Hanging out with the Hos in the Hood

BALTIMORE - SHOCK HORROR! SCANDAL! HOLD THE FRONT PAGE!

Johns Hopkins University suspended a fraternity Monday afternoon following a racially themed Halloween party Saturday night at an off-campus house.

What were these frat boys doing? Wearing Klu Klux Klan hats? Hurling racial insults at black people? Er no, but they were dressed as pimps and prostitutes. I know, absolutely shocking, isn't it?

Members of the Black Student Union and supporters rallied on North Charles Street in front of the campus, speaking out against the local Sigma Chi chapter and perceived racial hostility on campus. Hopkins is investigating the party and said the national Sigma Chi fraternity has imposed a 45-day suspension of the chapter’s activities and will conduct its own investigation.

The uproar began shortly after the “Halloween in the ’Hood” party was advertised on the Web site Facebook.com.

The invitation encouraged racial-stereotyping costumes, and prefaced descriptions of Baltimore as “a ghetto,” “the hood” and “the HIV pit” with a four-letter epithet.

The invitation was attributed to Justin H. Park, who is listed as a Sigma Chi Class of 2008 member on the fraternity’s Web site.

Johns Hopkins said in a written statement that the Greek life coordinator had told the chapter president last week that he found the advertisement racist and offensive, and directed the fraternity to withdraw the advertising immediately, but it reappeared without the coordinator’s knowledge, in an altered but still offensive form.

Two members of the Black Student Union, Louis Young, 21, and Phil Roberts, 20, said they were disappointed by the administration and some classmates’ response to the protest as well.

“People have been walking by saying we are a disgrace to the university,” said Roberts, 20, a junior international relations major.

A small group of black students went to the party and said white students were dressed as pimps and prostitutes. SHOCK HORROR. Outside the front door of the house in the 200 block of East 33rd Street was a plastic skeleton dressed as a pirate, hanging from a rope noose.

“And then as you walked up to the house, you heard fake gunshots — as if there is a gun fight in this neighborhood every night,” said freshman Blake Edwards, 18. "Several of the girls I went with left in tears."

Maybe they should get a life?

“The entire city of Baltimore should be offended by this.”

My take on this. Okay, why should the entire city of Baltimore be offended by a Hood themed fancy dress party? If anything, the city of Baltimore should be offended by the fact that it is full of crack houses, drug addicts, pimps and prostitutes, and has a situation where the McDonalds downtown have bullet proof glass on their windows so people don't get killed from a drive by shooting while they're eating a burger. The party was just reflecting quite a large part of Baltimore reality.

So it's offensive to dress up as prostitutes and pimps, is it? And would it also be offensive if a black person went to a party where the theme was White Trash? No, of course it wouldn't.

Just another example of political correctness gone mad. What do you make of it?

And anyway, since when was Hood a dirty word?