Florida: Stetson University Women Under Fire For Blackface Costumes

Local 6 (Florida) ^ | November 24, 2005

[Stoat]

Stetson University Women Under Fire For Blackface Costumes

Players Painted Bodies Black, Wore Fake Gold Teeth

 

POSTED: 11:22 pm EST November 23, 2005

UPDATED: 7:26 am EST November 24, 2005

 

Several women on Stetson University's softball team are under fire over blackface costume photos recently posted on the Internet, according to a Local 6 News report.

Members of the Stetson team dressed up as school basketball star Grlenntys Kicking Stallion Sims on Halloween by painting themselves black, wearing cornrows and fake gold teeth. Some players wore the blackface costumes to a contest to a Deland bar, according to the Stetson student newspaper.

The blackface photos some how ended up on a Web site this month and have since outraged civil rights activists at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama, Local 6 reporter Tarik Minor said.

 

 

  "I can see why people would consider it offensive," Sims said. "They said they wanted to dress up as us but they didn't say they were going to paint their bodies or anything. We are real close with the softball team and we didn't think anything of it. We gave them our jerseys."

  Some people on campus are angry with the photos, saying they remind them of the humiliation and mockery blacks suffered before desegregation, Minor said.

"Not too many people know the history of blackface, student Cameo Humes said. "It was a form of basically mocking African Americans by painting their faces black and giving them exaggerated features, such as big lips." Sociologist Leonard Nance said the students did not realize their costumes would spark controversy.

"It could be offensive to some people and could not be offensive to some people," student Kevin Gallagher said. "The thing is that if they go out in public like that or they go to a bar, they are going to offend somebody." The women who wore the blackface costumes are required to read a book written by Tim Wise called "White Like Me," write a reflection paper and have conversations with the school's diversity council.

[Wilhelm Tell]

She is just having her minstrel period.

[isrul]

If it outrages the Southern Poverty Law Center, I know it must be a good thing.

[Melas]

Now in fairness, Danson's stunt was far from APPROVED. It wasn't even accepted or tolerated. Danson was absolutely villified by liberals for the stunt. It even went so far as the NYC mayor excoriating Danson for the event. Many black members even relinquished their memberships to the Friar Club as a result.

So to say that it was approved or acceptable to liberals is complete and utter intellectual dishonesty.

[www.saveourguns.org]

Its your basic liberal drivle. Who cars if someone is offended?

[Melas]

Its your basic liberal drivle. Who cars if someone is offended?

My point had nothing to do with whether anyone was offended or not. It had to do with being honest. The original posters that I replied to referenced the incident as thought it enjoyed liberal support, and if not support, and least acceptence, and it wasn't true. I've got this thing about honesty, it's important.

[yarddog]

Of course it was disapproved. In the leftist pecking order, Blacks rank higher than White liberals.

[joesnuffy]

I think Whoppie Goldberg (Danson's soul mate de juere)
also appeared with Ted ...sort of giving the whole thing
a black stamp of approval..

They got mad at Ted but not at Whoopie...?

Go figure.

[Melas]

I'm not a leftist, but I thought it showed poor judgement.

[Melas]

Now that I didn't know. That's somewhat troubling.

[AbeKrieger]

Remember, blacks good whites bad. Nothing to see unless the blue-eyed devil does it.

[joem15]

Worst of all it probably caused his break up with Whoopi Goldberg. Don't forget that Whoopi was the butt of his joke that night. Ted has paid dearly for that little gaff. Can you imagine not having Whoopi beside you in bed as you awake every morning?

Instead of Blackface, How about something more sensitive like, " Hey, Whoopi I need to borrow your head, I want to refinish my hardwood floors. The vertigo from spinning goes away after a few hours. If that's a problem I have some Dramamine."

[Melas]

I never pick on people for their looks.

However, not having to listen to Whoopie would certainly have obvious advantages.

[Range Rover]

Oh he was certainly scolded after but it was his main squeeze at the time - Whoopie Goldberg - who came up with the stunt and wrote his material. That it backfired was because more Conservative persons took offence, if I remember correctly.

[Range Rover]

FYI - "Other detractors claim, however, that Goldberg did insult her own people when, at the infamous Friars Club roast, she and then-boyfriend Ted Danson dressed up in blackface and spouted N-word-laced zingers, from a script penned in part by Whoopi. More recently, she was criticized for hosting the Oscars in the face of Jesse Jackson's almost-boycott of the event. And many sisters and brothers deem her choice of White men as husbands and lovers a slap in the face to the race." - Essence - January 1997

[Al Simmons]

The Greatest Entertainer who ever lived was Al Jolson.

He didn't 'black up' to demean anybody. It was an accepted art form and he is the only man who actually brought it into the 'mainstream' from Vaudeville.

Black Americans were some of his biggest fans. Cab Calloway co-starred with Jolson in "The Singing Kid" in 1936, and yes, they did a number together with all black performers and Al - in blackface.

Calloway was also one of the original members of the Al Jolson Society.

Back in 1985 I attended a screening of "Halellujah I'm a Bum" (a 1933 Jolson film that is probably his best, with a Rogers and Hart score and available on DVD) at the Smithsonian Institution in DC for Jolson's Centennary.

In the very back row of the theater there were about 10 finely dressed elderly black ladies, the youngest of whom was probably 80.

They didn't dress up like that to go see a star who 'demeaned' anybody. They came to remember a local Baltimore boy who made good, and whose fans they had been in their youth.

If you want more information about the greatest singer America has ever produced, I invite you to go here:

http://www.jolson.org

[Kirkwood]

It was totally accepted by the liberals after Whoopi came out and said she put Danson up to it. The fact that he got other jobs including going on to "Becker" after that tells me that no grudge was held by the liberals against Danson. That never would have happened if Danson wasn't an ultraliberal himself.

[twas]

Can anyone explain to me why something they did off campus on their own time should held against them?

If the university tried to impose any punishment against me, my first stop would be in the office of a lawyer.

[PPHSFL]

The President, Dean of Students, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, and most of the faculty are liberals. However, many of the students are at least in the center, if not conservative. We conducted a straw poll of the campus before the election last year. Bush won by 15%. College Republican meetings regularly fill up the classroom while College Democrats are lucky to fill up half of a small study room.

[Texas Eagle]

Some people on campus are angry with the photos, saying they remind them of the humiliation and mockery blacks suffered before desegregation, Minor said.

Uhhhhhhh....but wearing cornrows and gold caps is something blacks do TODAY, some 40 years after desegregation. Isn't it?

[Riverman94610]

I agree..It was completely ignorant.Its 2005 and these so called educated college women should know that blackface antics are an insult and a tasteless joke.