Tuesday, October 31, 2006

October 31

Is it not bad enough Hopkins pays no taxes? Must we also tolerate unwitting flip-flopped hatboys with nothing to give back to this town but date rape and lawn urine? Does the school have any kind of standard of conduct beyond making profs ho a grant quota?
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28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uh, if irrelevance was a virtue...

The behavior of the JHU students is dispicable, nothing short of expulsion should be tolerated. Afforded an expensive, and alledgedly superior education, they decide to celebrate thier good fortune with an inexcusably crass and racist party

Time for a severe and lasting life lesson

Tue Oct 31, 02:34:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

im not sure you you choose to view this as racist? Historicly, almost every famous pirate was white.

more importantly, it is YOU that is assuming that they are referring "thug" means "black" I heard of this party before, and it in no way excludes blacks nor assumes blacks live thug lives. this is entirely a manifest of YOUR RACIST THOUGHTS. if i curse hiv drug addicts in baltimore, you assume that is a racist statement? if racial relationships are to get better, black frats need to bring up issues like the fatherless inter city and not a couple of flake-ass yuppies having a halloween party in homewood

Tue Oct 31, 06:41:00 AM EST
John Galt said...

It seems to me that Hopkins undergrad students, who come from a background radically different from and incompatible with what they would encounter in most of Baltimore, really should be encouraged to stay within campus bounds.

Political correctness is one thing, but the realities of life in Baltimore simply have nothing in common with the life trajectory of many of Hopkins' students, even if they are spoiled yuppies.

Students should learn how to moderate their expression in a way which will serve them in the real world, but not necessarily one which is sensitive to the conditions in an extraordinary place like Baltimore, the most murderous and second most violent large city in the U.S.

Tue Oct 31, 07:20:00 AM EST
John Galt said...

On that subject, I find it really disturbing that Police Commissioner Lenny Hamm at a press conference claimed that the new crime rankings show how wonderfully well his department and he are doing their jobs. He says "We know how to do this."

Problem: your homicide rank went up to #1 in large cities and your violent crime rate decreased by less than 1/2 of 1%. The improvement in ranking was caused by crime increases in a bunch of tiny city-lets like Compton, Flint, and Trenton, as well as smallish cities like Memphis and downtown St. Louis.

Lenny Hamm, you're NOT good at this and your management practices result in a profound distrust of your officers.

Tue Oct 31, 07:33:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

Ah...what's the difference between this and Dave Chapelle making fun of white people, or the famous (and hilarious) Def Comedy Jam routine of "white people walk like this, talk like this and drive like this"

Also, characterizing yuppies as some bad force in this city probably doesn't help anything.

And as for urinating outside...I know the dealers on the corner aren't taking bathroom breaks, and I frequently see non yuppies peeing where ever they choose in broad day light.

Tue Oct 31, 08:00:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

Obviously, dc's, the article answered you snide query-- the school does have standards of conduct and, in fact, did not tolerate that party.

-H.

Tue Oct 31, 08:22:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

the stance against this party says "white people who dont embrace and accept the hood lifestyle have no place in baltimore" i can attest, as a white student, i have no place in this city, and will leave as soon as ive got my degree. these students have likely been victims of crime during thier stay in bmore, and this is thier way of venting. im sure most of them have non-white friends, including black friends, but arent friends with any of the local thugs.

Tue Oct 31, 09:20:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

I don't see how this would fall under the defintion of racism. Hanging a pirate? Wearing gaudy "bling"? Give me a break. If anything, it appears that they were simply being disrespectful to a particular aspect of urban "culture" that deserves no respect.

Tue Oct 31, 09:48:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

man, i might have to stop reading the comments on this blog. over the past year it's been getting more and more conservative and ignorant (i don't always believe these two terms are synonymous, i find galt to be far from ignorant, but a lot of these other commentors...). apparently the way it works is people move to baltimore, are the victim of one robbery or something, and are such reactionary pussies that they all of a sudden shift their political compasses incredibly far to the right and then hop on google and type "baltimore crime" so they can find a place of like-minded biggots and fascists at which to vent.

Tue Oct 31, 10:33:00 AM EST
C Love "The Rap Addict" said...

wow~! I knew Baltimore was a racist place.....


the reaction of some of you and the rants on Craigslist make it so abundantly clear.


