Open letter to OU
- Does Racism exists?
- Is it more rampant today than it was in 1968?
- Should the folks at the OU fraternity be brought up on charges for their chant?
- Should their fraternity have been demolished?
- How do we battle Racism?
One would have to have been in a coma for the last 50 years, or brain dead, to believe that racism is not alive and well in this country; as well as around the world.
The racist song or chant repeated by the members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity that has sparked such a furor, “and debate” across the country is the following:
Song to the tune of: “If You Are Happy and You Know It”
There will never be a N***** in SAE
There will never be a N***** in SAE
You can hang them from a tree, but he can never sign with me
There will never be a N***** in SAE
McCarthyism lives on.
Not too many years ago I would venture a guess that this song or others like it had been chanted or sung by many others before them. What makes this time different? Why do I say that?
This is a very old tune, a very very old tune that I would guess has been sung by many many people in this fraternity, and possibly others. If this were a recent creation it most likely would have been done in rap music style which of course the oxymoron would have been priceless!
Today we have people looking for their 15 minutes of fame. Today each and every person that carries a cell phone can be a photo journalist or video journalist with a waiting a ready audience to give them their reward, “views!”
When a fight breaks out and some person is getting pummeled by more than one person, do we step in and stop it? No, we record it and post it, to see how many hits we can get with it!
Worse than that, in this 24 hour news cycle we have the cable media finding these “nuggets” and broadcasting them to further promote the “human condition.” While building their ratings!
Yes, Racism exists and it should be no secret that we find anyone that is different from us a candidate for some sort of bias. If there was an all-white or all-black school, those in the school would find someone that acted differently from them, and mock them or bully them, because that is what we do. Our human nature is to build ourselves up, at the expense of others.
The extreme racism that exist within the Black Panthers; Americans and others only are aware of it because it makes for ratings to put someone spewing hate like that in the national spot light!
Racism is really hate. It is easy to hate, much easier to hate than to like or heaven forbid Love; as we are instructed to do by our creator. Since we are taking God out of everything, and everywhere, it is no surprise that the human condition it deteriorating.
Had there been no easy way for that person who took that video in the fraternity to take the video and then gain the national spot light, we never would have heard of this. It would have come and gone, as it probably has for years, and nothing ever would have been said.
Here is the rub, even though what they did and said was abhorrent; I would argue that they have a right to say and do it.
Just like the advocate for the Black Panthers can stand on a street corner and proclaim to the world that “he hates white people, he hates crackers! He wishes every Cracker was dead! The old, the young, the men and women and even their babies! He wishes their cracker babies were dead!” Spittle and foam spew out of this person’s mouth as he screams to the eager cameras recording his every utterance, like he was some sort of messenger from some place important!
He too has a right to say what he says. We can flip the channel or turn off the damned idiot box, but he has that right!
If we dissolve Sigma Alpha Epsilon for what they did and or said or we kick them all off campus, we are not teaching anyone anything other than you really don’t have freedom of speech, if you are white!
What if I wanted to rent that building to put a place of worship and study for Christians, or Jews, or pick a religion? What if that too was considered hate speech because now we can obviously pick and choose what is ok to say, and what is not.
You could argue that what those members said was horrible but, what if others find Christianity distasteful?
I for one think that the University missed the mark. That should have, and could have been used as a teaching moment, instead they invoked the Zero Tolerance policy which means zero thinking! They took the path to cover their ass, instead of using it as a way to teach future generations around the globe how to deal with racism; at its roots!
They picked the ostrich approach which people have picked for generations. How is that working for you? You would think that we are capable of learning. One would think that college folk would be smarter than the rest of us poor peons, and be able to think outside the box!
Had I been asked, I would have immediately reversed that decision and put their letters back on that building. I would then use this as a way to teach, and I would apply the opposite of hate while I did it. The color of skin is an easy way to delineate between us, and make some an easy target for hate. Some make it easy to make stereotypical snap decisions about a group of people, by the actions of a few.
I read in the news recently that in the middle of a basketball game, the home team stopped the game in the middle of play, walked off the court and came to the aid of one of their cheerleaders! You see, some people were bullying this cheerleader and they “the team” were having none of it! This Cheerleader has Down syndrome and she is one of their own! Someone is teaching something good there. Someone is doing right by these kids!
Those people in that fraternity are “one of their own,” and even though their condition cannot be cured or controlled by medicines, their condition could be changed and needs addressing. If my hunch is correct, that chant is as old as the school; and most probably represents a bigotry of a time gone by but, like many traditions has hung on because no one had the integrity to challenge it.
Those people are part of a culture and that culture needs help, just like the folks in Ferguson need to wise up and read the tea leaves.
The guy was guilty of charging a cop, while trying to take his gun! You don’t do that and expect a good outcome! Even the overly biased DOJ had to admit that Darren Wilson was correct in his actions!
The hate in Ferguson needs to be dismantled, and if external agitators are found to be there, they need to be encouraged to leave. Racism is a cancer that grows in the heart and hate is it accomplice. Unlike cancer however; you cannot simply cut it out. Education and a lot less of the people who foment racism for a living will be needed to heal these wounds. Add to this some time, and lack of the public spotlight on those craving attention will go a long way towards healing this nation after these last few years of torment.
As for any gathering anywhere, know that you could be recorded. There is in fact no safe haven for your privacy in this world today. Orwell had it right, it just took a little longer.
Technology has made privacy just about a thing of the past.
Each and every street corner has some sort of camera. While I don’t want to sound like an alarmist or conspiracy nut, your own phone, tablet or computer could be capturing your activities and sending them to some huge data facility used to store terabytes of terabytes of data!
Full disclosure: I am a writer of Sci-Fi so… Orwell is my kind or person.
While being mindful of the fact that your privacy has limits, doing the right thing is doing it with the knowledge that nobody is seeing you do it.
-Best to you and those that you care about!
Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved
TheTimeDok 
Agree completely with what you say. No matter how disgusting and vile the racism, or how evil the person, speech is speech is speech. / Popular movements can (and should!) petition and boycott and shame these organisations to stamp out racism, but it is their choice if they wish to or not. / Voltaire knew what he was talking about (a lot of the time).