Nope, that’s not what the article is titled. The article is actually titled “Georgetown students say campus satire is racist.” At least the title isn’t “Georgetown students say campus satire is ‘racist.'” But what if racism were widely acknowledged? It would be the racist writers who would be forced to defend their position.
You can see the original “humor” piece here. It invokes cross-burning, “human-shaped pinatas” hanging from trees, blackface, the racist imagination about how black people speak and firehoses turned on black students.
Yeah, it’s a laugh riot. We’ve seen it all before, of course.
Blackface and white people portraying African Americans in a racist manner is just part and parcel of the overall contributions by white people in dehumanizing other groups.
The burning cross and KKK imagery are all too often used by white people, either in what they perceive to be “humor” or in accusations of racism against people of color. Earlier this year we saw another use of images of the burning cross and the KKK. By a “progressive” site, no less.
I’m always astounded that white people will use these images with no apparent thought to what they represent for people of color. And the burning cross and the KKK are not simply historical images. Crosses have been burned in recent history (including in my neighborhood). Cross-burning is a method of intimidation meant to instill fear in a specific group of people. As such it is not just a funny image to be used in a “humor” article. Klan activity actually spiked beginning in 2006, driven in part by anti-immigrant sentiment.
Similarly, lynching is no laughing matter. And when Bull Connor ordered the firehoses turned on a group of mostly high-school-aged students, he was not merely wetting them down. The water pressure was enough to cause serious injury. It tore off people’s clothing, threw them to the ground, and dashed them against buildings.
And then he called out the dogs.
I guess I no longer expect even educated white college students to understand what this type of history means. I would like to think that they might be able to learn. But here is one of the editors from this article:
“They didn’t really understand the point, which was not to be racist but to satirize racism itself,” he said. “We still stand behind our point in the article that we think racism exists on campus.”
Got that? You people of color are too stupid to understand the point! Just like in past posts on this blog, in which white people have come to explain the definition of satire to those of us who simply are incapable of grasping it.
“They didn’t really understand the point, which was that they were not satirizing but that they were racist.” Got that?
Resist racism 
What. The. F.
Ye olde protest via propagation. Right.
It’s strange how the Ivies seem unable to make it through a single year without pulling this kind of hateful douchebaggery.
Georgetown, I’ve read satire, I know satire, satire is a friend of mine.
Georgetown, that was no satire.
I find it interesting (though hardly surprising) that both incidents in the AP article (the April Fools Day issue and this one) revolve upong failed satire and race.
Hey La Hoya staff: If you’re just bad at satire, you should suck at it ALL THE TIME. If you constantly pick “race” as a good thing to satirize, and you suck at it, maybe you have a problem not w/ satire than with race. Please to be leaving both of them alone, kthxbye.