Thought I had heard it all.

This morning the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is running a story about "race relations" after the Duquesne basketball team shooting about 2 weeks ago.  http://www.postgazette.com/pg/06272/726074-298.stm

Here is what happened from the police accounts:  Coming out of a Black Student Union party, five black members of the team were shot at by 2-3 other black guys, who were let into the party (knowingly with weapons) by their black female escort.

How the heck is this a "racial incident"?  If 5 white lacrosse players leaving the Wonder Bread factory in Detroit were shot by some white guy and his bim driving the getaway car, would we be talking about a racial incident?  ::)

I mean I guess I could see this talk if the perps or victims were of different races.

Somehow the story tries to turn this into a racial incident because Duquesne has an enrollment of 3-4% black students.  But it is a Catholic university.  Simply there are not that many black catholics to start with (yeah I know you dont have to be a catholic to go to a Cath college), and clearly there is not discrimination w.r.t. the sports program.

I don't see where they are going with this.

There are "racial" issues at Duquesne as there are at most colleges.  I saw plenty of this at both colleges I attended.  And it is really touchy.  Black students feel alienated from the predominant "white" culture.  There are some white students who are overtly hostile to black students.  There are some black students who see a race bigot in every white face. 

There are promoters of both white guilt and black chauvinism on college faculties.  One of the popular pamphlets that went around in the '90s was "Why are all the black students sitting together in the cafeteria?"
I don't know.  Because they want to? 
The implication was the whites were hostile to the blacks and did not welcome them at their dining tables.  The black students did congregate in the dining halls of both colleges I attended.  I suppose some white students were unwelcoming.  I certainly wasn't.  Maybe they presumed I was.  The signals coming from the black students were not terribly welcoming either.
I always felt the activist faculty and administration members created more division instead of fostering the racial unity the purportedly believed in. 

The shootings at Duquesne were black-on-black crimes.  The fall-out will indeed cause racial tensions.  There are plenty of whites who will be more than happy to use the incident to portray all blacks--implicitly or explicitly--as violent, criminal, and uncivilized.  The story features prominant negative stereotypes of blacks.  It is a question of how the university and the community wants to spin the story.  It will be necessary for the "black community" on campus to do public relations damage control. 

Remember--negative stereotypes.  I hate to phrase it so crudely, but even though the crime was black-on-black, the key concepts scream from the page:  Black, basketball, Black Student Union, crime, guns, shootings, gangs, thugs.
Racial incident? You bet!

Simply there are not that many black catholics to start with.



Maybe not where you come from, but up here their are lots and lots.  Most of the immigrants from "the islands"(Haiti, the Dominican, Trinidad, etc), "black" Latinos(Brazilian, Portugese, Cape Verdeans), Louisiana Creoles, Puerto Ricans.  They are more active than the 3rd and 4th generation, Irish, Italian Catholics.

There are "racial" issues at Duquesne as there are at most colleges.  I saw plenty of this at both colleges I attended.  And it is really touchy.  Black students feel alienated from the predominant "white" culture.  There are some white students who are overtly hostile to black students.  There are some black students who see a race bigot in every white face. 

There are promoters of both white guilt and black chauvinism on college faculties.  One of the popular pamphlets that went around in the '90s was "Why are all the black students sitting together in the cafeteria?"
I don't know.  Because they want to? 
The implication was the whites were hostile to the blacks and did not welcome them at their dining tables.  The black students did congregate in the dining halls of both colleges I attended.  I suppose some white students were unwelcoming.  I certainly wasn't.  Maybe they presumed I was.  The signals coming from the black students were not terribly welcoming either.
I always felt the activist faculty and administration members created more division instead of fostering the racial unity the purportedly believed in. 

The shootings at Duquesne were black-on-black crimes.  The fall-out will indeed cause racial tensions.  There are plenty of whites who will be more than happy to use the incident to portray all blacks--implicitly or explicitly--as violent, criminal, and uncivilized.  The story features prominant negative stereotypes of blacks.  It is a question of how the university and the community wants to spin the story.  It will be necessary for the "black community" on campus to do public relations damage control. 

Remember--negative stereotypes.  I hate to phrase it so crudely, but even though the crime was black-on-black, the key concepts scream from the page:  Black, basketball, Black Student Union, crime, guns, shootings, gangs, thugs.
Racial incident? You bet!
Did you even read the story he posted?  The university wants the focus to remain on the injured players, NOT race.  This terrible attack is not about race. Bullets tear human flesh regardless of color. ... If they DON'T mention the races, they'll be accused of trying to "sweep it under the rug", if they DO, they're making it a "racial incident."  The only reason they even mentioned race is that "Some black students, an overwhelming minority at Duquesne, wished for a dialogue about race. Others figured it a nonissue; even its mention, they said, would reroute focus from where it should be -- on the injured players"  What are they supposed to do?  Of course, the story features "prominent negative stereotypes of blacks", but I don't see how it fosters them.  The FACTS are a group of black basketball players were shot by someone of the same race.  There's no "spin" on that.

  Simply there are not that many black catholics to start with (yeah I know you dont have to be a catholic to go to a Cath college)


Whoa, where did you get your info from? What a sweeping generalization! I'm Catholic.

Did you even read the story he posted?  The university wants the focus to remain on the injured players, NOT race.
Yeah.  So?

Yeah.  So?
If you did, I don't see how you could say this:
It is a question of how the university and the community wants to spin the story.  It will be necessary for the "black community" on campus to do public relations damage control. 

  The university is not trying to "spin" anything.  They want the focus to remain on the athletes' health, not their race.  It's the "black community on campus" that's bringing race into the picture.

If you did, I don't see how you could say this:  The university is not trying to "spin" anything.  They want the focus to remain on the athletes' health, not their race.  It's the "black community on campus" that's bringing race into the picture.

Whether the gripe is legitimate or not, once a party on campus successfully publicizes a race-based grievance, the issue becomes a "racial issue."  You can argue the facts of the case and demonstrate there was no racial component.  However, "racial" publicity makes it prima facie a "racial issue." 

I saw this happen several times in college.  The charge of "racism" is so potent, you can use to distract the arguments from the real issues or to strongarm the authorities into giving you what you want.  I saw Black and Latino students turn issues of misbehavior on their part into issues of "racism" on the school's part.  I thought it was too bad that the campus advocacy organization accepted these cases because it undermined their credibility when circumstances really did involve racism.  Even after charges of "racism" were dismissed, the incident was often still remembered as a "racial incident." 

Whoa, where did you get your info from? What a sweeping generalization! .


Maybe a generalization, but from where I come (The Burgh) it is also a true generalization.

I went to Catholic school in a blue collar town that was about 25% Black, and 75% Catholic.  We did not have one black family in our church.  Today I am at a different catholic church and we have one black family (hubby is black, wife is white at that) out of 1000 families.  That is one-tenth of one percent.  Not very many.

At my Catholic school we had at MOST 1 black kid in our class of 100 kids (one percent).  And back then tuition was a measly $24 a year "book fee".

So I shall clarify... in PENNSYLVANIA (where Duquesne University is) there are not that many Black Catholics.  It is far, far less than the % of blacks in the general population.

I don't doubt there's a sizable Black Catholic population out there.  I just haven't met them.  I don't ask everybody I meet what religion they are.  'Tain't my business.  I might very well have met Blacks who are Catholic and not known it.  All the religious Blacks I have known--and known to be religious--have been Protestant.  I've met some Caribbean Blacks who may have been Rastafarians.  Then again, maybe they just liked the pan-African garb and smokin de ganja!