Oh good grief. Do students who are members of the Edinburgh University Law Society really need to be told that white people “blacking up” by way of a costume is not funny or cool or hip this late in the game?
The Beerientering event, which took place on Thursday night, asked students to follow an “around the world” fancy dress code.
However, pictures soon began circulating on social media of four students – three men and one woman – “blacked up” to represent Somali pirates.
Third year Social Anthropology student Amie Robertson, 19, who is a member of the Amnesty Society and the Tibet Society, was one of those who challenged the group.
She said: “We ran into them in The Three Sisters bar. We tried to explain that their costumes were deeply offensive and racist. They didn’t even deny that, they just said, ‘Oh, it’s only for one night’. One of the members of the Vegetarian Society, who is of Pakistani descent, told them if they really thought it was okay, they would let her take a picture – and they did!”
And then the next day they said it was just a coincidence! And it was a dare! And nobody said anything! And they were brave heroes!
The Edinburgh News goes on to ask the question I know you are all shouting as you read:
Is blacking up always as offensive as the politically correct would have us believe?
Ah yes the politically correct, the dreary pious self-righteous always-pestering politically correct, in contrast to the free-spirited, the witty, the rebellious, the original, the fearless, who cover their privileged pallid skin with brown makeup in defiance of all that correctness.
In a pig’s eye.