What’s Wrong With This Picture? at Hungry Blues

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Was anyone else troubled by the photo of Appalachian State football fans on the front page the NY Times website today? There’s a different story featured on the front page now, but the photo is still heading the article.

Why do these students think this is okay?

Cenus says Boone, NC is 3.4% Black. In other words, there are 461 Blacks out of 13,472 residents.

Apparently the racial makeup of the school (PDF) is about the same as that of the town ASU is located in.

Appalachian State Undergraduate Enrollment, Fall 2002

3% of the ASU students are Black, though most of the student body comes to ASU from North Carolina counties outside of Watauga County, where Boone is located.

ASU Undergraduate Geographic Distribution, Fall 2002

The state of North Carolina is 21.8% Black, as of 2005. Of course it’s possible that Black enrollment at UNC schools is low across the board. This is not the case, however. The following is the percent Black students enrolled at all of the University of North Carolina schools in 2002 (PDF).

Appalachian State Univ. - 3%
East Carolina Univ. - 14%
Elizabeth City State Univ. - 79%
Fayetteville State Univ. - 77%
North Carolina A&T Univ. - 92%
North Carolina Central Univ. - 89%
North Carolina School of the Arts - 10%
North Carolina State Univ. - 10%
UNC Ashville - 3%
UNC Chappel Hill - 11%
UNC Charolotte - 17%
UNC Greensboro - 20%
UNC Pembroke - 20%
UNC Wilmington - 5%
Western Carolina Univ. - 5%
Winston-Salem State Univ. - 83%

The numbers show that one other school, UNC Ashville, scores as low on racial diversity as ASU. Two others come close (UNC Wilmington and Western Carolina Univ). Most of the UNC schools do much better.

Do white football fans do blackface at other UNC schools? I cannot say. Nor can I say what it’s like to be Black at any of these schools. But the numbers are suggestive, and I still want to know why these students think this is okay?

Photo credit: Chuck Burton/Associated Press
Photo credit: Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Posted by Benjamin T. Greenberg

September 3, 2007 at 12:22 pm

Posted in race and racism

Viewing 8 Comments

Elayne Riggs 09/03/2007 04:22 PM 1 point
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I've posted many times about the use of blackface in blogs, which I consider generally abhorrent. However, this isn't conscious blackface. Here, the fans have painted their bodies and faces with the team colors, which are yellow and black, as many sports fanatics are wont to do. If they were more intelligent they might have opted to paint each half different colors, but then if they were more intelligent they'd probably eschew body and face paint altogether.

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Benjamin T. Greenberg 09/03/2007 05:16 PM 1 point
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Hi Elayne. I understand this is about school colors and that the allusions to minstrelsy may be entirely unconscious. But I don't think no harm intended makes it okay. The not so well stated point of my statistics is that these white students can afford to be clueless because they are in a racially exclusive environment. At another school in another town, they would have to think twice before marching around in blackface.

I would even go so far as to say that these are white guys in the South and, even if they have no historical awareness, they are likely to have an intuitive sense that there is something socially transgressive about painting themselves Black.

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John 09/04/2007 01:49 AM 1 point
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Its hard to read this article and give it any credit when their are so many typographical errors. Also its call school spirit. Way to bring race into something totally irrelevant.

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Benjamin T. Greenberg 09/04/2007 02:04 AM 1 point
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John, I'm not sure how "school spirit" justifies offensive behavior.

On rereading I counted two typos: a missing article and a repeated word. Thanks for noting them. Now I've fixed them.

Anyway, I probably should not give your comment any credit, since your writing is not exactly typo free either.

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Elayne Riggs 09/04/2007 07:45 AM 1 point
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Benjamin, it's my experience that many students don't really need any sort of impetus to be clueless.

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Jim 09/04/2007 08:03 AM 1 point
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As I was going through the headlines this morning and came across a description containing Appalachian State and the website of Hungryblues.net I thought I would find an article from a disgruntled Michigan fan making excuses over their loss this past weekend. Instead, I find an article from a person who is offended by students painting their bodies with their school colors and celebrating a historic victory for their school. You know what, that is all it is. A bunch of ASU students celebrating a victory. It has nothing to do with demographics or the racial make up of the school or the UNC system. App. State definitely doesn't encourage or discourage applications based on race and I am offended that you would insinuate such a thing. The UNC system offers many schools with different emphasis or study and curriculums.

If you are offended by this picture then you have bigger issues to deal with. Why did you even go to the trouble of turning this into a race issue? You should spend your time dealing with real issues and problems instead of creating more.

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Caroline 09/04/2007 08:28 AM 1 point
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Benjamin, I think you need to double check the stereotypes you hold before commenting on someone else's. If these fans had been from a northern college with those same school colors, would you have taken their act of school spirit to be an act of racism?
Probably not. But, because App State is in the South, in a rural area in the South, you jump to the conclusion that this is a race issue.
Let's say it is a race issue. Were the students painted yellow discriminating against people of Asian decent? When students at my alma mater paint their faces red are they discriminating against Native Americans?
Ben, you're right, there is discrimination going on here, but I think it is coming from you.

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Jed Clampett 09/04/2007 10:00 AM 1 point
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Dude. We go to Hillbilly U. We know a few things about poverty, oppression and false stereotypes. C'mon and be honest. You're just trying to be a muckraker, aren't you?
Be a journalist and call give ASU's Associate Vice Chancellor Harry Williams a call and see what he has to say about this image before you spew your own bias all over the internet.

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