The campus of the University of California, Irvine is up in arms after the emergence of parody video which features a student wearing blackface. The video comes courtesy of the Lambda Theta Delta fraternity, which is the school's first and biggest Asian Greek organization. However, they aren't tied to the Asian Pacific Student Association, which is understandably furious about the video.
The video shows Tony D. Duong, Philip Lam and Justin T. Nguyen prancing around in suits to the sounds of Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake's "Suit & Tie," and it's pretty tame until Rainier Nanquil enters the fold wearing blackface in a terrible attempt to impersonate Jay-Z. The clip has been denounced by the ASPSA, which has called it "blatantly ignorant" and "racist," among other things.
What's worse is that two more examples of Lambda Theta Delta's racist antics have surfaced. One involves a photo of two members with text that reads "Big Slave Driver" and "Little Slave Driver," and the other is a 2012 rush video where yet another person wears blackface to portray Antoine Dodson.
Lambda Theta Delta has since apologized for the video, saying that everyone involved was "reprimanded" before the public outrage. Still, the fact that members figured a video (or anything) involving blackface was a good idea exposes a bigger problem. Seriously, what reaction did they expect from people?
[via LAist]
