Commenters have called into question the ethics of the Mustang Football team, and of its fans, both student and alumni. I hesitate to call departing a lost cause a lapse in ethics, but such is the moral compass of those decamped in the combox.
Sadly, poor, even deplorable ethics are present at an "elite" university in Ontario, one with a long tradition of high-level academics and elite athletics.
But it ain't Western (that's a joke opening if I ever saw one).
The Queen's Band has been banned from performing for the remainder of the school year.
A band? A band you say? A banned band? What could a band possibly do that anyone could find offensive?
After the announcement, the Journal received three years of pamphlets entitled ‘The Banner’ which were distributed to band members.
The pamphlets contained phrases like “I will rape you with a lamp” and photos of band members as “people with dicks in their mouths.”
Front page titles over the past three years included: “Mouth raping your little sister since 1905,” “Sucking the nipple and biting the tit since 1905” and “Perpetuating racial stereotypes since 1905.”
Gyaahhh, wellll, um, that's a little more, um, sassy, but this is all internal goofing around. Not like they performed rude or obnoxious or sexist material, right?
Some of the pamphlets included the lyrics of Queen’s Bands songs, which contained phrases like “chew me, screw me, suck me, fuck me, yaaay Queen’s.” There were also heckling suggestions for the annual RMC and Queen’s hockey game, the Carr Harris Cup like “we hope you can shoot the Taliban better than you shoot the puck!”
It simply youthful shenanigans! Besides, it's an isolated incident and, what? Oh.
This isn’t the first time Queen’s Bands has received complaints about their distributed content.
In 2007, the Journal reported that Queen’s Bands issued a letter of apology after flyers distributed for cheerleading tryouts contained lines like “Hotties wanted” and “Do you like this spread” in reference to a sexually suggestive photo.
Of for fuck sake. At least we can take comfort in knowing that this is all due to one administrator with a grudge, right?
AMS President Morgan Campbell said the decision to suspend Queen’s Bands was jointly made with the University administration.
“We also consulted with the Athletics and Recreation and the Advancement office because they’re the ones who invite the bands to represent Queen’s University at a lot of their events,” Campbell, ArtSci ’11, said.
“They were very supportive of the conditions that were placed upon the group.”
Campbell said the material was brought to the AMS’s attention by the office of student affairs.
Is Queen's really so insular? Do these kids live in a bubble so big and so out of touch? Evidently they do. People in London are having an apoplectic fit over the new pro baseball team's logo, that may or may not reference Jack the Ripper. They are upset over a 120-year-old myth and it's implied sexism and violence. Suffice to say, this kind of shit would probably not fly at Western.
This is not political correctness run amuck. These kids can still go to Alfies and get drunk and sing. They just can't call women cunts on the university's dime.
