The Politics Ranter

As much as people joke about the shittiness of Laurier, I’ve never been ashamed to have come from there. Until now.

A couple of weeks ago, The Cord published an article about some Waterbuffaloes (a group dedicated to drinking, basically) dressing up for Winter Carnival as their idea of Jamaicans. And how did they do that? With blackface, empty chicken buckets on their heads, fake dreadlocks and fake joints. Way to go, idiots. The students union president came back with the lamest excuse ever, saying that “an apology would be [the Waterbuffaloes'] prerogative” because they’re not actually officially affiliated with the school or the union. Well, how about an apology for the fact that no one in the union had the sense to immediately tell them to go home when they showed up like that? For the fact that someone actually had to complain before you realized something was wrong with what they were doing?

The pictures made it onto YouTube, and the story made it into The Record. Now today, it’s in the Toronto Star and it’s one of the most read stories on the site. I hope the Waterbuffalo morons involved are thoroughly embarrassed.

The incident is actually mentioned as part of a bigger article on bullying at school, and the use of the internet for people to showcase the terrible things they do. Some kids posted a video of themselves harrassing a kid who is partially paralyzed due to a stroke. This distresses me in so many ways.

I know you can’t blame parents for their kids actions entirely, but did these kids’ parents at least not teach them about common decency? Why do kids think it’s ok to pick on people who already have it rough as it is?

The other question it raises is this: is the internet encouraging people to do stupid things so they can put it online and get their 15 seconds of infamy? Or, have people are have been this terrible and dumb all along, and now we just have the vehicle to showcase it? It’s troubling. And disheartening.