Alpha Gamma Rho, Beta Theta Pi, Alpha Tau Omega. What do all these frats have in common? They have all been involved in unethical incidents within their fraternal organizations. The chapters of these frats at Oklahoma State, University of Mississippi and Auburn University all engaged in a kind of New Age “minstrel or vaudeville show.” The incidents at the three particular schools had fraternity members portraying African-Americans in stereotypical and compromising situations. The most recent incident was with the Alpha Gamma Rho chapter of Oklahoma State. (See www.tolerance.org.)

These incidents have magnified a big problem that our society still has and continues to poison it. It is the perception that many people have of minorities. It also shows how some things never change and how things in history work in cycles.

The students in the three incidents were seen in many pictures dressing in blackface and showing African-Americans being hung by Klansmen, as pickaninnies, thugs and gangstas. Looking at these incidents, there is no way to say we are seen as equal and treated equally. I say this because the same fraternity members who obviously view African-Americans this way become politicians, entrepreneurs and even policemen. If they have this view in college, will it really change? I know for a fact on all of these campuses the fraternity members have seen many African-Americans who do not fit the particular profile they are portraying at their parties. The scariest thing about this is that these are not isolated incidents and probably go on behind closed doors and even may be happening on Iowa State’s own campus, just the other “undercover” incidents aren’t documented because they aren’t stupid enough to let the pictures get out.

These incidents go full circle with the days of minstrel and vaudeville shows conducted in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In those days, white and black actors and singers dressed up and painted their faces black and performed for audiences around the country. Many times the actors portrayed African-Americans as dumb, lazy, gullible, unintelligent, watermelon-and-chicken-eating buffoons. The African-American entertainers many times had no choice but to perform minstrel shows to survive. Al Jolson, one of America’s most revered early entertainers, performed many times in blackface, and then there is D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” where African-Americans were portrayed in unbecoming ways.

So fast-forward to the early 21st century where these things are still going on but in an underground movement. Spike Lee tries to address the issue of African-Americans in a negative way on television in his New Age version of minstrel shows, “Bamboozled.” Often as a society we neglect to remember that fifty years ago African-Americans could not even exercise the right to vote or ride at the front of a bus.

The fraternity incidents are in no way isolated because in some way they reflect issues and ideas society has with African-Americans. Think of it in this way: what if an African-American fraternity threw a party and dressed up as people with topcoats with the Star of David on their chest, ran around acting drunk and threatening to bomb the Catholics, dressed up in robes and brought a little altar boy along and said “he is my little friend,” or dressed up in a shirt that said “just got across the border” and packed 10 people into a Geo Metro. All of these ideas for a party would not be cool or funny by any means. So the incidents at Ole Miss, Auburn and Oklahoma State cannot be thought of as “just harmless fun among frat boys so it isn’t that big of a deal.”

These incidents are disrespectful to the African-Americans in the past and present who have fought to break these notions and images of African-Americans. Some of the images presented are stereotypical and are harsh reminders of what our ancestors had to go through to get us where we are today and should not be played with or satirized. The funniest thing is that country is so hell-bent on being scared of bin Laden and Saddam Hussein when we can’t even have harmony and accord within our own country. We are too busy trying to prevent physical death, when in essence we need to solve the problem of mental death. Because mental death just doesn’t kill the person, but also kills and affects the minds of those around them.

Darryl Frierson

is a senior in journalism

and mass communication and history from St. Louis, Mo.