The historically Jewish fraternity house, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) was marked with two swastikas in the early hours of Sunday morning, Oct. 5. This was a deplorable act of hatred, violence and intolerance, especially in light of the fact that members of the Jewish community observed Yom Kippur, one of the holiest holidays of the Jewish calendar, not two days earlier.
The news of this despicable act spread across the Emory community and beyond like wildfire. Members of AEPi and the Emory community called for University President James W. Wagner to condemn this act, and he responded to these requests with an e-mail to the entire University in less than 24 hours. The Student Government Association (SGA) responded similarly, condemning the act and urging the student body to wear blue on Oct. 6 to stand in solidarity with Emory’s Jewish community. News of this planned demonstration of solidarity was shared widely on Facebook, and I shared it myself.
I am glad Wagner and SGA denounced this crime. I am also glad SGA is supporting Emory’s Jewish community, and I wore blue on Oct. 6 as a sign of my personal support for this initiative. These responses are exactly how University administrators and institutions should have responded. I come from a Jewish family, and although I am not observant, I take personal comfort in knowing that my University and my peers will not tolerate what happened at AEPi.
I wonder, however, why Wagner and other University institutions have never been compelled to denounce acts of hatred, violence and intolerance against other communities at Emory in such a vigorous manner. In my time at Emory, Wagner has never sent an e-mail to the entire University in less than 24 hours after a sexual assault or rape was reported. SGA has never orchestrated a University wide show of support for an anonymous survivor of sexual assault or rape.
When “The Dooley Show” made a horrific and racist joke about lynching, the greater Emory community did not automatically rally behind its black students in any demonstration of solidarity. Wagner never sent an e-mail out to the community when a black student was followed by Emory Police at the Clairmont Campus. Acts of sexualized violence happen with much greater regularity than what happened on Sunday. Racist speech and violence against Emory’s students of color are also not uncommon.
Most anyone can see that what happened at AEPi was horrible and wrong. The violent and hateful message is plainly painted on the front of the building. A picture was taken, making it even easier to share what happened and spread rightful outrage.
Acts of sexualized and gendered violence and intolerance are less easy to spot. Most of the time, no one sees a sexual assault or rape happen. The after effects of sexual assault and rape are even less visible, especially because most of these crimes go unreported. There is often no “hard evidence” to point to, and thankfully, there are often no pictures shared on social media. Survivors of sexual assault and rape are often women, and they are disproportionately women of color and working class women, which are all groups that lack the institutional support and resources afforded to the men of AEPi.
Racist and intolerant displays, like the lynching reference on “The Dooley Show,” are also directed at a much less privileged group than AEPi. In my view, these facts are why Wagner does not send an email out denouncing sexual assault or rape when it happens to students on Emory’s campus. These are the reasons why the student body doesn’t band together to show survivors that they are in solidarity against sexualized and radicalized violence. When upper-class white men, which I would argue the majority of the members of AEPi would identify as, are harassed, there is great outrage. But when women and people of color are harassed, we do not see the same support from our administrators or our peers.
As a member of the Emory community, I want my President and my student government to denounce hate crimes against Jewish people. I want my peers to show that they will not tolerate anti-Semitism. But I also want my University to denounce all acts of violence, no matter the circumstances or the victims. We are all worthy of outrage and support, no matter our race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. I want my President to show his concern and sadness when the student body is notified about a reported sexual assault.
I want my peers to band together to show as much support for an anonymous survivor of rape as they have for AEPi and Emory’s Jewish population. I want to hear the outrage from white students when black students are harassed. I stand in solidarity with Emory’s Jewish community, and I eagerly await the day when the entire Emory community stands in solidarity with all victims of violence and intolerance.
Cara OrtÃz is a College senior from Larchmont, New York and the co-president of Feminists in Action at Emory.
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Would this quick response have anything to do with the large number of Jewish students and donors?
where were you last Saturday night/Sunday morning? Can someone vouch for you that you were not outside the AEPi house?
I wouldn’t be so quick to jump on everyone in AEPi as being upper class, and this fact being what made Wagner have a quick — if any — response. I think it’s jumping the gun a little bit and I’m always weary to put down generalizations until I have some research behind it.
