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First White Homecoming Queen at Hampton University Causes Stir

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Lil Pun, Oct 21, 2009.

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  1. Lil Pun

    Lil Pun Member

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    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6880090.ece

    Cultural history will be made tonight in a college town in southern Virginia when a lissome 22-year-old student in a tiara hosts a car show and singing contest modelled on American Idol. Nikole Churchill will look good, and on the evidence of the past few days will handle the microphone with aplomb.

    However, she will have to be ready for hecklers. She is the first non-black Homecoming Queen in her university’s history and not everyone is happy that she won the title. Her victory this month triggered a beauty pageant walkout and veiled accusations of black racism from the aggrieved new Miss Hampton University. She also wrote a long public letter to President Obama, saying: “I feel as though you could relate to my situation.”

    Hampton University, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, is one of more than 80 historically black colleges in the US whose student populations are only gradually coming to reflect the diversity they exist to promote, largely because non-blacks have been slow to apply to them.

    Ms Churchill was hardly known to the university’s main student body until she made the shortlist of ten contestants for a title that involves a year of public duties. A panel of five judges named her the winner after a two-hour pageant in which she spoke of the importance of mentoring girls on self-esteem and “body image”, and performed a Hawaiian hula in a pink-and-white swimsuit.

    The other nine contestants were black. Two of them wore scowls rather than smiles for the traditional portraits of winner and runners-up and as the pictures were being taken, several dozen spectators walked out of the university’s main auditorium. The following day Ms Churchill was heckled at a college football game and a previous Miss Hampton University said she was “very shocked” there was a white winner. “We’ve never had one before,” Patrece Parson said.

    Ms Churchill, whose father is from Guam, was sufficiently offended to write to President Obama, whose mother settled in Hawaii. “I am sad to say that my crowning was not widely accepted . . . the true reason for the disapproval was because of the colour of my skin. I am not African-American.”

    She said she was honoured to have been nicknamed “Lil Obama”, and invited the President to visit the university to help to spread some “aloha spirit” around the campus. Mr Obama has not responded, but fellow students have, bridling at the notion that Ms Churchill and the President have something in common. Brittany Riddock, a second-year student, told The Washington Post there was “no comparison between a black man becoming President and a white woman winning a beauty pageant at a black school”.

    The president of the university’s student body summoned Ms Churchill to explain herself onstage at a special meeting in the student centre theatre. She took the opportunity to apologise and thank the majority of students for their support.

    She will need it. As the leader of an all-black “court” of runners-up and would-be beauty queens, she must host a fashion show tomorrow and be sworn in at a full-blown coronation on Wednesday. She may find, as a columnist in the neighbouring Newport News wrote, that her skin “isn’t too white, but too thin”.
     
    #1 Lil Pun, Oct 21, 2009
  2. Northside Storm

    Northside Storm Member

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    Prejudice in the face of the unfamiliar is a fact of life.

    Though I'm a little more concerned when this is applied to the President of the United States rather then a beauty pageant queen.
     
    #2 Northside Storm, Oct 21, 2009
  3. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    It appears that this might not be a case a racism. It looks like she just transfered into the college.
     
    #3 Air Langhi, Oct 21, 2009
  4. DaDakota

    DaDakota Balance wins
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    Racism is pathetic no matter which side is doing it.

    Small minds....small minds...

    DD
     
    #4 DaDakota, Oct 21, 2009
  5. wizkid83

    wizkid83 Member

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    To think that black people (or any race) is incapable of racism is ... racist.
     
    #5 wizkid83, Oct 21, 2009
  6. Landlord Landry

    Landlord Landry Member

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    did they tie a bag of oats around her neck after she won?

    [​IMG]
     
    #6 Landlord Landry, Oct 21, 2009
  7. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Boy in the Balloon?

    Rocket River
    *grin*
    nothing to see here
     
    #7 Rocket River, Oct 21, 2009
  8. Francis3422

    Francis3422 Member

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    All 4 of those biatches look like Patrick Ewing.
     
    #8 Francis3422, Oct 21, 2009
  9. Kam

    Kam Member

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    Only one cute girl there. The one on the left
     
    #9 Kam, Oct 21, 2009
  10. SirCharlesFan

    SirCharlesFan Member

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    I'd be pissed if she were my homecoming queen! Jesus Christ, that's terrible.
     
    #10 SirCharlesFan, Oct 21, 2009
  11. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    I hope she speaks well and delivers a speech on race to knock their socks off.

    Oh wait. She's a ****ing beauty queen.
     
    #11 Invisible Fan, Oct 21, 2009
  12. Two Sandwiches

    Two Sandwiches Member

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    In other news, Hampton University just elected it's first Male Homecoming Queen...
     
