Collegiate Times

However, to assert that these parties are wholly racist based solely on the fact that they are themed parties mimicking a subculture embraced by a distinct social segment is to dilute the efficacy of the social vigilance of racial equality. The rap industry has no doubt fostered a tangible, identifiable and reproducible subculture that can be closely represented in form through dress, speech and behavioral patterns. It is a subculture that belongs to everyone. Not every "gansta" is black. Not every rapper, producer or industry mogul is black. Not every hip-hop fan, consumer or member of the industry's sales demographic is black; in fact a very substantial portion of its consumer segment is comprised of affluent suburban white people. Therefore, its reproduction can not be wholly represented without considering the fact that not everyone being emulated is that of African-American decent. It would not be unlike a group of predominantly black students at a university holding a theme party based on the hippy subculture of the 60s. It too was born out of social resistance. It too flourished around a burgeoning music industry. It too was a movement characterized predominantly by persons of a singular race. It too can be reproduced through the device of dress, speech and attention to behavioral patterns. Therefore would it be racist for African-Americans to emulate "hippies" at a theme party in the same manner that white Anglos emulate "gangstas"?

There is no doubt that a line was crossed in Clemson and that the student appearing in blackface was nothing less than an idiot or racially insensitive jerk, but what of the other party goers who wished to mimic the characteristics of a non-exclusive subculture of the rap industry. After all, subcultures do not belong to just one group of people. Culture itself is not subject to exclusive proprietorship anymore than ideology. Both culture and subculture belong to any who embrace it. Were it otherwise, the civil rights movement would have been exclusively championed by blacks; the women's rights movement would have only been fostered by women: child welfare would have no advocates and labor reform would lie solely in the hands of the laborers.

It is my concern that the blanketing of stinging racial accusations such as Randolph's comparisons threatens to compromise the integrity of society's vigilance for equality. By likening the Clemson party as a whole to the lynching and indiscriminant killings of blacks throughout our nation's often lurid history is to severely dilute the integrity of the equal rights movement that continues to this day. As is with any righteous endeavor, in order to successfully root out maliciousness and deviance in society, we must first assure ourselves that in our adamance to fight the good fight we do not consume ourselves with zeal.

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