If we didn’t need Saturday’s 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” an observance of the anniversary of the day in 1965 when thousands marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an effort to secure voting rights for African-Americans that Alabama was denying to them as a reminder of how far the symbolic march for equality still lies ahead, racist chants aboard an Oklahoma fraternity’s bus provided yet another example.
Oklahoma University president David Boren very quickly condemned the racist chants, which not only boastfully announced that no [n-word] would be allowed to pledged the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, but also that many African-Americans would be lynched. He also announced that the university would sever ties with the fraternity and that its members would be forced to vacate their house by midnight Tuesday.
“To those who have misused their free speech in such a reprehensible way, I have a message for you. You are disgraceful," Boren tweeted after the protest. "You have violated all that we stand for. You should not have the privilege of calling yourself 'Sooners.'" The Associated Press also reported that Boren said the university was looking into a range of punishment including expulsion.
“This is not who we are,” Boren said at a midday news conference. “I’d be glad if they left. I might even pay the bus fare for them.”
On top of that, Ben Carson, a would be presidential candidate and tea party darling who, as a neurosurgeon, should know better, claimed that homosexuality is a choice because – get this – of prison sex, a fact which Saturday Night Live rightly lampooned.
Some may be tempted to laud Boren for acting so swiftly and decisively to separate the university from the actions of a few ignorant fools. Some might argue that because Oklahoma is in the middle of the deep south, Boren had to act quickly, for much the same reason that University of Mississippi chancellor Daniel W. Jones had to act swiftly when students including Ole Miss football players heckled a performance of The Laramie Project with anti-gay and other slurs in 2013.
“A lot of students come here with less exposure to social issues than they might at other schools,” Jones said at the time. “Because of our unique history of injustice, we have a larger responsibility and opportunity to deal with intolerance in any form.”
Boren has more to contend with than just history, be it the shameful actions depicted in the movie
Selma or the ever-present stain of bigotry in Mississippi. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has made her opposition to gay equality a central aspect of her administration as the state has doggedly fought to serve as a roadblock against same-sex marriage, among other issues. He has to contend with a fraternity that has gone far beyond a sick joke or what could be dismissed as trolling if words used in the video captured on the bus were confined to the Internet.
On top of the mere words chanted by members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and the threats inherent in the chants, the timing – so soon after the anniversary of Bloody Sunday and after President Barack Obama’s fiery speech Saturday at the site of the massacre – could not have been worse. If anyone continues to argue that America is a post-racial society, merely reading these accounts should prove otherwise.
The Associated Press report on Boren’s response to the fraternity also noted that the brothers were “not totally forthcoming” in response to the reports of the incident, which suggests both tacit approval for the virulently racist stance and the flaws of a culture that expects people to take the fall for others rather than admit to wrongdoing.
Like so many examples in years past and recently, the fraternity’s actions are a reminder that the cover-up is sometimes worse than the crime. More to the point: In this case, the cover-up only serves to exacerbate the crime.
Not only is America far from being post-racial, but the anniversary and these recent examples of bigotry that remain show how far we haven’t come in the symbolic march toward liberty and justice for all Americans.
Boren had to act quickly all right. But his immediate response should be a call to action for all who care about equality.
The university will be “an example to the entire country of how to deal with this issue. There must be zero tolerance for racism everywhere in our nation,” he said.
Boren may have spoken about his university, but his words serve as a challenge for a nation. We all must accept his challenge if we are to truly live our ideals as a nation conceived in liberty and equality for all.
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