Okay, I guess I have to address this, since it’s coming up more and more often in comments on my coverage of the UC San Diego situation: There is NO evidence that the black shock-comedian “Jiggaboo Jones” was behind last month’s racist “Compton Cookout” at UCSD. None. Zero.
Here’s the deal.
Sometime in early-to-mid-February, the invitation to the Compton Cookout party was posted on Facebook. As word of the party got around, complaints began to mount, and on February 16 the UCSD administration condemned the event.
On February 18, nearly a week after the party and two days after the scandal broke as a national story, a black comedian who goes by the name “Jiggaboo Jones” posted a video on YouTube claiming that he had thrown the party as a DVD release event. Right-wing websites and fringe journalists leaped to endorse this “debunking” of the story, particularly after subsequent racist incidents at UCSD began to make national news, and the claim has begun to find its way into more mainstream media coverage as well.
But Jones’ story doesn’t hold water, for a long list of reasons:
- His name appears nowhere on the invitation, nor does any mention of any DVD tie-in.
- No media coverage of the party mentioned his name until after he “confessed.”
- Nobody involved with the party has since come forward to confirm his involvement.
- Despite promoting his YouTube posts with promises of video from the party, he’s produced no such video.
A photo of Jones — wearing dark glasses and a Jheri curl wig, and holding a bucket of fried chicken — accompanied the original party invitation, but that’s the only link between him and the party other than his own claims. Again, there was no mention of him in the invitation, and nobody with any known link to the party has suggested that he was involved in any way.
Every piece of evidence that exists suggests that Jones’ claim is exactly what it looks like — a creepy self-promoter’s attempt to turn a thin, random connection to an ugly news story into a few moments of seedy notoriety.
And yes, I recognize that I’ve just given him what he wants, and yes, I’m disgusted by that.
studentactivism.net 
24 comments
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March 1, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Luffy
Finally!! I can’t believe people believed that slap in the first place. Thank you for posting that… thank you.
March 1, 2010 at 3:30 pm
anteater
A rumor that’s being circulated, that might actually make sense given the context, is that “Jones” is really a member of the frat… that would mean that his image was used for the facebook thing, and that he invented the black comedian persona as a post-hoc excuse for the frat.
March 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Angus Johnston
The guy has YouTube videos up dating back to October 2006, though, so the character definitely wasn’t just invented last month.
March 1, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Matt
Here’s the thing. Even if he did throw the party. The students involved in it aren’t going to be punished anyways. And on top of that, he throws “Nigga Nite” parties regularly. Idiots will continue to laugh at his shit and watch Family Guy and South Park. Comedy has become less and less sophisticated as the years have gone on. Look at The Simpsons, the show is catered to people with ADHD nowadays. This is why I support shows like King of the Hill and Futurama. Shows with cohesive storylines.
Jiggaboo Jones is the epitome of racism. It may not be malicious, but it’s certainly degrading. The fact that people can laugh at “I’m a Gay Fish” and “I’m on a Boat” for a year just saddens me. This is why Chappelle went to Africa. His jokes were being laughed at by complete idiots.
March 1, 2010 at 6:24 pm
No Evidence That Jiggaboo Jones Behind UCSD “Compton Cookout”
[…] Student Activism / March 1, 2010 […]
March 1, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Mitch
Are you calling the blackman a liar?
Seriously, I think his story is shady, except he has supposedly done this at other universities. And, more damningly, there are images or videos of the actual party — the whole thing is like a black whole.
Look, this whole situation has been used by the BSU at UCSD, and around the state, to press for certain things they want. It has been used to demonize the campus, and implicitly white students. That’s all there is to it.
March 1, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Angus Johnston
Your weak, gratuitous racial puns hardly encourage me to take your arguments seriously, Mitch.
March 1, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Mitch
Maybe that was subconscious, but I seriously didn’t mean it to be a pun. I mean the black hole imagery, though. Here we have a bunch of stuff going on, a lot of stuff around the edges, but in both instances we have very little info.
1. In the party case, I have yet to see anything put up on youtube, or images posted to the internet. That seems real strange in this day and age, esp. for a shindig that was supposed to involve 3 houses (I believe I’ve read) and take place over a whole weekend.
2. In the noose case, we have an a very racially charged case and an admitted perp who, strangely, has no race or ethnicity. Moreover it seems obvious that the University administration knows her race and ethnicity, has known it for 3-4 days now, and yet persists with this ‘stop the hate’ BS — knowing full well it wasn’t a ‘hate’ act/crime as the term has come to mean. Moreover, they seem to accept this — oh, I found a rope, and it just so happened that my friend was real good at tying knots , tripe. I smell downright hoax , but regardless, at the very core of the event, there is …. nothing, like a black hole.
March 1, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Mitch
I’ll even tell you where I got the metaphor from — blogger Mickey Kaus.
Back in the 2008 presidential campaign he was always talking about ‘dark matter’ influencing the Edwards campaign — like something known to a few that really kept Edwards from running hard. We know what that is now.
Well, I suspect dark matter (not a pun) influencing this story, I just used a different term for it.