Nothing about this is right.
These students need to be taught a lesson. This is nothing new to me tho...I've been at a Hip Hop show and saw a white kid with a shirt with a person hanging from a tree on it. White youth of today are insensitive and ignorant to history...I bet within a few years..we will be back to the racial tension of pre-integration. Black kids (raised with some morals) are very conscious of being offensive to other races..... White kids who have so much (who should have benefitted from the most exposure) oftentimes are the ones that really need to watch shows like "eyes on the prize"

Tue Oct 31, 10:48:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...

Pointing out that Baltimore has a high HIV rate or that people in the city tend to wear urban attire is not offensive to anyone. It's the truth that's been discussed ad nauseam by cybes, gault and others on this blog. And the continued use of the "n-word" by black people in every rap song is much more "insensitive and ignorant to history" than anything these kids did.

Tue Oct 31, 11:26:00 AM EST
John Galt said...

c love said:

'I bet within a few years..we will be back to the racial tension of pre-integration.'

I actually think it's far worse now. Baltimore City is an absolutely horrible example of technical integration coupled with effective segregation.

Baltimore is two separate towns: and they have nothing whatsoever in common. All the middleclass crossover blacks have moved to the suburbs to get away from their ghetto brethren. They're even less tolerant of hoodiness than the white yuppies in the enclave of Baltimore A.

And understand, the hazardous character of Baltimore B is not a misimpression. If the hoody boyz don't shoot or stab you, the cops will false arrest you. It is not safe here. Life in Baltimore B is like living in the jungle, with some or another predator always ready to jump out at you. Yes, some survive and God do they procreate, but individuals have no sense of security here.

If I ever wanted my kid to become accustomed to urban people of dark complexion, the very last place I'd send him would be to a Baltimore public school.

I was a school child when bussing began, and the children of other color who were integrated were not of drastically different behavioral upbringing. Integration worked well, we had no issues. Race was an afterthought.

But here, it's not just racial integration, it's about throwing together behaviorally dissimilar people.

Imagine sending a Southern California mallrat (Dude!) into a Saudi madrasah. It would be traumatic and he wouldn't even understand why everything he did was wrong. It's just incompatibility.

This hoodie lifestyle is not a 'cultural expression' like the yeah-yeah music of the 60's. It's embedded in a behavioral code which in inconsistent with norms of western civilization. BTW, did anyone read Greg Kane's piece on 50-Cent a week or so ago? It talks about kids who'd rather do a jail term than admit they aren't criminals.

Tue Oct 31, 11:26:00 AM EST
John Galt said...

I actually don't blame Hopkins for this. I blame it for many other things, but not this.

Years ago Hopkins was confronted with the ghettoization of its surrounding neighborhoods. It was scared. It contemplated pulling up stakes and heading for the County (before the ghetto got the same idea). It decided it was too heavily invested in land in Baltimore and so it determined to build a security perimeter around itself.

Hopkins is an island. A relatively secure one. Going out into the wilds of Baltimore sounds like a horizon-broadening experience, but the kids are simply not prepared for it. They either have rose-colored glasses and become crestfallen when reality breaks in, or they have a healthy skepticism which is reinforced by experience.

Hopkins should keep its students on campus and understand that it will never be integrated into Baltimore other than ritually.

Tue Oct 31, 11:38:00 AM EST
Maurice Bradbury said...

You know what? i didn't notice that the hanged guy was a pirate, and thanks for pointing it out, 'non. (I was up with insomnia). Maybe it wasn't a 'lynching' thing, maybe it was just some prop somebody found at Party City.

Not fond of out-of-town kids who are so disrespectful to our city (it's like family, you can insult them, other people can't), but maybe instead of being evil idiots they're just idiots.

... Has anyone worn "hoochie hoops"since 1987?

Baltimore is without a doubt the most racially tense city ever. It seems like it's going to explode any minute. And if it does, you know it'll be over something like this, or serial-killer rumors in the NW that aren't actually true. The truth is too banal, complicated, horrible.

We all should explode over the DSS's funding getting cut even after those twins were starved and beaten and that girl was found chained to her bed (etc etc). But for some reason that bit got zero comments, this one got 14. Ideas, symbols are powerful, and clearly this town has a whole lot of tension.

Tue Oct 31, 11:47:00 AM EST
John Galt said...

Tremendous disparity, tremendous tension.

