Yale Beat Down
For those of you not in the Bay Area (or an Eli) presumably this big bay area story has passed you by:
Yale A-Capella group gets beat up by San Francisco Prep school students on New Year's Eve, Yale students SHOCKED
and a month later it's still on the FRONT PAGE OF THE SF CHRONICLE
and a month after that the story's changed a little
When this story was first pointed out to me I had read it as Yale students beat up in Richmond, a rough & tumble community north of Oakland, which popped out as a ridiculous class conflict vignette (aka Yalies sing A-capella to working class youths; get the shit beat out of them) but in fact it occurred in the Richmond, a middle-class/upper-middle class neighborhood in San Francisco, the spill over of an preppy underage new year's eve drinking party. The Eli "victims" thus painted in a decidedly less sympathetic light. Now it seems as if there's more to it with some soon-to-be-shipped-to-Japan Marines involved in the melee.
After reading this story it was almost clear to me what happened. Though I would not endorse violence (and the preppy punk thugs (or marines) who put the beat down on will hopefully be punished (though probably less than is deserved)) I would say it is probable that this was not a RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE. Yale dudes and privileged kids at a party start a little trouble and a juvenile pissing match escalates in to a brawl. This sort of thing happens all the time. Maybe not on the Yale campus but probably in New Haven just as well as SF or Oakland or where-ever.
But that's not even what got my blood really boiling. The story reminded me of how much I HATE ACAPPELLA (obviously not the type of singing, but the genre of Prep-School/Ivy League lets-all-get-together-and-circle-jerk Acappella). The fact is, which I've discussed ad nauseum, is that a-cappella's only function in the world is to verify among upper middle class twits that they are indeed upper middle class twits. A whole "hey look at me - this is what good-old-timey-when-only-the-moneyed-went-to-college college students do, we're 'those' kind of college students." Which is the only reason anyone performs or listens to acappella given the fact that no one actually enjoys it. Not the people who go see to the concerts, which are limited to on campus events that can only count on friends of the group to attend, nor the people singing it, which if they in fact did they'd probably continue to do it after school (how many non-college acappella groups are there?). From their selection process, to how they present themselves, to the whole fucking thing sucks.
And people eat this shit up. Being in an acappella group counts towards someone being involved or interesting or creative, when it's really the biggest cop-out, least creative thing one can participate in while in college.
Not that there aren't other activities in college and out that can't be accused of the same thing (Crew, Frats, Debate team) but it's the one with the least substance (none) behind the actual motivation for participation. There is no reason to participate other then the fact of participating. Furthermore it's not like other social groups don't have "activities" that help identify members that they are part of the group (punks, hipsters and on to EVERYONE), but at least in other cases those groups aren't trying to identify themselves as upper middle class whitebread social climbers, that is to say guilty of striving to be THE status-quo MAN.
And I'm also guilty of this but really do try (to a fault) and not overly identify w/ a group or set. Sure I'm a hipster who does hipster things as well as a WASP who does WASPy things but it's far from exclusive and far from how I identify myself.
Whatever, the anger seethes.
Yale A-Capella group gets beat up by San Francisco Prep school students on New Year's Eve, Yale students SHOCKED
and a month later it's still on the FRONT PAGE OF THE SF CHRONICLE
and a month after that the story's changed a little
When this story was first pointed out to me I had read it as Yale students beat up in Richmond, a rough & tumble community north of Oakland, which popped out as a ridiculous class conflict vignette (aka Yalies sing A-capella to working class youths; get the shit beat out of them) but in fact it occurred in the Richmond, a middle-class/upper-middle class neighborhood in San Francisco, the spill over of an preppy underage new year's eve drinking party. The Eli "victims" thus painted in a decidedly less sympathetic light. Now it seems as if there's more to it with some soon-to-be-shipped-to-Japan Marines involved in the melee.
After reading this story it was almost clear to me what happened. Though I would not endorse violence (and the preppy punk thugs (or marines) who put the beat down on will hopefully be punished (though probably less than is deserved)) I would say it is probable that this was not a RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE. Yale dudes and privileged kids at a party start a little trouble and a juvenile pissing match escalates in to a brawl. This sort of thing happens all the time. Maybe not on the Yale campus but probably in New Haven just as well as SF or Oakland or where-ever.
But that's not even what got my blood really boiling. The story reminded me of how much I HATE ACAPPELLA (obviously not the type of singing, but the genre of Prep-School/Ivy League lets-all-get-together-and-circle-jerk Acappella). The fact is, which I've discussed ad nauseum, is that a-cappella's only function in the world is to verify among upper middle class twits that they are indeed upper middle class twits. A whole "hey look at me - this is what good-old-timey-when-only-the-moneyed-went-to-college college students do, we're 'those' kind of college students." Which is the only reason anyone performs or listens to acappella given the fact that no one actually enjoys it. Not the people who go see to the concerts, which are limited to on campus events that can only count on friends of the group to attend, nor the people singing it, which if they in fact did they'd probably continue to do it after school (how many non-college acappella groups are there?). From their selection process, to how they present themselves, to the whole fucking thing sucks.
And people eat this shit up. Being in an acappella group counts towards someone being involved or interesting or creative, when it's really the biggest cop-out, least creative thing one can participate in while in college.
Not that there aren't other activities in college and out that can't be accused of the same thing (Crew, Frats, Debate team) but it's the one with the least substance (none) behind the actual motivation for participation. There is no reason to participate other then the fact of participating. Furthermore it's not like other social groups don't have "activities" that help identify members that they are part of the group (punks, hipsters and on to EVERYONE), but at least in other cases those groups aren't trying to identify themselves as upper middle class whitebread social climbers, that is to say guilty of striving to be THE status-quo MAN.
And I'm also guilty of this but really do try (to a fault) and not overly identify w/ a group or set. Sure I'm a hipster who does hipster things as well as a WASP who does WASPy things but it's far from exclusive and far from how I identify myself.
Whatever, the anger seethes.
posted by furtanic at 3:38 PM
6 Comments:
Watch out, man, the Oakland chapter of the SPEBSQSA will be outside your door tonight, with torches, singing DOMINANT MINOR 7th CHORDS.
One of the like, three times I actually worked AV at Barnard while I worked for AV at Barnard was for some acappella performance in the Quad, which included a "funky" dance part to a many-part harmonied version of "Smooth Operator," which as you can imagine pretty much fucking scarred me for life. I still get the words and weird snap/step dance move stuck in my head ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
The worst part of these--and I've probably worked about 20-30 events of the sort g-nar references above--is that every group, every single group, has a "beatboxer," as though a sung version of "Smooth" by Santana ft. Rob Thomas would not be complete with out someone grimacing and making noises like she's spitting out her toothpaste. "Whiteness studies" should really get on top of this phenomenon.
i like acapella
sadly, you're wrong. yalies rarely to never get beaten up in new haven. the worst that happens is wasted highschoolers crash their parties and steal stuff. motherfuckers. they totally deserve it, thinking they can cross the street whenever they want. man, yale. i still have a seething hatred for all things related to that school. pon
i wasn't saying that yale students get beat up in New Haven, but that parties in New Haven (presumably not attended by Yalies) do degenerate into fights. as they do everywhere in the US.
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