In a year where diversity, or the lack thereof, was front and center at the Oscars, it was inevitable that outspoken host Chris Rock was going to offend someone. Raise your hand if you thought it was going to be sorority girls.
Rock’s monologue was wonderful, touching on everything from #OscarSoWhite to Will and Jada Pinkett Smith boycotting the ceremony to black people in the past being “too busy” getting “raped and lynched to worry about who won best cinematographer.” He summed up Hollywood thusly:
Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood’s racist. But it isn’t the racist you’ve grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like, “We like you, Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.” That’s how Hollywood is.
The white people in the audience chuckled uneasily, but Rock’s comment was no laughing matter to the real victims: sorority members.
https://twitter.com/jayme0509/status/704124707432501251
Seriously Chris, gotta pick Kappa out of alllllll the sororities to exemplify sorority stereotypes #rude #Oscars
— Taylor Gies (@tgies1) February 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/noitsbecky__/status/704119252467503104
This is all I've got for @chrisrock and #sororityracist. Proud to be a sorority woman and a Kappa. pic.twitter.com/6C6VpSmjWS
— megan fussell (@megfusselI) February 29, 2016
Hi my sorority isn't racist @chrisrock #Oscars 😠
— Recording Secretary for TTPD (@gingerm0nster) February 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/kavers13/status/704119318355771392
https://twitter.com/erinoverman/status/704120725024538624
https://twitter.com/JENNSHAN22/status/704120464386433024
https://twitter.com/JENNSHAN22/status/704120612265058305
Racism is a problem at sororities. Last year, a viral video from the University of Alabama’s Alpha Phi house was criticized for being “so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition,” while a recent study found sororities “compound class-based and racial segregation within campuses,” according to Fusion. Chris Rock couldn’t have picked a better target.