred week after week.
Love that million dollar home he extracted from his oppressed flock. Pretty much says it all.
Regarding listening to all of Wrights rants, it is now racist to listen to them at all, don't you know. Obama supporters have said so.
And just so you know, I welcome Wrights words and charges being made public. Glad you do too. It has been a revelation for most Americans.
Mike Johnson
Typical White Person
Post a Comment