Student in racist yearbook photo: 'This is not a picture of life at U of R' - Sensationalist Headlines

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/richmond.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/d/07/d0720a40-9f0f-5073-b7fe-6e8e3950754b/5c5c94973d32e.image.jpg?resize=1447%2C1432 https://www.richmond.com/news/local/education/black-student-in-racist-yearbook-photo-this-is-not-a/article_d8d5c69a-09ac-52cc-9916-0a8c1afe3d95.html Black student in racist yearbook photo: 'This is not a picture of life at the University of Richmond University of Richmond President Ronald Crutcher released a statement Thursday calling a racist photo from the school’s 1980 yearbook “repulsive” and “antithetical to the values of the University today.” The photo depicts five people dressed in Ku Klux Klan costumes surrounding a smiling African-American man holding a drink and pretending to be hanged by a noose. The African-American man is Michael Kizzie, who played basketball at Henrico High School and for the Richmond Spiders. In a phone interview Thursday night, he said he was unaware of the photo until he was contacted by a reporter for The Collegian, UR’s student newspaper. “I’m just getting over the shock and embarrassment of it right now, and that’s going to take a while,” said Kizzie, who now lives in suburban Washington. The university’s statement says that the administration became aware that the photo had been shared on social media Wednesday night. “Such images reflect a past that must be reconciled and understood,” Crutcher’s statement said. “We do not intend to forget or erase those moments. Rather, we must examine and understand our history so that we may become the more inclusive community we aspire to be.”

... How?

"Racist yearbook photo"? This isn't even one of those blackface incidents. This is a black dude taking the piss out of the KKK as an institution with some buddies. This is like branding Blazing Saddles racist.

He might've been pretty drunk.

Do you remember every dumb photo you've taken with friends? Obviously it was for him, at the time, a light hearted joke as he's smiling. Obviously this kind of thing is not okay, but at the time that seemed to be the reality of racial prejudices and he's just going along with it for a gag photo.

This is getting silly.

he looks like he's having fun and like any other normal, sane person with a vaguely functioning brain he and his friends knew this was just a joke and not some racist statement.

Several things. You can do or say something racist without actually being a racist yourself. I don't know anything about the man in the photo and think it's unlikely, but it's still entirely possible for him to be racist despite being black. Blazing Saddles, while being a satire, consists mostly of racial humour. The fact that it's mocking racists rather than races doesn't change that.

We truly have nothing better to do.

I don't have dumb photos with friends. I don't have photos with friends at all. It just seems strange how you can look at that and it not make you remember anything.

Am I an oddball in that I don't really find any issue with it if all parties involved are smiling and it's clearly a gag?

"Oh you poor misguided minorities, let me tell you the right way to behave so that you aren't racist against yourselves"

I think it's a great picture, honestly. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1809/a3327e79-23de-4625-af5f-7848d7f0becc/image.png

A lot of people will swear up and down they handle their alcohol fine, they've never gotten black out drunk, they're not that bad when they drink, whatever. The problem is they were drunk at the time so their memories, if they even exist, are skewed and don't necessarily reflect reality. People will get up and swear before Congress that while they really, really like alcohol, they'd never get black out drunk. Except they do and they just don't remember it.

Are you getting offended on behalf of minorities. Listen, I'm not telling anyone how to act, and just because this one person took part in a racist photo doesn't mean he's a bad person or even necessarily racist. But you can't reenact a KKK lynching as a fucking party joke and try to tell me it's not racist.

This guy did and it wasn't racist. Suck it up.

What makes it racist beyond having the surface-level appearance of racism? Was it done with the intent of spreading racial hate or with the earnest belief that one race is better than another? No? Then how the fuck is it racist?

This logic is actually mind boggling, how on earth is a black guy joking about the kkk with his friends being racist against himself? Literally what part of this is even remotely racist, particularly when the retards who usually cry racism about stuff like this say racism can only be "Prejudice + power". Literally no definition of racism would actually make this racist.

