More on the Georgetown KKK Satire: University Official Condemns Content as “Deeply Hurtful”

More on the Georgetown KKK Satire: University Official Condemns Content as “Deeply Hurtful” was originally published on City Desk on Dec. 16, 2009, at 11:48 am
 

The Georgetown Voice's Vox Populi blog covered last night's on-campus forum organized by students upset over a recent article in the satirical Georgetown Heckler about a KKK-style cross burning on campus that was meant to mock the Hoya newspaper and its disastrous April Fools' issue.

Vox Populi writes:

Heckler Editor-in-Chief Jack Stuef (COL ‘10) answered questions and tried to explain his point of view on a recent controversial Heckler issue at a forum Tuesday night, while students debated the articles and expressed why they were offended by the satirical articles.

Copies of the Heckler’s article about Hoya staff members holding a Ku Klux Klan-like crossburning were passed out before the forum, and much of the conversation centered on that article.

“The KKK isn’t funny,” Stuef said. “The article is to take the situation to the extreme, to show what is maybe buried in this campus.”

Stuef said that he was sorry for offending anyone, but added that with satire, offending people “comes with the terrain.”

The article goes on to talk about complaints about a separate piece in the Heckler:

Some students said they were offended by an article about the Black Student Alliance. In the article, the BSA asks Georgetown’s students not to do anything racist while BSA members are at Howard, because no one will be at Georgetown to notice and protest racism. Students at the forum thought the article suggested BSA protests, like last April’s against the Hoya April Fool’s Issue, were baseless. Stuef argued that, rather than making fun of BSA protests, it celebrated minority students for noticing racism that white students would miss.

“I hope you see you’re the heroes of this piece,” Stuef told one BSA member.

Vox Populi also reprinted a written response to the controversy from Todd Olson, the university's vice president for student affairs, who called some of the Heckler content "deeply hurtful" and "potentially destructive." He condemned "these attempts at humor which ridicule people based on race, ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation and which promote violence."

For those who missed Stuef's response to the matter on City Desk, read it here. He called City Paper back last night before the forum. Then he tweeted: "Leaving to go get tarred and feathered in WGR [White-Gravenor Hall]. BRB!"