It’s been a tough week transitioning out of Spring Break, but at least the anti-abortion group is gone, right? Here’s your never-has-TGIF-been-so-true edition of
Darts & Laurels
As you may have heard, we’re in the middle of trying to deal with the possibility of a nuclear-powered Iran. There are essentially two options to choose from: We, along with the five other countries that make up the P5+1, can try to negotiate a deal with Iran using diplomacy and compromise. Or, we could bomb the bejesus out of any Iranian nuclear facility, which is all but a guarantee of another devastating and catastrophically wasteful war in the Middle East. These tactics differ greatly, but at least they’re both proactive. In the minds of some, there is a third option: Reject any potential deal and fantasize about war with Iran.
That’s basically the stance U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton took this week, when he organized a letter sent to Iran’s leaders that basically said “don’t trust us” then condescendingly explained the U.S. constitutional system to a bunch of dudes who were mostly educated in the U.S. The goal here is to undermine Obama’s authority as well as the nuclear deal we and five other countries are working on. It seems like Cotton got electrocuted while reading erotic Captain America fan fiction by Bill O’Reilly — this move is utterly ridiculous. It won’t do anything but make the situation harder to solve. Predictably, it was well-received by the kind of people who think they’re smarter than Neville Chamberlain because they know World War II happened. Here’s a try-solving-problems-instead-of-torpedoing-solutions DART to Cotton and the 46 senators who signed this letter.
When the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter at Oklahoma University was caught chanting its rush policy on video, national outrage erupted at the performance of its perverse ritual. For a few tense hours, people wondered what consequences, if any, would be delivered to the obnoxious pack of racist young men. There was cause for speculation: Quite often, responses to incidents like these hold only individual actors accountable; the body or organization to which they belong survives, barely tarnished. But that was not the case in Oklahoma: OU’s president, David Boren, immediately disbanded the chapter and ordered its members to vacate its house. The two chant leaders in the video were expelled from the university. It’s an appropriate punishment and sends a powerful message to any other groups that would behave like the former SAE at OU. We’re giving a LAUREL to President Boren for giving these disgraceful bigots what they deserve.
That said, we have to face up to an idea common in our national dialogue that is quick to blame flagrantly racist behavior like this on individual drunkenness, immaturity and the so-common-they’re-almost-constant “isolated incidents.” Anything but the longstanding, pervasive presence of racism in our society. A surreal example of this happened on “Morning Joe” this week, when co-host Brzezinski criticized rapper Waka Flocka Flame for taking issue with the SAE boys, even though he uses profanity in his music. A guest commenter agreed, complaining about rap music and saying “people are surprised that some drunk 19-year-old kids repeat what they’ve been hearing.” Yeah, blame black musicians for the pro-lynching chant. Never mind that it’s been heard at other SAE chapters across the country and probably predates hip-hop altogether; responsibility belongs to musicians who swear too much for Brzezinski’s taste. We’re giving Morning Joe a DART for that one.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 3/13/2015 under the headline “”]