    #12 Two Sandwiches, Oct 22, 2009
  13. The_Yoyo

    The_Yoyo Member

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    is she on a stair or something there?


    actually found a larger picture looks like she is standing and i guess the women around here are short because there is a girl off to the far left (severly cropped in this picture) that looks to be about the same height as her

    [​IMG]


    if the student body voted her as queen I cant believe everyone else at the school who didnt vote for her is in an uproar.

    while i agree that she in no way should compare herself to the President

    I think its unfair for the school and local press to vilify her for being white (or any other race for that matter)
     
    #13 The_Yoyo, Oct 22, 2009
  14. glad_ken

    glad_ken Member

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    Hampton’s new campus queen erases color line

    7:25 am October 21, 2009, by ctucker

    The newly-crowned campus queen was upset that she drew some jeers from the crowd at a college football game, as well as some disparaging comments in the blogosphere, when she and her court were introduced on Oct. 10. So she wrote an open letter to President Obama and posted it online.

    “I feel as though you could relate to my situation. I am hoping that perhaps you would be able to make an appearance to my campus, Hampton University, so that my fellow Hamptonians can stop focusing so much on the color of my skin. . .”

    Oops. That’s when things got, ah, ugly. Nikole Churchill had inadvertently struck a match to the tinderbox of race, culture and traditional beauty standards, fueling a full-fledged row over her status as the first non-black homecoming queen at Hampton University, a storied historically black institution.

    While some students admitted a preference for a black queen, others thought the student body should elect the homecoming court. (The pageant judges included two regulars from the professional pageant circuit, two faculty members and a local business executive.) Several students said they were upset by Churchill’s public letter, which they claimed misrepresented Hampton.

    “. . .To issue a blanket statement like that? It just really put the university in a negative light,” student body president Matthew Washington told The Washington Post.

    At 22, Churchill — who has a white mother and an Asian father — still has a couple of things to learn. One is this: She shouldn’t pay attention to the negative comments of a few, especially anonymous taunts in the blogosphere. Accomplishment always draws detractors.

    Another is this: As a visible representative of a historically black college, she serves as yet another reminder of the dramatic cultural and social changes this country has undergone in a couple of generations. She’s too young to appreciate this, but her selection as Hampton’s homecoming queen would have been unimaginable 25 years ago.

    Because mainstream American culture has traditionally shut black Americans out of so many of its prizes, small and large, black institutions have, in the past, jealously guarded their awards as honors set aside for black recipients. Churchill’s crown, then, is a symbol, not only of broad cultural change but also of the growing confidence many black institutions have about their place in a racially-diverse country.

    (A quibble: While Churchill’s crown is a symbol of racial progress, it is also a reminder that certain hoary old gender stereotypes remain in place. Though Hampton’s contest is officially labelled a “scholarship” pageant, contestants still parade around in swim suits.)

    Another venerable black institution, Atlanta’s Morehouse College, marked a similar milestone in 2008, when the college named graduating senior Joshua Packwood its first white valedictorian. He was happily accepted by students at all-male Morehouse — which may indicate that brainpower is a less controversial subject in our culture than beauty standards.

    Both Hampton and Morehouse are among those historical black colleges that have had some success recruiting beyond their traditional student base . That’s a smart survival strategy; it’s also a message about their acceptance of cultural change.

    With Hampton’s homecoming game scheduled for Saturday (Oct. 24), campus public relations officials report that the news media have exaggerated the reaction to Churchill and that students are preoccupied with the usual concerns — classes, tests and homecoming weekend festivities. For her part, Churchill, a nursing major who attends the satellite campus in Virginia Beach, has posted another online letter, this time apologizing for the plea to the president.

    “I have now come to regret writing this letter and disappointing the very students that I now represent. I took the comments of a few and blew it out of proportion. In reality, all comments that have been directed towards me and the reception I received . . . were genuinely supportive,” she wrote.

    The controversy, while undoubtedly uncomfortable for her, may prove as helpful as any of her college experiences. She is learning to navigate racially-charged territory without losing her head — or her crown.

    http://blogs.ajc.com/cynthia-tucker...ases-color-line/?cxntfid=blogs_cynthia_tucker
     
    #14 glad_ken, Oct 22, 2009
  15. DonkeyMagic

    DonkeyMagic Member
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    i love the second on the right's face. hilarious.
     
    #15 DonkeyMagic, Oct 23, 2009
  16. Classic

    Classic Member

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    Race aside, if this is a beauty contest, why didn't pink win?
     
    #16 Classic, Oct 24, 2009
  17. Nook

    Nook Member

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    MY GOD THAT IS THE MOST UGLY LOT OF COLLEGE GIRLS I HAVE EVER SEEN
     
    #17 Nook, Oct 25, 2009
  18. Malcolm

    Malcolm Member

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    This is not a story
     
    #18 Malcolm, Oct 25, 2009
  19. Dubious

    Dubious Member

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    Why is it that black guys are always attracted to the ugly white girls?
     
    #19 Dubious, Oct 25, 2009
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