Blackface, KKK hoods and mock lynchings: Review of 900 yearbooks finds blatant racism
"Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, a stunning number of colleges and university yearbooks published images of blatant racism on campus, the USA TODAY Network found in a review of 900 publications at 120 schools across the country."
"At Cornell University in New York, three fraternity members are listed in the 1980 yearbook as “Ku,” “Klux” and “Klan.” For their 1971 yearbook picture, a dozen University of Virginia fraternity members, some armed, wore dark cloaks and hoods while peering up at a lynched mannequin in blackface. In one of the most striking images – from the 1981 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign yearbook – a black man is smiling and holding a beer while posing with three people in full KKK regalia."
"No politicians were identified by USA TODAY Network’s review, which focused on the same time period as Northam’s yearbook, in the era after sweeping civil rights reform. Few images had captions to provide names or context and people’s faces were often hidden behind hoods or blackface."
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | February 21, 2019 11:39 PM
|
I graduated Catholic HS in 1973 & the most offensive thing was Irish kids wearing beards & trying to pass themselves off as Russian Jews
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | February 21, 2019 10:25 PM
|
I wonder how many of those "learning institutions" were below the Mason Dixon line. I'm from Central Florida where our schools were segregated until 1969. Doing something like that never crossed any of our minds.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | February 21, 2019 10:42 PM
|
I’ve told this before...my sister went to visit her in laws who’d moved to FL in the 80s and their neighbor was a woman who drove around in a pick up with her shotgun on her lap. When something had gone wrong around their house — can’t rememcer what, exactly — the neighbor said, “Don’t worry, I’ll send my N word over to fix it for you.” My sister nearly passed out. It was the first, but not the last time, she heard white people down there calling black people the n word right out in the open like it was 1860. “We ain’t like you northerners. When we talk about n words, we say n words.”
One of the reasons I’ll never move to FL
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | February 21, 2019 10:51 PM
|
I read the article and it was clear that it extended across the country regardless of region. And, while we can all agree that blackface is wrong, there are many different circumstances mentioned in the article that are no where near the same level of racism. For instance the man and his fraternity brothers dressing in blackface, pink suits, and miming to soul music, in 1976 at the University of South Carolina, was wrong and insensitive. But, their actions were no where near as bad as three people in the 1980 Cornell yearbook, being listed as Ku, Klux, and Klan, a dozen UVA fraternity brothers dressed in black robes lynching a blackface Mannequin, or the picture of a smiling black guy with three people in full KKK regalia at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1981. While blackface is wrong, people can at least try and make excuses of naiveté or intent, no one can make any excuses for KKK references, costumes, or mock lynching.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | February 21, 2019 11:39 PM
|