For a geographic perspective, understand that coming out the south entrance of Johns Hopkins Homewood campus, you're 4 blocks west of a community which recorded 7 murders in two months this summer.

Most of these kids have never seen an actual homicide scene in their lives, other than on television.

Tue Oct 31, 11:55:00 AM EST
John Galt said...

BTW, those twins were about another four blocks due east of Hopkins.

Tue Oct 31, 11:56:00 AM EST
Maurice Bradbury said...

...and were born at Hopkins. And sent home to die from Hopkins.

Tue Oct 31, 12:00:00 PM EST
John Galt said...

The babymomma & babydaddy were sleeping in the basement of an abandoned house on 31st Street they'd broken into.

What DSS needed to do was to make sure these people never had anything to do with children, whether this one or any others. You don't do that with a caseworker. You'd need to incarcerate them for vagrancy and make the child a ward of the state.

Allowing people to dwell in this town without the ability to provide for subsistence is hazardous to innocent bystanders, among them their children.

If you recall, Nathaniel Broadway can't really read a newspaper or write a letter. He's nonfunctional.

Tue Oct 31, 12:15:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

waaa I'm black everyone is racist against me waaa i got PROBLEMS It's sad that this story is getting the most comments. How is a pirate hanging from a tree racist?

Tue Oct 31, 01:05:00 PM EST
John Galt said...

Well, now, the facts are:

the pirate looks like a lynching, or close enough to be incredibly insensitive to that possibility

the flyers talk about Halloween in the hood

they talk about bling bling and dressing outrageously

from the turnout, the overwhelmingly white attendees understood that their dress was to be very, very 'yo-boy'.

It was racist, or anti-ethnic or whatever you want to call it. It was not innocent.

It was apparently not unlawful, but maybe these kids need to be more respectful of others around them than just what the law requires. It's part of what would distinguish them from the hoodie boyz.

Tue Oct 31, 01:35:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

It seems to me that this is just a modern interpritation of the "Pimps and Hos" parties that have been going on for years and years. All in the spirit of fun. If everyone would stop taking themselves so seriously this would be a non-event and we could work on real problems.

Tue Oct 31, 02:12:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

i love how you guys are all so in touch with black people and black culture that you know better than they do what they should be offended by and what they should consider racist!

Tue Oct 31, 02:53:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

Talk about a tempest in a teacup.

The group making the biggest stink about this is the JHU Black Student Union- a group of kids with equally as privileged backgrounds as the frat boys. If they threw a Dundalk-themed white-trash party, would anyone care?

Tue Oct 31, 03:31:00 PM EST
John Galt said...

The BSU does it, the CSA does it, the JSA has always done it, often in opposition to the MESA. Admittedly, these folks are driven by a hypersensitivity to identity issues. So, when they're tilting at windmills you tell tem to get a life.

This wasn't windmill. Your point about Pimps & Ho's is well taken, and I've asked myself why it doesn't elicit the same repugnance.

I think it's because of the extreme parody. Mostly, the people encountering the pimps & ho's symbolism are pretty foreign to the reality of them. Not so with the 'hood. Even privileged black yuppies may well have cousins with bling-bling crowns and a street lifestyle. I suspect that's why it hits home as it did. Consequently, they feel close to the stereotype and therefore are offended.

Tue Oct 31, 04:02:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

Thank you, galt, for almost everything you've said here.

Not sure that fostering more of Baltimore A is the answer to ignorance: "really should be encouraged to stay within campus bounds". I've definitely been wrong before, though.

Tue Oct 31, 06:02:00 PM EST
John Galt said...

It's not a preference. It'pragmatism. Baltimore B is so far from their their experience that it would take three years (freshman year they don't even know which part of Baltimore the campus is located in)of hard work to build some shared understanding and then, you have to start over again. Probably not worth the effort to avoid these disasters.

Tue Oct 31, 06:48:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...

nah, dude, I disagree.

Tue Oct 31, 09:13:00 PM EST
John Galt said...

I've supervised these kids pursuant to their community service obligations. This entailed bringing them into Baltimore B.

A few days' exposure does absolutely nothing to impart understanding. They go back to the frat as they were, having discharged an item of drudgery.

To really get there they'd need to commit several weeks and build some kind of relationship with someone who lives here, and they don't have that time in their schedules, particularly if they're into athletics. It just doesn't work.

Tue Oct 31, 11:46:00 PM EST

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