One of the lead stories in the news the past few days has been the furor surrounding the racist fraternity video that made its way to the social media from the University of Oklahoma. A video posted on Twitter showed Sigma Alpha Epsilon members at OU enthusiastically chanting a racial slur to the tune of If You’re Happy and You Know It while the group was on what looked to be a charter bus. The video was posted by a student organization called Unheard — described, by itself, as an alliance of black students organized for change within campus administration and atmosphere. The fraternity’s national headquarters shut down the chapter most immediately and condemned the chapter’s actions. OU President David Boren released a statement announcing that the university would cut all ties with the organization, closed the fraternity’s on-campus house and demanded that members remove their belongings from the house. He also expelled two of the students for leading the chant. Just when it seemed that things couldn’t get worse, a second video surfaced showing the fraternity’s 79-year old “house mother” engaging in a similar chant.
Football is king at the University of Oklahoma, but the incident has affected that too — the team walked out of practice while locking arms to protest the fraternity’s actions, and a top recruit from a school in Texas withdrew his commitment to play for the Sooners.
The football team is named the Sooners — what with all the controversy surrounding team names these days, it’s surprising that someone hasn’t picked up on the Sooner name; it’s the name for the settlers who went into the unassigned lands early to stake their claims. A lot of people believe that land was stolen from the Indians. Stay tuned…..
This is a sad situation all around — racism springs from ignorance, but I’m not sure only education will cure the problem. The truth is, we cannot hate each other. We have too many other people that hate us. We are a nation of diverse people — that’s what makes the U.S. so strong.
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