On a Thursday night last month, a few students painted their faces black when they attended a “blackout” football game at Sun Devil Stadium.
Now, because of the black face paint, the Arizona State athletic department has asked all students not to wear any kind of face paint whatsoever to future sporting events, the Arizona Daily Independent reports.
In addition, the public school’s student council will now consider a bill intended — somehow — to prevent anyone from wearing black face at a campus event ever again, according to The State Press, Arizona State’s student newspaper.
The message from the athletic department proclaims:
“As an inclusive and forward-thinking university, it is important for us to foster an environment in which everyone feels safe and accepted. Therefore, we discourage the use of face paint at any event, whether the theme is black, maroon, gold or white, and ask our fans to show their Sun Devil Pride in other ways.”
For the record, neither the “blackout” nor the face paint helped in the game at issue, as UCLA mauled Arizona State by a score of 62-27.
The students who donned the black face paint told The Arizona Republic they had no intention of causing offense to anyone.
The president of Arizona State’s Black and African Coalition, Kyle Denman, said the students who painted their faces black for the “blackout” demonstrated racial insensitivity.
“The historical context of blackface is that it is demeaning to the African-American culture,” he told the State Press. “It doesn’t show school spirit.”
Denman insisted that the face paint “is actually being culturally insensitive to people who have dealt with this and are trying to progress as a culture and as human beings.”
“It puts us back in that stereotypical box we have been placed in for so many years, saying this is who we are,” he argued.
Denman added that he wants students at the taxpayer-funded university to face punishment whenever they offend minorities.
“I think the immediate consequences should be not allowing them into the event and then make them attend these events like caucuses or classroom workshops where they are made aware of why it is culturally insensitive to students who are Native American or African American or whatever race it is that they identify with or sex or whatever, because it goes either way,” he told the student newspaper.
Arizona State’s student council will officially consider its bill on Oct. 21.
This blackface brouhaha is the latest in a constant stream of politically-correct episodes on the campuses of American colleges and universities. (RELATED: EXPOSED! CONCLUSIVE Proof That Racism Is EVERYWHERE, Always)
In the spring, for example, the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at the University of California, Irvine was accused of anti-Pacific Islander racism because it hosted a charity fundraiser called the FIJI Islander party which featured students who dressed in coconut bras and grass skirts. “I support free speech, but I don’t think it should be at the expense of other students on campus,” a UCI student council member said of the fracas. (RELATED: UC Irvine Leftists Call FIJI Frat Racist For Fundraiser Featuring Coconut Bras, Grass Skirts)
Also in the spring, the Phi Delta Alpha fraternity and the Alpha Phi sorority at Dartmouth College canceled a “Phiesta” fundraiser for cardiac care after a single student, Daniela Hernandez, complained that the event featuring virgin strawberry daiquiris and guacamole presented “various problematic structures and ideologies.” (RELATED: At Dartmouth, The Word ‘Fiesta’ Is Racist And White People Can’t Use It)
In 2013, Northwestern University issued a campus-wide letter advising students not to celebrate Cinco de Mayo by engaging in racially-offensive activities, such as eating tacos and drinking tequila. (RELATED: Latino Student Group Says Eating Tacos Is Offensive To Mexicans)
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