NAACP attacks Dartmouth students who threw 'Crips and Bloods' frat party

The Dartmouth College chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) harshly criticized a “Bloods and Crips” themed-party, despite apologies from the sorority and fraternity that hosted the event earlier this summer. 

A fraternity and sorority at Dartmouth College have come under fire for hosting a Bloods-Crips themed party.

The strongly worded letter, penned by the NAACP chapter on campus, and signed by the Afro-American Society and the Dartmouth Chapter of the and Women of Color Collective, accuses the mostly white students of hosting a “racist” event thinly veiled by the South Los Angeles gangland theme.

“Our peers mingled for hours while dressed as bloods or Crips while using racialized language,” accused the letter, circulated on campus. “It then turned into a ‘ghetto party’ with racialized language, speech and dress. Over 200 individuals attended this racist and classist event.”

The letter went on to urge students to report the event to the Dartmouth administration “as a bias incident” using an included hyperlink.

"We are asking everyone to flood the bias incident account with our call for justice, right now,” reads the email. “[O]rganizations across campus will be mobilizing for further steps. Reporting with the above link is our first step toward meaningful changes.”

That link leads to the college’s bias incident reporting page which promises to direct all complaints to the the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, and the office of Safety and Security.

According to a popular Dartmouth blog, the Dartblog, however, the NAACP’s letter came after apology letters from both the sorority and fraternity that hosted the event.

“The idea was never meant to be derogatory to any group, and was intended to introduce a costume theme to the party,” wrote the fraternity, Alpha Delta. We “now realize that it was insensitive and thoughtless to make light of a very serious issue.”

The Tri Delta sorority also emailed an apology to Dartblog pledging to “continue to educate our members regarding cultural sensitivity and awareness.”

The NAACP did not not acknowledge either apology in its letter, but demanded that Dartmouth administrators take action against those who had planned the party.

“The College has yet to deliver consequences to the aforementioned organizations, so we have to declare their lack of response as not only unacceptable but as disregard for our experiences,” read the letter.

Neither Dartmouth College, the NAACP, or Alpha Delta returned Campus Reform’s requests for comment.

Administrators at the school, however, released a statement suggesting an investigation has been launched into the incident.

“Dartmouth is continuing to gather information about the scope and nature of the event and will follow its standard process to review and determine whether any violations of College policy have occurred,” it said, according to the Huffington Post.

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