A member of the Lambda Chi Alpha at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo was photographed over the weekend covered in blackface makeup -- but his fraternity is denying that he was trying to be racist.
Local news station KCBX reports that a photo of the Lambda Chi Alpha member dressed in blackface started circulating among students at Cal Poly on Saturday. When asked by the station to explain the photo, Logan Boersma tried to claim that fraternity members were simply holding a "brotherhood" event where many of them dressed in different colors -- and one just happened to be black.
“I absolutely feel terrible that it was construed like that,” Boersma told the station. "And I am fully aware that it can be insensitive."
However, KCBX received another photo from the event that showed members of the fraternity posing as "gangsters," complete with "sagging pants, fake prison tattoos, and gang signs." The caption on the photo, which was posted on Instagram, read, "She want a gangster not a pretty boy."
The photo was subsequently removed from the web and the Instagram account it appeared on was deleted.
Lambda Chi Alpha has subsequently stopped responding to KCBX's requests for comment.