This past weekend was a great time to be a men's hockey fan in Madison.
Not only was there a series against Michigan Tech, but the annual Halloween madness meant Badger fans got to enjoy some Wisconsin wins in costume. The Kohl Center had a wealth of great ones, too—from the band member in a Mike Leckrone outfit to the awesome-but-mega-scary guy with a skate embedded in his head.
But just before Saturday's game I noticed something that made me a lot less proud to be a Badger. A bunch of fans in section 117 were dressed as a band of Indians, complete with body paint that bordered on blackface and some celebratory (and more than a little stereotypical) whooping throughout the game.
For much of the night I thought those fans and their insensitive, ignorant costumes were just isolated incidents. Surely, more Wisconsin hockey fans would not make the same mistake.
Later in the game, however, it got far worse. The Kohl Center's cameras found a group of students dressed as the Jamaican bobsled team (made famous by ""Cool Runnings""), complete with spandex body suits, choreographed bobsled dances and, regrettably, blackface, and put them on the massive TV screen in the middle of the arena.
Before I go on, let me first say that I don't care to start a debate about whether or not blackface is offensive, or whether it is a problem for white students to dress up as Indians. It is offensive and unacceptable, and that is how I will proceed.
Clearly, the students who dressed as a troupe of Indians should never have done so, and those who caked on black makeup to complete their ""Cool Runnings"" costume should never have either.
Even worse, those responsible for organizing the Kohl Center's costume contest should have never put those fake Indians on the ice in front of 12,690 people, which they did during an intermission. And the person operating the arena's video board should never have put the students in blackface on the big screen. Choosing those students dressed as Indians to participate in the costume contest not only condones but encourages such behavior, and the same goes for putting those in blackface on the video screen.
The Indian costumes worn by those students are stereotypical and can be offensive. They make the students who wear them appear ignorant and uneducated, and only succeed in painting Badger fans as a whole in a negative light. I was proud when other fans in the student section booed those fake Indians and started a ""racist costume"" chant, but saddened it was an issue in the first place.
The same goes for the students in blackface. Their decision to paint their faces black displays a profound ignorance we like to believe does not exist on this campus, but is sadly alive and well.
I would like to know what these students thought when they decided to make blackface a part of their costume. I wonder if they knew the history of blackface as an offensive piece of racist minstrel shows and believed their use of it would not offend anyone (or, worse, did not care if it did), and if they had any idea what the implications of their costumes were.
On a night that showcased the creative talent of thousands of UW-Madison students and Wisconsin hockey fans, these fans ruined that.
Those students dressed as the Jamaican bobsled team could easily have had a funny costume without blackface, which was completely unnecessary for the joke. I can't imagine anyone saying, ""Well, you're in spandex body suits with Jamaican flags and running around like a bobsled team, but how can I be sure you're referencing ‘Cool Runnings' if your faces are still white?!""
The result of these students' regrettable decision is a couple of shameful costumes that only make hockey fans in particular and students of this university as a whole seem ignorant and insensitive. We can only hope other UW-Madison students don't make the same mistakes next year.
What did you think of the students in blackface at Saturday's hockey game? E-mail Nico at savidgewilki@dailycardinal.com.
