Why did members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity at the University of Oklahoma chant "you can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me?"
Is it because they're privileged racists?
No, it's because rap music made them do it according to Joe Scarborough and Bill Kristol.
“Popular culture becomes a cesspool, a lot corporations profit off of it, and then people are surprised that some drunk 19-year-old kids repeat what they’ve been hearing,” said Bill Kristol. [...]
“The kids that are buying hip hop or gangster rap, it’s a white audience, and they hear this over and over again,” Joe Scarborough said. “So do they hear this at home? Well, chances are good, no, they heard a lot of this from guys like this who are now acting shocked.”
I can't believe I'm saying this, but you have to give Willie Geist credit for saying that there is a "distinction between a bunch of white kids chanting about hanging someone from a tree, using that term and Waka Flocka Flame using it.”
There is a clear distinction, but isn't that immaterial? If you say it's wrong for singers to say certain things, isn't it also wrong for the members of SAE to say it? Aren't these frat bros responsible for their own actions? What happened to personal responsibility?
I do not buy for a second that none of the pricks caught on video this week do not "hear this at home." I guarantee they do.
The SAE fraternity has been banished from the University of Oklahoma. The Greek letters (pictured above) have even been removed from their frat house.
(AP photo)