Either way, although I’m glad that Emory students were outraged by the act of hate, it has not sparked any public discussion via the University. At any other elite school, there would be some sort of teach-in or something of that nature. Emory always lacks in this regard, mostly because its students don’t care to go to things like teach-ins.
However, I overall agree with this piece. What a phenomenal and courageous statement it would be in Wagner wrote students to share his distaste for racialized and sexualized violence. Those are far more pressing, especially at Emory, these days. Black students face microagressions every day. Women are treated with disrespect and have to be cautious walking alone at night. These things need addressing one way or another, and Wagner is not a bold enough leader to take those things on…as he has shown.
Excellent piece. You should have also included the time when Beta chanted “USA” against their asian intramural opponents. Let’s not forget about the 3/5 compromise incident, either!
And what would you say if the swastikas were spray painted on the door of SDT?
This piece makes a fabulous point, but, unfortunately, it can lead discourse in the wrong direction. Phrasing the issue positively — “Emory should be outraged at all violence, regardless of the circumstances” — leads the reader to an appropriately powerful takeaway of, “Where have the administration and student solidarity been when we needed them?”
However, if we make this argument about privilege and that “we’re outraged because AEPi students are wealthy and privileged,” it opens the door to the same types of anti-Semitism our student body is united against, such as that hate-laden comment “Dooley’s dead” made a few hours ago. I, or anyone else, should not have to explain why this issue is about more than Jews, but this article implicitly asks why an incident involving Jews got attention when others didn’t. That’s not the question we should be asking — it should be, how can we make sure that all acts of violence are addressed appropriately?
While I agree with the main point that all acts of hate should be condemned and have a large community reaction, I believe there are many faults with your argument.
There is a fundamental difference between making an offensive racist joke on The Dooley Show and making a terroristic threat. The intention with one is satire, while the other is to frighten, threaten and ostracize a group. While both are wrong and offensive they are not directly comparable.
Second, your generalized statements about the members of AEPi are extremely contradictory to your arguments, and I would hope your views as a person. As the president of a feminist organization, shouldn’t you be against generalizations? I’m sure you would take offense to being called a man-hater, as feminists are wrongly called all the time. You know absolutely nothing about the composition of the brotherhood of AEPi, and it is likely a generalization of the few members that you do know.
If anything, this response occurred because it targeted and threatened a large group of people; not just the dozens of people in AEPi, but the entire Jewish population of Emory. I would say this has much more to do with that than because you THINK that everyone in AEPi is white and wealthy.
While I agree that all acts of hate should have this response, I do not think that comparing acts of hate to each other, criticizing marginalized groups, and making generalizations is the correct way to go about this. The way this argument is composed it makes it seem like a criticism of campus’ reactions, rather than appreciation and hope that we can only use this to bring campus together when similar acts occur in the future.
I only feel compelled to respond to the part of this comment that reduces the Dooley Show commentary to “an offensive racist joke” with the intention being “satire”. I am not sure if you’ve actually viewed that video clip, but the anchor encouraged students to find those that were admitted to Emory by way of “affirmative action” (in reference to all minorities. oh, generalizations) and act upon their suggested “proven methods” which included “lynching, and tarring and feathering”. I don’t care if satire was the intention there; the fact of the matter is: that was not a mere racist joke, but a threat of targeted violence that made an already marginalized group on Emory’s campus feel small(er), frightened and outraged. In my opinion, the fundamental similarity between the two acts is that they are terroristic threats. Hahaha – I’m not laughing. Are you?
I had misunderstood the context of this incident, and thus stand corrected on that point.
There should have been a larger community reaction to the Dooley’s Show incident. I think the reason that there was not a large reaction had a little more to do with the small audience and lack of awareness. It is hard to miss swastikas painted largely on campus, and don’t think the fact that the images were passed around social media has anything to do with the socioeconomic status of those targeted.
I hope the author of this article can take credit for her mistakes as I have here.
Satire about the lynching of black people is not any less terroristic than a swastika. White people used to sit on lawns having lunch with their children watching a black person (most likely falsely accused of a crime and also excluded from the right to trial by jury) getting lynched. So if that seriously terrorizing part of our history is overlooked and made simply into some sort of joke is disturbing. Lynching ostracized black people from the justice system because again we were outside of the law and although citizens, we didn’t get to have a trial. This racist joke is rooted in violence and a history of hatred. Lynching threatened, ostracized and frightened black people JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW. Just because our narrative isn’t as widely told because dominant epistemologies ignore the history of black people in this nation, doesn’t mean you should be ignorant to the function of lynching and what it did to your fellow citizens.