It's pattern-matching. That's literally all it is. People pattern-match to make things easier to handle, but when you rely on it too much you start to short-circuit far too many things. So when you see anything that could possibly be construed as racist, you just instantly jump straight to the "they're a racist" conclusion; you haven't actually assessed the situation, you're just assuming it is the same as everything else it looks like -- and what it looks like, ostensibly, is racism.

You know, this resembles racism to me. Its like you think it isn’t racism to tell other races what they can and cannot do or joke about

Man people are digging deep just to find some shit to be offended by. The world was a much different place 20-30-40 years ago. Unless it was something incredibly heinous, like a rape, murder, or other major crime, I don't believe we should be condemning people for actions they committed that long ago especially without proper context and without having lived in that time period. Were any of the people in this photo racist? Nobody actually knows for sure. For all we know it was a college costume party where a bunch of young drunk college kids were taking the piss. Hell how is this any different from current meme culture and making "racial" jokes for laughs?

These guys legit look like they're having a good time

have you ever been drunk before? serious question on many occasions i've been shown pics of myself from the last 3 or 4 years where i've been drunk and had completely forgotten about the situation that lead to the photo, i usually remember the events leading up to the picture after a sec of looking at it, but this pic is like 40 years old so it's not surprising that the guy had just completely forgot about the whole thing

No, I haven't. I limit my alcohol. The worst I've gotten is buzzed. I don't like not being in control of my body. I didn't even consider he was drunk at the time when I made my initial post.

Honestly I think he meant he wasn't aware of it circulating all of a sudden, not that he didn't know they did this

It seems like people nowadays conflate "having to do whatsoever with the difference in skin color, race or ethnicity in any context regardless of intent" with "racism" and immediately think "that's wrongthink, don't ever do that, people who do that are bad, no if's, and's or but's". Intent, context, and outcome matter. Just because something mentions race, uses race as an identifier, or discusses race relations doesn't mean it is defacto racist. Discrimination or prejudice, or a belief of superiority/inferiority is required for it to be racist, and tongue-in-cheek references, obvious satire, using racism as a narrative or character motivartion in a work of fiction, recognizing a pattern that may or may not describe a group, or using the absudity of racism for humor does not necessarily mean it is discriminatory or prejudiced. Even stereotypes, depending on context, are not necessarily racist, depending on the subject matter, motive and effect of the implication. "Italian-Americans love pizza" isn't ethnicist because that's not a discrimination or prejudice, it's just a pattern that people notice and remark on for groups as a way to describe a trend or pattern that is observed on the whole - this doesn't imply "every single italian whatsoever loves pizza no exceptions" and that doesn't need to be clarified either since any rational person knows that. It might be incorrect or lazy, but it's not discriminatory and does not imply inferiority unless the context of where and how it was said and the action following that statement made it so. "Italian-Americans love pizza so every Italian-American in the office gets pizza, everyone else gets $500" would be racist since its discriminatory. "Only people of Italian descent can make good pizza" could be ethnicist depending on the context - was this a statement of fact, a joke, a cognitive shortcut/laziness, an incorrect judgement based on limited experience or data, a way to downplay another ethnicity's prowess, a way to gloat about the implied superiority of Italians? Saying things are "racist" without looking into intent, context, and outcome is being lazy. It's a cognitive shortcut so people don't have to critically think - they can just go "that's racist" based on a pattern or trend they've seen previously and then use that to denigrate others. Whether this denigration is a way to make themselves feel better (virtue signalling), a misplaced attempt at providing solidarity to those who deal with racism, or a way to protect people they perceive as weaker than them (white knighting) all depends on context. Lots of things depend on context, who'd have thought? Disclaimer: I am Italian-American and I once burned a microwave pizza.

I'm not sure if I should give you congratulations or condolences.

Can't even put into words how much I love that picture. Literally never get tired of seeing it

People offend by racist joke are ruining the world ,grow some thick skin, its obviously an joke and they are not really kkk

Such images reflect a past that must be reconciled and understood,” Crutcher’s statement said. “We do not intend to forget or erase those moments. Rather, we must examine and understand our history so that we may become the more inclusive community we aspire to be.” hey you stop being civil and level headed about this, these were victimless crimes committed in a period where it was still socially acceptable to call black men boy and negro.