Macalester blackface story belts around the world in hours on AP & UPI wires; Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben still on Aisle 6

The Associated Press news from Macalester takes a spin around the world today...

Quick, watch the FOX9 video before they delete it!!

Heres the transcript:

MyFox Twin Cities | Racist Costumes at Macalester Party

Last Edited: Thursday, 08 Feb 2007, 11:00 PM CST

Created: Thursday, 08 Feb 2007, 11:00 PM CST

MyFOX9.com ST. PAUL -- Macalester College is investigating a recent costume party on campus in which the politically incorrect them may have been taken too far.

One student arrived dressed as Adolf Hitler and another as an aborted fetus, but it was a racially-sensitive pair of costumes that is causing the stir.

“That’s not politically incorrect, that’s history that happened,” student Amanda Nelson said. “I think that’s offensive.”

School officials say the party was held at a cottage on campus, ironically on the day after the Martin Luther King holiday.

One student came dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, holding a noose attached to the neck of a student wearing face paint to appear dark-skinned. Once news of the costumes reached administrators, the president sent an email to students condemning the party, and telling student Macalester would not tolerate this type of activity.

“It is deeply disappointing that Macalester students would be so insensitive and demonstrate such a lack of understanding of the college’s value and mission,” President Brian Rosenberg said.

While the college believes the students didn’t intend to find themselves in the situation they did, the party seems to be part of a disturbing trend. Several students at Clemson University recently attended an MLK Day party wearing black face paint, while a female student padded her pants to make her butt look bigger. A Texas university is also investigating a party where one student dressed as Aunt Jemima and another wore a t-shirt reading “I love chicken” on the front.

The students at the Macalester party could face disciplinary action.

The following AP story and UPI story are getting posted on websites around the world this afternoon. As evening falls it reaches India:

Seattle: Racially charged costumes rile campus

Kansas City: AP Wire | 02/10/2007 | Racially charged costumes rile campus

Racially Charged Costumes Rile Campus, Minn. College Probes 'Politically Incorrect' Party; Students Wore Blackface, KKK Costumes - CBS News

Blackface, KKK Costumes Criticized - Forbes.com

Meanwhile in Britain: Racially Charged Costumes Rile Campus | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

Racially Charged Costumes Rile Campus - Newsday.com

It might get picked up as paragraphs in these global papers as they're published. For now it's just an entry on the wire...

The UPI version is more condensed on DailyIndia.com:

Non-PC college lampoon party irks some

MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- A Minnesota college with a liberal reputation is the latest U.S. school to come under fire for student parties with purposefully politically incorrect themes.

Macalester College officials were looking into reports that a recent costume bash included guests in blackface or dressed in Klan costumes, and will hold a campus discussion next week on stereotyping.

"We hope to take the teachable moment and engage our campus community a little bit more deeply," said Jim Hoppe, Macalester's associate dean of students, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The newspaper said Macalester was the latest school to find itself dealing with student antics that could be called racially sensitive.

Some students called the parties a satiric jab at established official public values. Others, however, said race remains a sensitive issue and such parties are based on inaccurate ideas about history.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

Lessons time: One modest party can have a global impact far beyond your typical college "awareness" moments. Let that be a lesson about how certain symbolic arrangements explode – in this case, the misperception that a white student dressed as a Klan member.

Let's say I was close to this scene, as it happened. I wasn't at the party. it is very weird to think that this really has legs... As you might expect, that night I ran into some of the symbols that our local FOX9 is dutifully pursuing in its investigation of the party "nightmare". Ironically FOX and other Murdoch media push racist stereotypes more than anyone.

If you don't think FOX is racist, listen to the synthetic Orientalizing music - tom tom drums often - they play when Evil Iraq / Evil Persia themes come in. "24" is more of a fundamentally racist cultural object than whatever this party signifies, I think it's hard to deny.

I suspect it will blow over in a couple days. But it might not, and it might be seen as part of a Dangerous Moral Trend in America, rather than cabin-fevered students drinking in costumes in the dark dead middle of January. Interesting how you can't tell which.

There is certainly grounds for someone to feel offended about the situation from afar, as a certain kind of ugly scene to behold. I am wondering which particular symbols are the unacceptable ones, and if we can get some kind of list or structured matrix to evaluate symbol unacceptability with scholarly metrics.

Let's mark stereotype costumes in 3D space. You could locate the KKK guy at (21X,15Y,99Z), which is across the plane of impropriety, whereas Italian Gangster is at (11X,89Y,12Z), somewhat inside. That should settle this problem so people can know what kinds of political imagery are too much.

But also you can visualize them just standing around in a pretty low key way.

Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben still on Aisle 6:

Strib A1 today: Party at Macalester raises ire with Klan costume, blackface

The Star Tribune had it on the front page A1, and still top on the website tonight:

At least Obama is running for Prez. Should be a lot more fun than this weird sort of stuff. I wonder if FOX's media attention has something to do with primary season.