Banana Peel at Ole Miss Retreat
Causes Mass Hysteria

• I heard about this on the Rush Limbaugh program from Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017. At first, I thought Rush had fallen prey to fake news -- but apparently, not.
  
  
• Racism is alive and well at an Ole Miss retreat at Camp Hopewell and caused a panic. What happened you ask?
  • Some student tossed a banana peel on a tree. (Huh? See the picture to the right.)
    End of story, right? Not so fast.
  • To back up just a little, the retreat included a discussion on race relations. The stage was set for the Boogie Man to appear and he did. After the discussion, as if on cue, a black student found the peel in a tree. Word (and the picture) spread like wildfire and hysteria ensued.
  • One would think once the truth came out about the origin of the not-so-racist peel, everyone would breathe a sigh of relief and life would return to normal -- but no. In fact, even knowing the truth, the Greek Life retreat abruptly ended.
  • You think I'm kidding, right? Wrong.
  
  
• OK. So, here's the connection. Back in May, some idiot tied some bananas by nooses from three trees at American University with "AKA Free" written on them. AKA (Alpha Kappa Alpha), is a predominately African-American sorority. It does not appear the perp nor motive was found. I suspect:
  1. someone had a few too many drinks and thought hanging bananas would be "funny" -- NOT!
  2. false and staged "hate crimes" are not that uncommon (click here)
  
  
• I looked back through my subscription to KKK Magazine and nowhere can I find that a public display of a banana and/or its peel, especially attached to a tree, is a racist statement -- but maybe I overlooked it. It does not matter that this peel was not hanging from a noose. Every banana peel lying around is now suspect. God help us if some squirrel gets ahold of a banana and leaves the peel in a tree. So, for my PC friends out there
  • please guard your bananas and be sure to disgard the peels in a way they most likely will not wind up dangling in a tree.
  • with Halloween coming up, whatever you do, don't drop a banana in a bag belonging to any of your black neighbors. Image is everything.
  • perhaps, neighborhood watches should be established to look for and remove any ill-placed fruit peels. (I hear watermelon rinds can also be particularly offensive.)
  
  
• You can't make this stuff up.
  
  
• What bothers me about this is that more than a few people looked at that picture and somehow assumed a racist connection. There was actually a public meeting to discuss the "incident". (I am hoping a YouTube video of that conversation will surface.) The discussion is said to have gotten heated. Some racist probably got the crowd riled up saying what I would have: "You know -- that looks like a banana peel in a tree."

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• Some documentation:
  • According to Daily Mississippian, the picture of the intimidating peel "was circulated among students" and made its way to the media. I am assuming it is authentic. (click here)
  • Campus Reform: (click here)
  
  
• Uncle Hotep Commentary: (click here)

Evidence of Racism. Really?