This Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity scandal at the University of Oklahoma did more, far more then finger a couple of racists on a bus. And it's time to recognize who was caught under this sting's net. But first let me pose the essential question in all this. What do you call an apologist for racism?
What do you call someone who bends reality to come up with plausible sounding reasons to accept or deflect the racist behavior in others? Is it an associate-racist, a racist's apprentice, or maybe just "a racist"? This is also someone who uses his or her verbal and analytical skills to spin the facts so that they turn in the opposite direction. The real victims become the poor white kids accused of being racists, who claim that they are receiving threats. It is not the group of people whose ancestors were slaves, several thousand of which were indeed hung from trees. The new culprits become rap singers or Al Sharpton or the existence of black fraternities.
While many cogent arguments have been made to explain why such issues as hip hop music have no relevance to the SAE scandal, something else occurred to me. Anyone with the analytical skills to raise such issues, also possesses the cognitive ability to figure out for themselves why such cases are not morally comparable to what happened on that FRAT bus. And it is sometimes far more useful to let people work out such moral issues for themselves, because the problem is not one of information. It is rather lack of self-knowledge, an unwillingness to acknowledge what their own souls are chanting.
I won't bother to name names. Listing the media personalities, pundits, and folks apologizing for the racist behavior of these frat brothers being heard all across the Internet would crash this server. But if you really need for me to prime the pump, how about starting with the talking heads on Morning Joe, who informed the world that these frat brothers were the victims of listening rap lyrics. That would include "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. And you can take it from there. So, what do you call apologists for racism?