The University of King’s College Students’ Union is holding a public forum on racism after a popular campus bar event, Wu-Tang Clan Night, was cancelled due to concerns about white students singing along to racial slurs.
An October 23 Facebook post on the event page by black King’s student Julia-Simone Rutgers quickly garnered attention from Wardroom bar organizers and the event was cancelled, while a heated debate in the comments of her post and on the event page continues.
Rutgers wrote that a similar Kanye West event last year, populated by “white kids comfortably shouting Kanye’s racial slurs in the name of good fun and celebration,” left her feeling uneasy and unsafe.
“It is marginalizing when you allow words like the n-word to be propagated in a space that is predominantly dominated by white folks,” she says.
After the event was cancelled, criticism was expressed in the thread, with people venting their frustration with everything from political correctness and censorship, to what some called a missed opportunity for education on racism. Rutgers feels education was entirely the point of her original post.
“It makes people uncomfortable when you point out the fact that they are doing things that are racist.”
Mike McGuire, a part-time teacher at Mount Saint Vincent University, hip-hop activist and producer under the name Hermitofthewoods, agrees with Rutgers. If white students are saying they don’t want to be censored, but black students say that this event is very uncomfortable for them, then they should listen.
“It’s really silly for white students to say, ‘Well that’s bullshit and we should be able to do whatever we want and any objection to that is agenda-driven and counter to progress,’” he says.
McGuire, himself white, supports the decision to cancel the event that was taken by the King’s Students’ Union, which is in charge of The Wardroom.
“If you’re going to play music that has racially charged language in it at a predominantly white school…you’re going to have to think about those things,” he says.
Beyond the Wu-Tang night, Rutgers says King’s suffers from institutionalized racism.
“Racism happens in such subtle, casual ways in this school,” she says.
KSU president Aidan McNally agrees. “We acknowledge that systemic racism exists on campus and that we need to be looking at the supports that are targeted specifically for racialized students and [see] if they’re lacking,” she says.
Instead of the regular playlists, which typically include hip-hop, last Monday night The Wardroom instead played instrumentals in order to illustrate what organizers called the “importance of language in music.”
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This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2016.
Disclosure- I am a white cisgender male
White people shouldn’t be using those words, ESPECIALLY at events like this. It’s too bad that an event that could bring people together over the mutual love for a particular artist has to be cancelled when it could instead bring understanding and help to erode the lines racism has wrought in our society. In the future, I’m wondering if an announcement/rule were to be made about singing along (as in, DONT) or about being sensitive to others with your language use would be enough to change behavior? I suppose that would only work if people actually obey those rules though…
Just my 2c
Disclosure – I’m an individual with my own opinions.
It simply can’t be racist to sing along to your favorite music unless the music itself is racist. But it might be racist if you don’t allow people to sing along to music based on their race. This really seems insane and I’m trying to be as charitable as I can to the latest Social Justice movements and I’m even sympathetic to most of their larger goals but their activism seems centered around symbolic acts rather than true reform. Words we should/shouldn’t us and dress we shouldn’t wear, banning speakers they don’t agree with, getting people fired for expressing the wrong opinion. This only serves to build barriers between groups which can be seen in the depressing rise of far right groups, firstly in Europe and now beginning in the US with the Trump phenomenon. The fact that the above commenter has to disclose his gender and race is disturbing, like a modern day dystopian novel come to life. Whatever happened to judgment based on the content of character and ideas? And suggesting certain races can’t sing along is truly insane. What about mixed race people, or brown? Will it be just PoC that can sing along? The moral calculus will become impossible and absurd if we continue with this type of race based logic.
People have to take responsibility for the way they feel. What matters is that people ARE safe, not that you feel safe. I know people have expressed they don’t feel safe in my neighborhood because I live in a black community. I believe these people when they tell me this, but it’s their issue not the communities. People can have a variety of feelings, and feelings are not always justified. This is why people see psychologist and meditate so they can learn not to associate so closely with their feelings.
The far left movement is circling back around to the far right. I am constantly hearing comments from the far left that sound like they could have come out of the mouth of racists and bigots from the 20s, yet because it’s aimed at white people, or straight people, or whomever, then it’s just fine. I really find the hypocrisy today on the left astounding. Their movement is pushing people apart as opposed to trying to bring people together and I find it terribly sad. The early black, feminist and gay movements made so much progress because they made people see their humanity rather than bashing and attacking people and forcing them to behave in certain ways. I’m hoping for a second MLK of the new social justice left to come and bring sanity and intellectual honesty to a movement that seems desperate for direction and that can hopefully bring all sides together on these issues.
Peace
White students couldnt sing along to racial slurs if the music didnt contain same…
How can this happen?
How can an institute of higher learning even begin to cancel an event in advance because of what one student worries ‘might happen?’