Do you understand how hard it is for a victim of rape to stand up to their accuser, and to admit to the world that they have been raped?
Thank god I am not a victim, but if I were, the last thing I would want is for the whole school to know I was a victim. That’s why nothing has ever been emailed out so promptly, it’s a touchy subject.
A section that stood out to me:
“When upper-class white men, which I would argue the majority of the members of AEPi would identify as, are harassed, there is great outrage. But when women and people of color are harassed, we do not see the same support from our administrators or our peers.”
1) generalizing a group of jews as being upper class and white men (which may be true), just after they were victim of an anti-Semitic attack is a little insensitive, especially since wealth is at the root of a lot of jewish stereotypes.
2) Upper class white men were absolutely not the only people who were harassed. Jews across the globe were.
3) women and people of color were never harassed on campus with a symbol that represents the mass murder of 6,000,000 women or people of color. If they were, I assure you. President Wagner would send an email out within 24 hrs too.
4) I can assure you that if “The Dooley Show” made a holocaust joke, no one would have reacted stronger than if they made a racist joke about lynching. These examples you’ve given are irrelevant.
5) The only comparable act of hatred that I can possibly think of that compares to what happened to AEPI would be if someone spray painted “KKK” on the door of an African American fraternity or sorority. If something as horrifying as that ever happened, I assure you the nation would have responded the same way.
In order to further get my point across I made the following graph:
Hypothetical Acts of Hatred on Campus | Expected Response
–––––––––––––––––––– |––––––––––––
Swastikas on AEPI/ZBT/SDT | Nation Wide or more
KKK on Black Frat/Sorority | Nation Wide or more
Holocaust Joke on Dooley Show | School Wide or more
Racist Black Joke on Dooley Show | School Wide or more
An article illustrating acts of hatred that have occurred at Emory in general, extrapolating on all the events you described here, would have been a better read. Next time focus on the positive ways we can battle hate crimes. I’m assuming those were your intentions though, so thanks for the article.
Few things I want to pick out of your comment.
Overall, hypothetical cases only project your own worldview. I don’t know you, but given your graph and what you believe the “expected response” would be in hypothetical acts of hatred, I’m not sure you’ve been the direct recipient of hatred/intolerance based on your ethnicity and/or race.
Specifically, your 3rd point that ” women and people of color were never harassed on campus with a symbol that represents the mass murder of 6,000,000 women or people of color. If they were, I assure you. President Wagner would send an email out within 24 hrs too.”..
…Um, maybe you weren’t a student at the time, but J Wag made a comment praising the 3/5 compromise in reference to program cuts. So no, not a campus-wide email but actually a nation-wide publication inadvertently projecting the general disregard administration holds in acts of aggression and antagonism towards minority groups (especially black students). Basically, if the president himself can’t initially (as in within himself and not via subsequent outrage) recognize how offensive a statement like that is and how directly alienating that can be for a good portion of the student body, then how can we expect the president or administration to take anti-black anti-asian anti-hispanic (anti-poc) acts of racism occurring on campus seriously?
All I’m saying is, as an alumnae, and someone who’s been made witness to verbal racist epithets hurled at friends on frat row and elsewhere on campus, as someone who has witnessed an anonymous rape victim’s friend try to stand up for her friend by posting “divisive” “anti-male” (but really anti rapist) flyers on campus to be faced with widespread backlash, as someone who has witnessed the disparate treatment (i.e. getting kicked off/banned from campus) and sanctions for THE SAME or even LESSER transgressions made by by black frats and sororities compared to their predominately white counterparts, as someone who has witnessed drug dealers in certain fraternities who shall not be named attract big time, armed with heavy artillery criminals to campus (to rob) and those fraternities NOT getting kicked off campus but also witness the entire BSA house getting dissolved because it was argued that the BSA house was attracting violence to campus based on the actions of a few (black) non-students stealing one laptop and alleged to have been armed (not proven).
