In the news

As a 13 year old CCF cadet, I went on a training day out. We were given a pack of camo paint each and told to camo up. A young commissioned officer who was with us said even I had to apply it because it's about breaking up facial features, not covering up whiteness.

So without a mirror or any prior experience we all set to applying camo.

At the end of the day an older commissioned officer told us we all looked like idiots because we'd all applied our camo terribly. He then singled me out and said I was coloured already and didn't need further colouring in.

When I got home after a long train journey with plenty of people staring at me, I went to the bathroom, and realised instead of the streaks and lines I thought I'd applied, I'd just applied a brown face on top of my already brown face.

CSB

Wow, a lot of internal BAME self suppression trauma to upack here, hugs.

Your official Blackface Absolution Membership Entitlement is in the mail, consider yourself free of this burden

The B.A.M.E Amnesty is running until Kwanza people. Get that monkey (no pun intended) off your back!

I played a guard in the Maharajah’s court in a pantomime production of Dick Whittington when I was 11. To add authenticity to the gritty production, I was brown faced with stage make up every night.

Clearly school plays are the most problematic aspect of life in Britain over the last few decades

But only if you're white...

Oh I don't know about that

politieutrechtcentrum's profile picture politieutrechtcentrum
Update!!!! Hi, this bird sat on the shoulder of a thief we arrested
for shoplifting. As we don 't have a birdcage, this bird had no other
place to stay than in the cell. His owner agreed to this. When the
owner was released shortly after, the bird accompanied him. The bird
has not been questioned and is as far as we know not guilty of any
charges.

https://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/1963769/utrechtse-politie-pakt-vogel-op.html

Robin?

Doing bird

what a tit....... the robber that is

She explained that the focus on initiations was triggered by the death of Ed Farmer, a 20-year-old economics student at Newcastle University, who died after a "drink-fuelled initiation" into his university’s agriculture society.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/01/university-initiations-leave-third-sixth-form-students-top-schools/

Remember hearing about this case at the time. Was really sad to read. I seem to recall in my years at Newcastle a few years before this initiations were banned by the Union. Can't say we carried them out in the Surf Club but we'd still do Edward Ciderhands/Amy Winehands at the Newquay surf trip at the start of the year so not really much difference I suppose when you're a new student trying to make friends. The agrics were always notorious throughout the University though.

It's a sad/interesting story as despite students being increasingly sensible and drink averse these US style rituals are on the increase, which is worrying.

I have to admit I mainly posted it for the nominative determinism though.

these US style rituals are on the increase

Is there actual data on that? Or is it possible we just hear about it much more, and it's less seen as just a 'normal' thing precisely because a lot of students are being increasingly sensible?

Not arguing either way, I just hadn't heard about this being on the increase.

Isn't that a bit of a meaningless statistic? 62% of workers are nervous before giving a presentation. 73% of job applicants are concerned or nervous before their interview.

Also;

“When universities ask students what they’d like more of, they say more libraries, more contact hours and so on. They don’t say more student union bars.”

But yet;

Initiations... are on the rise at campuses across the country, according to university chiefs.

Which seems contradictory and surprises me. Everything you hear about unis nowadays seems focused on study, with the social element merely a vehicle to add value to your CV.

I wouldn't want to take anything away from what is an absolutely tragic death, but sounded like it could have equally happened on a Wednesday night post-match drinking session.

fwiw in the early '00s I never ever heard of anyone, in any team, at any university, who hadn't had an initiation of some sort.

but sounded like it could have equally happened on a Wednesday night post-match drinking session.

That in itself is pretty problematic too though. Some clubs and societies are highly focused on such 'drinking sessions', and if you don't care to take part in that, you will never be seen as a proper part of that club or society. So the exact same thing as the 'initiations', except continuous.

Rolled on to client entertainment...

Yeah sorry, I should have been clearer. That's what I meant. Whereas to some extent I think there's a role for good natured initiations with a sense of humour - sort of coming of age rituals tied into a shared experience.

My uni was pretty sporty and the drinking peer pressure from that definitely fed into the whole culture.

I wonder if it is ingrained in the sport itself and is just part of the overall culture both in and out of university for some sports. At both Universities I went to it would be the same sports that were known to be the heavier drinkers and everything that then comes along with this. Or alternatively they were just the bigger clubs of popular sport in the UK and so with that comes more people so increased overall numbers of both drinkers and non-drinkers.

Obviously the above case is different here as it is a Union Society for Agriculture students that anyone can join rather than a Sports Club.

In my case, there were certainly some uni sports clubs that were a lot worse for that. For example, the athletics club, and the rifle people. Luckily, not really a big issue in the ones I joined personally, and I did my best to have a healthy, non-peer-pressured drinking etc. culture in the one I was most involved in, and ended up being in charge of for a year (well, on the men's side).

fwiw, in the early 2010's, I never ever heard of anyone, in any team, at any university, who had an initiation of some sort

I was at Durham late 90's/Early 00's. Drinking Soc's and initiations with alcohol tended to be within collages, rather than the Uni wide societies.

Bailey collages (preferred by the private school types over the Hill collages generally) tended to have a bigger problem with them (Castle had/had the rather notorious 5's club on Fridays, Hatfield generally seemed to have an issue, but I'm pretty sure it was tied to an internal Society, but I didn't know that many people there that well). Most of these clubs/societies were not formal clubs within the college system though, rather something that rolled on between years, I suspect kept going by Dom in year 2 bringing Dick who he already knew a bit from school and was now in year 1 along.

I still have slightly fond memories of the Brian Blessed and Bristol Templemeads Appreciation Society bashes.