That’s such an important part of this article and this story that nobody seems to be focusing on. This is not an event that was cancelled because it was advertised in a racist way, or hosted by a racist or sexist DJ, or it intended to feature explicitly racist content. This is not an event that was destined to promote or produce hate speech by design.
This is an event that was cancelled because of what ‘might happen.’
This is not an article about a student taking action and getting recourse on the students who were involved at the Kanye show. This is not an article about those students getting sensitivity training. This is not an article about using what happened at that event to talk about the politics of singing along to lyrics that contain racially sensitive material and not editing yourself. This is not an article about something progressive. This is not an article about moving forward because this is an article about what ‘might happen.’
This is an article about a student who is worried about what might happen if Wu-Tang Clan is played in a public venue, who is worried that the song lyrics written by black artists might be played in an open venue and might be uncensored and that white people might sing along to these song lyrics and not censor themselves. Is this not something that ‘might happen’ virtually every time black music containing racially sensitive terms is played in public? Or any artist containing music that is racially sensitive or relevant to their culture (begging questions of appropriation)?
At every concert these artist throw? At every event that uses their music? Every time someone buys a cd or downloads an album and plays it in their home? In their car?
Is not playing the music the solution then? Or is that in and of itself a far more dangerous form of censorship. What if every protest that ‘might’ turn into a riot was cancelled? Protests have turned into riots before… right?
Now lets think of what could have happened.
There could have been a conversation around this event, leading up to this event, about the line between singing along to the lyrics and being disrespectful to the artist/ the community and where, and if, and how it exists. About how music is a great medium for learning about/ appreciating/ sharing between members of different races and cultures and is, as in the case of Wu Tang Clan, not always culturally or racially homogeneous (Wu Tang has worked extensively with people like Remedy, a white Jewish guy & their tracks a super heavily influenced by martial arts and Asian culture).
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the silence of all human voices departed in the decision to just play instrumentals really is the only way to move forward with all of this. Maybe absolute silence is the best outcome of all the things that ‘might’ have happened…
I’m a hip-hop fan, but I never kid myself that I have the right to use racial slurs. That’s not the kind of person I want to be.
OH and calling them “white kids” isn’t racist??? This chick needs to STFU and stop being so sensitive.
Margaret – You don’t have to kid yourself, you DO have the right to say pretty much whatever you like (short of fire in a crowded theatre). A right is a legal concept, not a moral one… you might not ‘feel’ right singing along but that’s different. Don’t confuse self censorship with systemic censorship. It’s good that you don’t want to be ‘that person’ and you’re lucky you live in a society where you have the choice to be the type of person you want to be. Let’s not force people to be what we think is ‘good’ on the basis of our ‘uneasy’ feelings.
Mismos00…According to the comments thread on this person’s facebook post it’s impossible to be racist against white people. Or sexist towards men. It’s acceptable to be hateful/discriminatory towards people from these groups, at least according to the vast majority of the people posting there.
My personal opinions on the subject aside, Rutger’s initial post did not (outright) ask for the event to be cancelled as this article suggests. The comments section of that thread is the larger problem.
In response to the comment that said: “you DO have the right to say pretty much whatever you like”, try telling that to Mike Ward, the comedian who was ordered by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal to pay $35,000 in damages because he’d made a joke about a disabled kid.
Don’t kid yourself, we live in a brave new world. If your opinions are not officially “correct”, you are not allowed to express them.
nor’easter: yep
Human Rights Inquisitions are bastions of Political Correctness.
Quebec has made it clear it will use the Notwithstanding Clause to maintain control over language.
The two together are a perfect Orwellian Storm of Thought Police (Thought Storm Troopers…?)
This is just stupid!
Rap Music- Promoting sexism,racism,crime,misogynistic views, and nothing but hate.
Ever notice how other genres of music are not repeating the same racial slur and same curse words in every single last song they write?
Who is the real racists?
Double Standard much?
You claim to hate such words than why do you subscribe to it or listen to it then?
Black people hold themselves down by being racists themselves. Stop blaming others for your poor choices in life!
Mind your own business,leave others alone. Is that so difficult? That is generally what most people would do if they are truly not racist.
So who then are the real racists in society? Most of us know the difference and you don’t fool this human.
@mismos So long as you pick the proper target than racism is A-Ok. Glad you noticed the obvious hypocrisy and double standards that is ruining society as a whole and dividing.
The same people who make fun of Donald Trump’s appearance(I do too) are same people who would crucify you at your job if you called them “fat n ugly” or make fun of their hair-dos every day in the office. You be up in HR in no time hahahaha Ohhh the Hypocrites are so fake.
They would crucify you for doing exactly what they are doing on a daily basis. All you have to do is call them on their shit and out comes the free for all insults from the most political correct morons.
Isn’t society awesome these days? lol Fuck em!