My point in all of the immediate above is that persons of color and women generally at Emory are not treated as individual interests are not supported whereas those of their white male counterparts are. This becomes clear as day when acts of sexual violence and racism are reported and they are not immediately handled seriously or even at all. This becomes even clearer when an entire group of students is punished by having their meeting base taken away for the actions of non-students when a similar sanction is not put in place by the blatant criminal actions of one student affecting the safety of the entire Emory community who happens to reside and predominately white fraternity. This also becomes clear as day when an act of hate like this one occurs and the president himself rallies everyone’s attention and the FBI is called in.
Then we (alumni) are left scratching our heads wondering if our Alma Mater ever truly gave more than 3/5 of a damn about us to begin with. (They didn’t, but they will now).
P.S. Emory needs to make Race and Ethnic Relations a requirement at the least and WR at best.
That is all
So basically you think if “KKK” were spray painted on a black sorority the public would be less supportive than they were in this situation because they are women and a member of a minority group?
Its true that women and minority groups are the target of lots of hate at emory and the rest of the world, but I still stand by my original argument: the media and public did not overreact.
And I have been directly affected, im the guy in the picture of the Swastikas. I painted over them at 4 in the morning. Why did you assume I wasn’t affected?
To your first point if that were to happen before the swastika incident absolutely, given the precedent of inaction and inattentiveness to reports of racial/ethnic/sexist aggression.
I agree with you on this that the media and public and administration in this case have reacted appropriately. My point and main question is, if this amount of scrutiny and attentiveness can be employed with this case, why hasn’t this been done before?
I do believe that this will cause Emory administration to take future matters much more seriously than before, so there is a silver lining.
I didn’t assume you weren’t affected, I simply stated that given everything you’ve written I wasn’t sure. If you were the direct recipient and took time to help clean up the vitriol, I would think (hope) that you’d consider acts of aggression and violence towards groups that don’t share your gender or ethnic makeup just as seriously and that you’d be just as concerned to the glaring inaction and lack of calling to attention taken by administration towards other groups as the author of this piece.
Your little chart is laughable. It only serves a purpose to prove that you’re right. It doesn’t entertain other people’s opinions at all.
Yea duh its MY chart
But in order to make an objective argument that people might actually take seriously, your chart should be based on fact not speculation. You’ve learned so much for your liberal arts degree!
Lets not forget about these gems : http://www.emorywheel.com/archive/detail.php?n=21963
This isn’t a pissing contest. She gets it. The piece takes nothing away from the Jewish community, and that is clear. Wagner’s response was necessary and appropriate. With that, it is not only relevant, but BRAVE to ask why solidarity has been restricted in such a manner. When women have a 1 in 5 chance of being raped, and the fact that sexual violence unfortunately has a place on Emory’s campus, IT IS IMPORTANT TO BRING ATTENTION TO THESE ISSUES. She’s doing what is right.
Dear lord, all the instances illustrated in that article make me ashamed of this school.
So, one thing Yik Yak is good for is sparking conversation, although it is blunted and usually crude conversation. I’m just sitting here thinking how odd it is that many white students and AEPi members went to Yik Yak and essentially said to the folks on there exactly what all the commenters on here are saying “please don’t take away from our struggles because they are real too” sort of thing.
However, I don’t think articles like this and frustrations like this take away from your struggles. It IS a good time to bring up other groups’ struggles and make us question why and how we react to hatred towards Jewish males and why it is so different from how we react to racialized or sexualized violence. We’re all human, and we all deserve similar outrage, response, and reaction from our community when we face moments of strife if we are to truly be equal.
The “lynching reference” on the Dooley Show was neither racist nor horrific. It was meant to call out people who wanted to make unreasonable demands from students of color. By the time people found out that little detail, they were too embarrassed to retract their outrage and changed their tone to, “Well . . . any joke about lynching is racist.”. Stop beating this dead horse years after it has ceased to be relevant.
lol
Using your own language and fake logic, how do you figure a ‘lynching reference’ ISN’T racist if it was, as you say “meant to call out people who wanted to make unreasonable demands from students of color.” Please riddle me that, I’m honestly trying to understand your logic…it’s fascinating how you can come up with that.
Seriously, nothing of what you’ve stated makes any modicum of sense but your claim that those who were (rightfully) upset being “too embarrassed to retract their outrage and changed their tone[…]” actually has me laughing.
