You Thought That Chelsea-Fan Chant Was Bad? American Undergrads Go One Bigger.

[Hypognosis]

Worth a read. Seems those on the receiving end of the abuse have also had to put up with duplicitous hugs and so on, in more public places.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/oklahoma-football-player-rips-phony-ass-btch-frat-boys-as-campus-is-rocked-by-racist-video/#.VP3bqtGhr0E.facebook

The link might break due to a filtered word (horse-donkey hybrid, 3 letters)

[Hypognosis]

Looks like I didn't phrase the question in such a way as to generate a reply.

So: "Are US undergrad fraternities more racist than the Paris Chelsea fans?"

[jno]

you'd think in theory they were more educated at least, though they don't act it. You sort of expect football fans to be knuckle draggers (at least those of us who were around in the 1970s remember them that way), but university students?

That's not even 1970s, it's 1940s, if not 1840s.

[Hypognosis]

Hi jno,

I am wondering if it was proportionately worse precisely because they were middle-class, educated types? Yet still ill-informed with regard to race relations, which you might expect from "knickle-draggers"?

(Aside: in the Chelsea fans thread I suspected the 'thugs' were just as likely to be stockbroker types, who can afford three grand for the season ticket -and- all the travel abroad).

I'd like to know how much of it revolves around "club-iness", the tendency to bond with ones fellows and exclude perceived outsiders and how much of it is genuinely about racial prejudice?

However, the lyric was highly specific, unambiguous, was a historical reference and was not an attempt to parrot rap lyrics. QED

So, whatever it is they're teaching them, in an effort to promote equality, it is not working, for that sector of society!

I can't wait for it to emerge that some of them are home-schooled.

[Hypognosis]

Oh, and here's a TV channel, trying to pass off the blame onto rap music (until the closing paragraph).

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/morning-joe-panelists-blame-oklahoma-fraternity-racism-on-black-culture-and-rap-music

[jno]

yes, I realise football fans are a different breed from the knife gangs of the old days; you don't really get a lot of racist incidents now. But obviously there's still a bit of it about.

But how you get to university without finding out how unacceptable that sort of behaviour is - especially in America, which is very proactive about race relations - beats me. I take your point about clubbiness; but given that there aren't any blacks in the fraternity, it looks as if it may have been racist from the start and the clubbiness is deliberately self-reinforcing.

Pretty ugly, whatever the reason.