Column: Compton Cookout?

Ah, good ol’ ignorance. Still finding its way into every last niche of today’s society.

A lot of stupid things take place in our society. The people who commit these ignorant acts usually don’t know what they’re doing. They are typically uneducated and haven’t been exposed to the diversity needed to realize what they’re doing is going to really piss somebody off. Right?

Wrong.

This week’s winner of the Ignorance Award (which had been put on a slight hiatus since I’ve had an acute case of senioritis) somewhat contradicts the aforementioned example of your typical ignorant person in the sense that they are educated.

The award goes to UC San Diego’s Pi Kappa Alpha chapter, which hosted the “Compton Cookout” themed party to celebrate Black History Month.

The event was scheduled to come equipped with “chicken, Kool-aid and, of course, watermelon,” according to the Facebook invitation.

Chicken, Kool-aid and watermelon … to celebrate Black History Month? That’s what comes to mind when they think of black history?

Let’s explore more of the party that was meant “to celebrate … in hopes of showing respect [for Black History Month].”

Like any themed party, you dress up for it. The suggested outfits for boys and girls on the Facebook event page were beyond ignorant.

Observe. To respect Black History Month, guys were expected to “be rockin’ Jersey’s, stuntin’ up in ya white T (XXXL smallest size acceptable), anything FUBU … Tats, etc.”

The fraternity party had a particularly crude attitude toward women. A sexist fraternity? No way.

These UC-educated students said “ghetto chicks,” which they seem to use synonymously with black women, “usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes.”

They end that paragraph with, “The objective is for all you lovely ladies to look, act and essentially take on these ‘respectable’ qualities throughout the day.”

The lovely ladies were obviously not the ghetto chicks (remember: black women) who they were supposed to be mimicking.

I just feel the need to quote some more of this so people understand the absurdity: “They look and act similar to Shenaynay, and speak very loudly, while rolling their neck, and waving their finger in your face.”

What do you even say about something like this? These people go to a UC and are considered among the top percentage of students in the state.

Bullshit like this should remind us of some of the racism embedded into the different institutions in our society. The word “ignorant” wouldn’t be enough to describe UC students throwing a party with a theme like this. You’d really have to actively try to be a dumb ass.

This isn’t even about political incorrectness at this point. Even basic manners should have taught you not to mock people. Trying to mock the accomplishments that Black History Month is actually trying to celebrate with chicken and watermelon is just really uneducated.

They might as well have told people to come with nooses around their necks. That would have got the racism across much more clearly, though. I guess these guys were trying to be subtle.

SARA KOHGADAI just wrote the third to last column of her senior year. Wowzers. Send any goodbyes you have to her at sbkohgadai@ucdavis.edu.