The only people embarrassed were the people who thought the “joke” was funny to begin with.
I hope you’re not actually a student at Emory because that would mean Emory’s standards for entry have depreciated profoundly.
All in all, mental gymnastics on your part Poops. Your ‘argument’ stinks of constipated poops resulting in chronic butthurt.
No mental gymnastics are necessary. The anchor was likening a new, subtle form of racism to an older, overtly violent form of racism. People were outraged because the video was presented to them as “White kid ‘makes fun’ of lynching.” By the time it became clear that he was, quite literally, the opposite of a racist, the outrage had become self-sustaining.
Well the anchor failed royally at satire. That’s why it came across as “white kid makes fun of lynching”. If anything it was “white kid makes light of lynching”. Which is not funny any way you try to paint it.
It was (albeit accidentally) racist and offensive, The anchors apologized, and recognized their mistake and admitted that they learned something. Why can’t you?
In your opinion what does “the opposite of a racist” look and/or sound like?
http://clatl.com/freshloaf/archives/2012/12/21/emory-tv-show-apologizes-for-racist-joke-made-by-student-anchor
btw i’m done, you’ve shown your true colors, have fun.
This comment is exactly what Poops is referring to, ironically enough. In response to your first question, though: unless the mere reference to lynching is racist (which would render racist all kinds of historical analyses on the topic, for instance), the joke was pointing out the ridiculousness of these racist opinions by taking the perspective of said racists to the extreme. Then, you can maybe take issue with the method here, but I think it’s really important to divorce the subjects from the objects–something which is certainly not happening right now.
Concerning the “lack of sensitivity” toward issues that still affect blacks/people of color, I should think the joke’s intention of criticizing opponents of affirmative action does exactly the opposite.
Thank you, William. I appreciate your comment.
Except when said “Satire” fails royally.
The overall point is, don’t bring up sensitive subjects that bring back images that are still very real and very pertinent to this very day to a large group of the student body when you cannot humorously deliver the point. The point was lost. It doesn’t matter what the intention was because the delivery was incredibly lazy and screamed of a “but why don’t you get it, I thought everyone would find this funny” myopic viewpoint. Which is exactly the viewpoint both of your responses display.
The “joke” fell flat on its face. If it had been pulled off with tact, there wouldn’t be backlash, instead there’d be applause, and it wouldn’t be brought up “years” (only 2, I believe?) later.
1) If you have to explain a joke as a comedian, you can’t rightfully be called a comedian and you should probably hone your craft behind closed doors…
2) If said joke includes historical references to blatant racist practices AND the ‘joke’ falls flat on its face, those who wrote the joke should be prepared for the backlash.
Actually, both your responses have only echoed the same attitude the original anchor had when he felt emboldened enough to even say the joke. The fact that his co-host was clearly shocked and embarrassed by his “joke” shows the level of epic failure on his part. If you can’t see how problematic the original “joke” was regardless of intention, I guess this is where the cognitive dissonance lies…but I digress
Also, I think you meant to respond directly to the person to which you were actually quoting saying “lack of sensitivity”, but all is well.
Good day yall, I’m out.
Wait, hold up, your argument is totally circular here. You’re saying that the joke wasn’t pulled off with tact because it mentions lynching and therefore it was problematic, but if it had mentioned lynching with tact it wouldn’t have been problematic. Lacking tact, the joke is offensive, but tact would imply some form of thoughtfulness behind the joke. But you’ve just conceded that “The point is lost” and therefore the intention is irrelevant because it wasn’t presented clearly/tactfully enough. But in order to be tactful, it would need to be thoughtful. Yet the joke was clearly thoughtful if there was some kind of intention behind it, which was in fact counter to the specific content of the joke. So, there seems to be no real reason for the joke to be problematic other than because it mentions lynching, which you seem to imply is not inherently bad–and of course it oughtn’t be.
“The overall point is…just don’t bring up sensitive subjects that evoke painful images… When you can neither adequately nor humorously deliver the point.” I’m glad you included this qualifier–your objection with the joke then is that you didn’t find it funny enough to justify making the reference. The implication is that if you found the joke funny, the reference would be okay. (I won’t get into how most people were already predisposed to think of it as racist in the first place, considering it was a single 45-second clip of the show entitled “racist emory kids make offensive joke”.)
