Student Group Protests Outside Penn Phi Delt By Holding Faux Slave Auction
Back in December, the members of Phi Delta Theta at University of Pennsylvania caught heat for including a Beyonce blow up doll in their Christmas photo. The fraternity apologized for the use of the doll, claiming that it was nothing but a gag gift, and said that it was a bad decision to have it.
Last Friday, one student group on campus, Students Organizing for Unity and Liberation, or SOUL, protested the fraternity over the incident.
From The Daily Pennsylvanian:
In front of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house, a member of the group stood on a box with plastic chains around her neck, reciting a poem directed toward the members of the fraternity, calling them out for their choice to feature a black blow-up sex doll in their holiday photo last December.
“When you walk on Locust, you’re not supposed to feel the violence that is this house,” College senior Victoria Ford, the student reciting the poem, said.
In response to the photo, Phi Delt’s nationals put the fraternity on probation. The brothers were required to take educational programs on cultural sensitivity and sexual and relationship misconduct. The reason for the protest was because the group was not pleased with the punishment that Phi Delt received for the incident.
“We haven’t forgotten about this and remain unsatisfied with the University’s response and punishment of Phi Delta Theta,” SOUL posted on its Facebook event for a Tuesday meeting to organize the protest.
SOUL took to the front of the house to show this displeasure by participating in a fake slave auction.
The fake slave auction in front of the chapter house was meant to tie the purchasing of the black sex-doll into the larger narrative of slavery, and the historical relationship between white men and black women.
The fake auctioneers held signs that read $14.60, symbolizing the amount of money the blow-up doll cost. Protesters also painted their heads as a symbol of police brutality.
The fraternity did not have anything to comment on the protests..
[via The Daily Pennsylvanian]
Image via YouTube
So I’m assuming my black card (credit card) is now considered racist and every time I go to the store there will be a mock slave auction?
11 years ago at 9:12 pmBeing forced to take classes on cultural sensitivity. TFM.
11 years ago at 10:34 pmLiterally nobody on campus cares. Everyone knows that the Phi Delt thing was a stupid controversy; it’s just a select few idiots that blather on and on.
11 years ago at 11:02 pmJust reading this from the link I found in the faux slave auction piece. It’s absolute bull what some people are doing on college campuses to perpetuate this evil white fraternity man stereotype in order to draw attention to themselves. The same thing has been happening here at Duke over my past 3 years here and it’s sad to see the freedoms given to us by the constitution repressed by people too entitled to do something good with the extra time and privilege they have being at such an elite academic institution by giving back in a positive way, like these phi delt guys do as you mentioned.
I’ll admit, we’ve had rough patches down here in the past few years, what with the KSig “Racist Rager” that was nothing more than people dressing up in cultural stereotypes like Hawaiian grass skirts, togas, lederhosen, Irish kilts, kimonos and other eastern asian stereotyped clothing. Sure organizations like Asian Student Association and Black Students Alliance came forward and protested as a whole, but it really just the leaders in those groups trying to garner national media attention for themselves by making it out to be something more than what it actually was. What was not mentioned by the media however, was that most of these members were not privileged white Americans. KSig had a large constituency of international students and student of all races. I even heard the kid who was a big proponent of the party in the first place was an Asian-American. My fraternity has kids that are black, white, asian-american, indian-american and latino. Most every fraternity here consists of kids from all different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. Even KA has their token half-asian and half-latino kids. KSig had just gotten back off campus, and needless to say they immediately got kicked back off and are still there, surviving somehow.
There was also the incident of a noose that was hung from a tree on campus. I have no rebuttal for that. Some speculated it was to raise awareness for suicide since a lot of people feel that is a lot more important in society than a little bit of cultural insensitivity, but again, people get outraged too easily and are overly sensitive to issue that have never been an issue of sensitivity before. They are focusing all of their efforts on fighting a difficult battle on college campuses with cultural insensitivity. These efforts could be put to such better use in another outlet, like in the Durham community, which predominantly consists of people of color. It’s a sad era when depression and suicide on college campuses (a matter of death) is deemed a less important issue than cultural insensitivity (a matter of hurt feelings). I expect for the piranha that is the media to perpetuate these stereotypes because that’s all they have to do these days, since reporting relevant news isn’t an outlet for ratings anymore. I guess we just have to leave that to the WSJ and fucking Google News.
11 years ago at 10:08 amThe Phi Delt nationals are a bunch of pussies for not standing behind their brothers in this clearly retarded scenario.
11 years ago at 1:18 pmAll this because she was black? White men can’t fantasize about fucking a black woman? That’s racist to even bring that up its a fucking sex doll race shouldn’t even be in the equation. Black culture has turned young urban blacks into fucking idiots.
11 years ago at 2:43 pmLets hold a highly offensive slave auction to protest the not even remotely offensive picture of a blow up doll. Makes sense.
11 years ago at 6:52 pmAnyone notice the phi delt sitting on the bench haha TFM
11 years ago at 9:01 pm