Nobody Wins When the Family Feuds

The two most prominent universities in Louisiana have a unique rivalry that very rarely sees them compete, despite their close proximity to one another in the city of Baton Rouge. On Tuesday evening, March 29, a Family Feud game night was held by Southern University Student Government Association and Louisiana State University Black Student Union inside the Bo Campbell Auditorium that looked to bridge that gap.
With Southern providing transportation for students and LSU providing snacks for students at the venue, it was a packed-out event with over 800 students from SU and LSU were in attendance. It looked like a football game and was so packed that some students stood on the side or sat on the floor.
They played the classic game show Family Feud. Southern had a table on one side with blue cloth and balloons. LSU had a table on the other side with purple cloth and balloons. Four students represented each team. Rounds were split up by classifications. College student related topics were on the scoreboard.
There was a wild host shooting jokes on the crowd. He was acting more like Nick Cannon on Wild N Out than Steve Harvey on Family Feud. The host even went as far as to joke about a strap and the SU student who recently got arrested during campaign week. It felt like we were all family and blended in nicely.
When one question would have so many possible answers, they canceled it out. So, SU students felt as though LSU started cheating and both schools started engaging in an ear of words briefly. SU were doing chants in retaliation to LSU doing their chants. Overall, it was still all in good fun and added to the light atmosphere.
However, after the game night, LSU Black students started to throw racial slurs at Southern students on Twitter calling us monkeys. A Southern student allegedly was backing their friend up. Nyah Breedlove, a junior majoring in Criminal Justice from Silver Spring, Maryland stated, “It was very hypocritical to see a Black person talk about one of us since we’re all Black. We all experience racism regardless of what school we go to.”
Despite the extracurriculars following the event’s conclusion however, events such as these could be a start to a great partnership between both schools’ student bodies. SU students can start building relationships with LSU students if they have not already. Next time LSU should come to Southern to see how an HBCU really turns up. They would not know what to do with themselves being able to be unapologetically black.
“I would love to see more SU and LSU collaborations! Seeing Black students living in their blackness at our neighboring PWI is a good sight to see. It shows that PWIs are having growth within their minority groups which is great” said Sydney Cuillie, a freshman majoring in Mass Communications from Houston, Texas.
Overall, it was a nicely turned-out event to bridge the gap between HBCU and PWI students. Shonna Smith, a senior majoring in Agricultural science from Dallas, Texas expressed, “I enjoyed SU and LSU coming together to support each other. It was a momentous event for us to come together and still enjoy ourselves. We all left proud to be Southern University students.”
We hope to see more events like this in the future with the Southern Student Government Association and LSU Black Student Union. While there may have been some drama here and there, students from both universities seem willing to participate in events such as this one in the future.