You also say “The point was lost.” I still fail to see why the point/intention is irrelevant here. At the end of the day, no one can predict how someone will respond to anything. I think you’ve granted that the intention was in fact at least not malicious, so then once again the issue is with the quality, not the content.
Your subpoint 2, that sensitive topic + poor delivery = predictable backlash is simply another indictment of the show’s quality.
Now, if you had actually been a viewer of the Dooley Show, you’d recognize that it was rarely actually funny. You’re right, it was lazy, and most of the show existed in a bubble. They just kind of threw a bunch of jokes on the wall to find out which ones stuck. Clearly none of them were film majors or creative writing majors, I’m sure none of them would’ve called themselves comedians, they were just doing the show because they enjoyed it–obviously few other people actually did. The point is that people were holding the show to the standards of professionalism to be expected of real talk shows, when it was hardly better than amateur. Simply put, it was a shitty show. Of course they were going to make bad jokes. In the context of the Dooley Show, the affirmative action joke was pretty well consistent with the quality of the rest of the show. Once again, the issue is with the quality rather than the content. If the writers had been professionals, of course the joke would have been of better quality.
More racist than the “joke” was response by people like you who assumed offended EMORY students somehow lacked the intelligence to tell that humor was intended…the point is it wasn’t funny. I laughed more at your comment. Even the very white co-anchor looked shocked and appalled. New racism encompasses lack of sensitivity to issues that still negatively affect Blacks TO THIS VERY DAY.
Likening new racism to old racism is, by definition, the opposite of a “lack of sensitivity.” Your faux-outrage doesn’t make sense by your own standards.
Ahh, but “new racism” is more nefarious than the old, overt, in your face racism that was prevalent of yesteryear, because anyone, not just bigots, is capable of being complicit.
New racism includes accidental racism, i.e. not understanding the implications of actions (i.e. blackface), jokes (i.e. dooley show), etc, usually meant to illicit humor but usually failing and usually displaying a very clear deficit in thought and meditation on the consequences.
It boils down to empathy. If you can see how a swastika painted on a predominately Jewish frat house is offensive to Jewish people, you should be able to see how that symbol is offensive not just to the Jewish community but virtually every community that cannot describe themselves as “Aryan”. Further, if you were able to develop your level of empathy, you’d be able to see how a large group of the student body took offense to the “joke”. I mean, it just wasn’t funny. Do I think the anchors intended to be racist? Absolutely not, but it was the level of entitlement to telling the joke in such a gauche way that displays the lack of sensitivity/awareness towards the consequences of telling such a polarizing ‘joke’. Assuming a ‘joke’ using racist imagery is automatically funny and not racist because that was the INTENTION (intentions don’t matter when delivery is poor at best ESPECIALLY within the realm of humor and satire) is the definition of entitlement. The joke could’ve been successful had the original author of the joke spent more time thinking about how he could actually make it funny and poignant instead of it being both obtuse and intellectually lazy.
Ahh, but “new racism” is more nefarious than the old, overt, in your face racism that was prevalent of yesteryear, because anyone, not just bigots, is capable of being complicit.
New racism includes accidental racism, i.e. not understanding the implications of actions (i.e. blackface), jokes (i.e. dooley show), etc, usually meant to evoke humor but usually failing and usually displaying a very clear deficit in thought and meditation on the consequences.
It boils down to empathy. If you can see how a swastika painted on a predominately Jewish frat house is offensive to Jewish people, you should be able to see how that symbol is offensive not just to the Jewish community but virtually every community that cannot describe themselves as “Aryan”. Further, if you were able to develop your level of empathy, you’d be able to see how a large group of the student body took offense to the “joke”. I mean, it just wasn’t funny. Do I think the anchors intended to be racist? Absolutely not, but it was the level of entitlement to telling the joke in such a gauche way that displays the lack of sensitivity/awareness towards the consequences of telling such a polarizing ‘joke’. Assuming a ‘joke’ using racist imagery is automatically funny and not racist because that was the INTENTION (intentions don’t matter when delivery is poor at best ESPECIALLY within the realm of humor and satire) is the definition of entitlement. The joke could’ve been successful had the original author of the joke spent more time thinking about how he could actually make it funny and poignant instead of it being both obtuse and intellectually lazy.