Is a Fraternity taking it too far on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday?

          Is a Fraternity taking it too far on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday?                    

                      Arizona State University enrolls 77,000 students a year with about 60% white students, 19% Latinos, 5% African Americans and the other 30% a mixture of state residents.  According to a spokeswoman Julie Newberg “the school has increased its enrollment of racial and ethnic minorities to 32% in 2012 from 21% in 2002.”  Doing so unfortunately has not changed some of the student’s minds in racism thinking or for this instance “partying”. 

            Arizona State University is investigating the Fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon of certain accusations that they committed when throwing a party for Martin Luther King’s birthday.  The accusations include at “which nonblack students mocked blacks by donning loose basketball jerseys, flashing gang signs and drinking from hollowed-out watermelons.”  If that is not bad enough there is evidence of students from the fraternity and party posting multiple Instagram photos with the shameful hash tags:  #MLKblackout and #hood.  Doing so these particular students have left a lot of “outrage, derision and disbelief among other sents.” 

            Tau Kappa Epsilon has been on probation since last year due to certain members being “linked to the beating of a black student on campus” and in result the University officials have recently suspended the fraternity from functions.  Having a sort of racism background to their fraternity has only put themselves in worse standing for this recent situation. 

            Interestingly Arizona was actually one of the last states to decide on Martin Luther King Jr. as a state holiday due to their governor at the time: Jan Brewer who voted against it.  In 1986 Bruce Babbitt who was governor at the time voted in favor and “established it by executive order just before he left office, only to have his Republican successor, Evan Mecham, rescind it.” Resulting in the voters to decide which came out as being in favor to create the holiday in 1992.  Which is a very interesting link to what these students in the specific fraternity were doing/creating. In fact a Rev. by the name of Jarrett Maupin who is a black Baptist minister and civil rights activist is quoted “We have this complicated history, so if we don’t stop every attempt at diminishing this day, we run a serious risk of turning the racist actions of certain individuals into institutional racism.”     

            While many people support the consequences of these students, some are actually in opposition.  Samantha Munoz a Mexican and Italian student who is neighbors with some of the Fraternity brothers stated “I understand why people are upset, but the question I ask myself is whether these same people find it racist when someone throws a white-trash party on Fourth of July.”  Which brings up the question as to why haven’t their been racist accusations with other holidays that could potentially have racist parties as well.

Many are stating this act as the fraternity “transforming into an echo chamber for racism.”  Or even something that is not even “done to harm the black community, but make it into what it was which is an act of disrespect to an American hero”.  Students, Faculty and the public in general are on the fence as to what to call this or what measures and steps to take next.  Even majorities of the people are disagreeing on what actions to take toward Tau Kappa Epsilon.  Some believe in taking care of it with suspending the students who were involved while others believe that giving them consequences will teach a lesson to the students as well.  

      Santos, Fernanda. "Arizona Fraternity Party Stirs Concerns of Racism." The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/arizona-fraternity-party-stirs-concerns-of-racism.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A15%22%7D&_r=0>.