by J. Brown
Without rehashing what's already been discussed, debated and pontificated upon ad nauseum, here are a few other things I've been thinking about regarding the OU Sigma Alpha Epsilon video:
- The fact that the chant was to the tune of "If You're Happy And You Know It" forces me to believe that this isn't something that they just made up last week. This chant has probably been around for years, and has probably been repeated within the frat at multiple campuses for decades. OU's chapter just so happened to be the ones that got caught. Tough luck.
- What makes SAE - or any other white fraternity - believe that we would want to be in their frat, anyway? We already knew that you'd rather hang us from trees; that's a large part of the reason we started our own organizations. Not to mention, SAE is the only national frat that was founded in the antebellum South, and they had members that fought for the Confederate Army. No thanks.
- With that said, should we really be surprised?
- The expulsion of the two guys in the video seems drastic, especially considering that the video was posted TWO DAYS AGO. There was clearly no investigation (although, if there's video evidence, I guess you don't really need one). The chant was messed up, but to me, this feels very reactionary. There's a bus full of guys chanting, but the school president decided to kick two of them out of school. They're like the definition of the word "scapegoat" at this point. The chant is offensive, but getting kicked out of school for a racial slur seems unfair. I know as a Black person I'm not supposed to say that, but I'm fairly certain that all this accomplishes is that it provides racists with the cognizance to ask everyone to put their phones away next time.
