If you are the parent of a college age kid then you will completely understand what I'm about to say:

18 through 24 year olds are, as a general rule, stupid.

Case in point from the website for Channel 4 in Greenville, SC.

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- Clemson University's president and several campus organizations have reacted quickly after photos of students at a racially themed party ended up on the Internet.

The party was held over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend at an off-campus apartment.

Some students said it was just for fun. Others say that it was racist.

The theme of the party was "Living the Dream," but some Clemson students are calling it a nightmare.

Pictures of the party were posted on facebook.com, showing at least one person in black-face paint, with others dressed in knitted caps and jerseys and some girls with stuffing padding their pants to make their behinds look larger. There's an image of party-goers holding 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor.

The story goes on to say that the party was "gangsta" themed, and that the intention was to parody the "gangsta" image.

I'm not opposed to making fun of the "gangsta" image; in fact, I say make fun of it until it goes away. The "gangsta" is nothing more than an orgiastic embrace and celebration of every negative stereotype about Black people that our popular culture has ever presented. I find no difference between the images of African-Americans in a Jay Z video and the images in Griffith's Birth of a Nation, and if that sounds like a rough statement, I MEANT it to be.

If it is shown that the intention of these party goers was to mock Black people in general, there should be repercussions. Free speech does not mean freedom from ramifications of said speech. (More on this in a moment.) But something tells me that mocking all Black people wasn't their intention.

There were African-Americans at the party.

Bigots of any variety aren't known for their courage. In fact, it’s only when in large groups or positions of high authority that bigots lose their fear of being recognized for what they are. They must utilize force of numbers or the privilege of status to get them out of trouble when their viewpoints are challenged - and this is true whether the bigot is a Klansman or Neo-Nazi marching through Wisconsin or a former minister turned activist calling New York City "Hymietown". A college frat party is not a sufficiently large enough number of people to overcome the fear of recognition, even with free flowing alcohol present.

No, the more likely scenario is these dumb you-know-what frat boys were so intent on making their parody more and more outrageous and thus more funny (as if people who think South Park or National Lampoon's Van Wilder is high humor actually know what funny is), that they failed to realize their idea was, in fact, offensive.

Neal Boortz once had a link to a site that showed that human beings brains do not fully mature until age 25, and that until they do mature the person is more prone to poor decision making. This is why so many kids get into automobile accidents - they cannot reason that trying to beat the light or drag racing down a busy street is an unacceptable risk - their brains cannot comprehend that at their age. These kids who dressed in blackface and padded their bohunkases with toilet paper aren't racist, but stupid - incapable of seeing what those of us over the age of 25 would have seen as obviously offensive and wrong, until it was too late.

Clemson's President James F. Barker, in an email to Clemson students seems to have struck a positive chord so far. By that I mean he hasn't called for suspending the students (some who have come forward apologetically) or mandating diversity courses.

That would be a troubling response. While perhaps suggesting classes on the history of African Americans would be appropriate (my misgivings about Afro Studies programs in general not withstanding - education is always a proper response in situations like this) to mandate such things would be trying to swat a fly with a Louisville Slugger. Lets for the sake of argument say that these kids ARE racist. Guess what; regardless of how offensive you or I might find that they have the legal right to believe whatever they want, and to express it as long as they don't infringe on our right to express opposition views or advocate violence.

And it’s that simple! No "mitigating circumstances"; no "commitment to diversity", no nuthin'... They have the freedom of their own flawed conscience. If Clemson were to mandate certain corrective matters such as diversity training, that constitutes viewpoint coercion on the part of government - government telling citizens what is proper or right to think. And that is one Hell of a lot more frightening than frat boys in shoe polish and drunken sorority girls who don't realize the toilet paper goes down the front of their shirts, not the back of their pants.

Contrast this with the story about actor Isaiah Washington, from the show Grey's Anatomy.

It seems that Washington and fellow actor Patrick Dempsey got into a shouting match on the set of the show and almost came to blows. In the course of that completely verbal fight an epithet for homosexual men was used. The story made the wire services...and wouldn't go away, despite show sources saying it was just steam venting and everyone on the show had moved past the event within 30 minutes. On Oct 19, 2006 another actor on the show, T.R. Knight announced on the Ellen Degeneres Show that he was gay, and was the source of the argument between Dempsey and Washington (Knight was late for the shoot).

ABC got involved, and in a very frightening way. Rumors surfaced that ABC would fire Washington unless he checked himself into rehab to discover the source of his "homophobia".  A statement from Shonda Rhimes, Executive Producer of Grey's Anatomy reads in part: "We've been working within the Grey's family as well as with ABC and Touchstone Television to address the issue in a way that underscores the gravity of the situation while giving us all a foundation for healing. We applaud and encourage Isaiah's realization that he needs help and his subsequent choice to seek immediate treatment for his behavioral issues."

I don't know about you, but that paragraph sends chills down my spine. That may be the most covertly totalitarian PR statement to ever come out of a Hollywood studio, and there is no doubt in my mind Washington was ordered to rehab for his un-politically correct thoughts. The Soviets used to say that they had freedom of thought, but somehow when your thoughts didn't match what the government thought you should think, you were deemed mentally ill and sent to a hospital to discover the deficiencies in your thought process. ABC Television is not a government, but the principle is the same. If I were packing Isaiah Washington's bags to go to rehab, I'd have tossed in a copy of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and hope he understood the reference.

When people get angry and argue, they often say things that are hurtful that they really don't mean. Husbands, have you ever used the "b" word in an argument with the mother of your children? Wives, have you ever called the man you swore to love for eternity a sorry SOB? Doesn't make it right, but we know where it comes from - frustration and anger. Its not mental illness. Even if Washington were a homophobe, where does ABC get the right to pronounce what this man thinks and believes as being symptomatic of mental illness? What other beliefs might generate a similar response? All I know is Joy Behar should be careful who she thanks next time she talks about her diet.

There are two victims in this case - T.R. Knight's right to privacy was violated (I don't approve of homosexuality, as you know, but this man chose to keep this matter private, and circumstances drug it out in the open against his will. His "coming out of the closet" was not of his choosing, and he's handled it with as much grace as possible.) The other victim is Isaiah Washington, and his right to the privacy of his thoughts. I don't believe he meant to say what he did, but he shouldn't be made to feel he's insane for saying what everyone on the set forgave instantaneously.

Which brings us back full circle to Clemson and the case of the bad Stepin Fetchit impressions. Regardless of whether these idiot children are truly racist or not, if Clemson pulls an ABC here we have something truly monstrous on our hands - a state agency not only telling people what to think but enforcing it. Remember in my second letter to Neal Boortz how I said that Gramsci's philosophy would lead to not just a willing surrender of freedom but that people would actually Riverdance into the gulag?

Well, if Clemson mandates diversity training over this regrettable issue, it not only means that the gulag beckons us... It means we've laced our shoes as well.