Bump this thread whenever another fraternity gets caught throwing a racist party

http://www.startribune.com/10242/story/1528428.html

Hamline University has suspended six players from its football team for donning blackface and body paint to dress up as African tribesmen for an off-campus Halloween party, an incident that has sparked a discussion about racial sensitivity at the St. Paul liberal arts college.

...

The university is investigating the incident to find out whether the students violated policy, Hamline spokesman JacQui Getty said Sunday. Two cheerleaders who helped the players with their costumes and reportedly posted photos of them on the Internet social-networking site Facebook with a caption about "spooks" are also under investigation.

Sophomore Tasha Simmons, a friend of the students involved, said the matter has been blown out of proportion and taken out of context. "People misunderstood," she said.

...

Simmons said the costumes -- which included black Under Armour-type clothing and tight black pants -- were creative. "It wasn't supposed to be offensive whatsoever," she said.

Using "spooks" also was not meant to offend anyone, she said. "If you would have seen them, you would have been spooked out. Most (students) don't correlate that term with the '50s," she said. "These are not the sort of people in any way who would discriminate against anyone."

JacQui?

ok, I feel like killing some racists right now

"Hamline University"

aka the Slavedrivers

"Spooks"? Is that term offensive in some way I'm not aware of? Unless you're CIA or undead, I guess.

Spook can mean:

* A female gecko
* An alternative term (Dutch, from Middle Dutch spooc) for a ghost
* A colloquial term for a spy
* Spook (band), an Australian trip hop band.
* A racial slur for a black person.
* A character from The Wardstone Chronicles

all five other options would make much better halloween costumes

i wish that i had gone as an australian trip hop band

america thanks you

"Spooks"? Is that term offensive in some way I'm not aware of? Unless you're CIA or undead, I guess.

-- Laurel, Monday, November 5, 2007 3:26 PM (Monday, November 5, 2007 3:26 PM) Bookmark Link

I take it you're not from Memphis.

I'm so baffled by the fact that you've never heard that one, Laurel!

"mehfss" xpost

I used to be a spook

Naw, not from the south at all, actually. Just working on my Tuomas impression.

No, never, Dan!

tom you were in the wardstone chronicles>???

and thought it was kind of weird that it could be slang for people in my profession and a slur at the same time, because I think I came late to the former definition. It was like getting used to being a dentist and you find out all dentists are sometimes also called chinkees or something

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/h/hancoc_herb_spookwhos_101b.jpg

IT guys get called spooks? What do the black IT guys have to say about that?

haha no IT guys do not get called spooks. people who learn foreign languages while on the military's payroll get called spooks.

jaymc has incapacitated me, omg

lol, I actually applied to Hamline University, because my parents' friends' son went there. I got the impression when I visited, though, that I could do better.

I think that's the place that asked my dad to teach chemistry part-time. (Wherever it was, he said no.)

The closest I've come to that, tombot, is when at a summer camp spent at a local black university, I didn't call my highest card during a game of Spades.

Okay wait, is "spades" a problem too???

omg YES

I am tempted to list all of the things people have called me due to the color of my skin but that's probably not a good idea.

you could make up a list of nonsense and confuse the hell out of all these white ppl

"dinkin flicka"

THE WHOLE WORLD'S GONE MAD. I only guessed it was b/c the black teens are referred to as Spades in Absolute Beginners but I thought it was just a...group identification like the Teddy Boys or the rockers or the jazz freaks or whatever, and the book is profoundly anti-racist so....

My prediction for two minutes from now: Laurel suddenly has to rethink the name of her new band, the Jigaboo Crows, and their first single, "Chuckin' Spears"

omg

ow ow ow ow ow ow my sides ow

I lol'd

I have no idea what any of you are talking about now. (jk)

Whoa, even I knew "spooks" and "spades" are offensive words.

Guys I found this: http://www.rsdb.org/

It's kind of amazing! And really awful and wrong.

At least one of the above first brought to my attention via Sgt. Mauser in Police Academy, well before the actor who played him came to my high school to tell us not to use drugs

xpost TUOMAS BE RUBBING IT IN

holy shit that thing is big.

xpost

I have never registered either one of them used offensively in my hearing...or read it either, for that matter, b/c if it were pointed out in a book I'd probably have noticed it in over-heard conversations or something. Totally clueless. But also I hate all the Police Academy movies so maybe that's the problem.

I think "spook" is in To Kill a Mockingbird, or am I making that up?

man "wog" does a lot of work for three little letters.

"Special Meal / Jews / When a Jewish person gets a meal on a plane, it's from the kosher menu and a special meal not offered to regular passengers"

OR ALTERNATELY, EVERY VEGETARIAN EVER.

"Spook" figures bigtime in the plot of The Human Stain by Philip Roth