University of Virginia students shut down a “cops and robbers”-themed party at a campus fraternity Thursday, with one student group claiming the party made “a joke of systems that kill and brutalize marginalized communities.”
UVA Students United, a student group focused on social justice, reported that around 20 students shut down the UVA Delta Psi chapter’s date function, which involved male fraternity brothers dressing up in orange jumpsuits and female guests wearing cop uniforms.
“These ‘costumes’ make a joke of mass incarceration and the prison-industrial complex, systems that disproportionately brutalize people of color,” said UVA Students United Friday in a Facebook post describing the event. “The predominantly white members of this fraternity got to take their costumes off at the end of the night, people trapped in the prison system do not.”
The student group was also not impressed by the dress exhibited by female guests.
“Historically, the police have justified violence against people of color in the name of protecting white women, and in wearing these costumes, these women made a joke of that legacy of violence,” claimed UVA Students United.
“During confrontations with people at the party, the majority of partygoers asserted that they had no intention of ‘offending or hurting anyone.’ It’s this kind of willful ignorance that allows white supremacy to continue.”
The group referenced a “summer of terror and violence” stemming from white supremacist factions in Charlottesville, Va.
After nearly an hour of interaction between the party members and disrupting students, the frat allegedly called the police on the students for trespassing. (RELATED: UVA Latinx Group Demands White Officers Be Punished For Interrupting A Party)
UVA Students United declined commenting further on the situation to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
TheDCNF reached out to Delta Psi, the school’s College Republicans, and University Democrats chapters, the university, and the Charlottesville Police Department, but received no comment in time for press.
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