Institutional racism for dummies

Institutional racism for dummies

by digby

Good lord:

The University of Oklahoma says it has determined that fraternity members learned a racist chant at a national event organized by Sigma Alpha Epsilon four years ago — and it wants to know what the leaders are doing about it.

OU President David Boren is expected to announce the results of the school's investigation into the episode at 1 p.m. ET Friday, but revealed some findings in a letter to the frat's executive director.

"The chant was learned by local chapter members while attending a national leadership cruise sponsored by by the national SAE organizations four years ago," Boren wrote.

"While there is no indication that the chant was part of the formal teaching of the national organization, it does appear that the chant was widely known and informally shared amongst members on the leadership cruise."
I find it very hard to fathom how this could happen in 2015. Not one of these frat boys on the cruise or elsewhere stepped up to say it was disgusting? Really? There were no black people there? Would you just stand there? Or join in? I wouldn't.  In fact, I never did, even when I was young and this sort of thing was out in the open. But you'd think that in this day and age nobody would stand for it.

I knew that racism still existed in our society, of course. In fact, I used to write a lot about it long before Obama was elected and got flack for my position from people who insisted that I was pounding an old, out of date drum. But this really crude stuff in a large group of young people is something I thought had pretty much disappeared. Clearly not.

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