March 1, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Mitch
One last and I’ll quit.
Here’s a youtube of a news report about the ‘Cookout’ and its fallout.
Look at :32-35 , they show a facebook page relating to the event that has what appears to be Mr Jones’s smiling visage. He is labelled ‘campus representative’
Not conclusive, but seems to show he had something to do with the Cookout.
March 1, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Angus Johnston
Wrong, Mitch. Freeze the frame. The photo of Jones has no caption. The words “Campus Representative Jobs” appear in an ad in the next column.
March 1, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Angus Johnston
1. The party itself wasn’t the core of the scandal, the invitation was. And the party wasn’t a weekend-long event, either. It was scheduled for the afternoon and evening of Monday, February 15.
2. To my knowledge, the administration hasn’t said anything about the noose incident since the student’s public apology this morning. So to accuse them of accepting her explanation too uncritically is baseless.
March 1, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Mitch
Okay, he’s not ‘campus representative’. Will you accept that he is on the Facebook page for the event?
March 1, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Angus Johnston
Read my post again. I noted — twice — that they’d used a photo of him in the invitation.
March 1, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Mitch
You got me on reading too fast.
But what you are suggesting is that these guys too a photo of Mr. Jones off the internet (or wherever) and then used this photo to embellish their invitation — and that this random photo just happens to be one of a promoter/comedian/party organizer that has nothing to do with the party. Furthermore, even though this guy’s living is doing these events, he has no problem with them stealing his image and using it to promote their own deal. He’s not pissed off at them stealing from his gig, rather he comes to their defense!
Okay, I guess we can make that work — maybe he hears about the uproar, goes to PKA and says — hey guys, you ripped me off , but I’ll cover your ass if you pay me retroactively. Or maybe he just wants these events to be acceptable — its his schtick — so he comes to the guys defense in enlightened self interest.
But seriously, Occam’s razor comes into play, and Occam’s razor says this dude was involved with the party.
March 1, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Anthony
Ugh..I’m so glad that you addressed this on this blog because I was tired of people using this idiot’s YouTube video as the voice of Compton. He, in no way, shape, or form, represents the voice of MY city. Although there are some who feel like Jiggaboo Jones here in Compton, MANY are outraged and disgusted at the fact that this fool has taken the liberty to represent Compton, the African – American community, and the Compton Cookout as his promo event. Although it hasn’t been confirmed, I would like to thank you for clarifying this matter.
March 1, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Angus Johnston
Come on, Mitch. Pay attention. Re-read my penultimate paragraph.
Jones isn’t inserting himself into this story out of any sense of altruism. He’s chasing attention wherever he can find it. He’d have the same motivation for getting involved whether he was connected to the party or not.
March 1, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Mitch
Sure he is milking it — given the facebook ‘invite’ maintain he was involved *before* the whole thing blew up. Here are to my mind the three competing hypotheses
1) Jones is involved in the party
2) Whoever organized the party heard of Jones, and ripped off his image to promote their own party
3) Out of all the images of black folks (let’s limit it to males) , the organizers choose Jones at random.
Number 1 explains everything immediately and doesn’t require us to believe Jones is lying
Number 2 is possible, but needs additional conditions to explain why Jones is *defending* these guys. After all, he could insert himself into the equation by saying they ripped off his schtick.
Number 3 has a very low probability.
I’ll say it again — I heard the guy on the radio and didn’t believe him, reasoning along your lines. But this Facebook invite changes my opinion.
And here’s another fact I found strange from the very beginning. He talks about Shanaynay. Well, that’s from the 90s. Would 20 year old frat guys even be familiar with her, rather than, say, Bon Qui Qui? Shanaynay fits with Jones age (he appears late 30s to me).
March 2, 2010 at 9:10 am
Mike McGee
There’s no evidence that fraternities are behind the party, either. So, you have a choice. But your agenda requires that you blame white people, so no surprise that you don’t believe this clown.
5 years of throwing parties exactly like this one and his picture on the Facebook page and invitation, but yeah it’s definitely the racist white people who thought it up, just like it was obviously a racist white person who hung the noose . . . er, visual art project . . . in the library. Right?
March 2, 2010 at 1:21 pm
observer
In error you are about the DVD.
Just search net, and you will see.
March 3, 2010 at 12:59 am
Smithy
It amazes me anyone would bother creating such an idiotic blog. The only reason you would waste your time trying to discredit “Jigaboo” Jones’ claims that he is an organizer of this party, is if you thought having a black man or a comedian put on the party made it less racist. Let me assure you that the party was no more or less racist for the participation or organization of a black man.
The problem with “you people”, and when I say “you people” I mean everyone trying to make hay out of this event regardless of skin color, is that you are racists. You figure it is OK to make slanderous accusations and political hay out of anything if it suits your absurd political needs. Most of you hypocrites have probably sat in more than one comedy club event where the comedian spent an hour picking on a particular group of people based on their profession, or their anatomy, or their ethnic background, or their political beliefs, or their sexual preferences, or the size of their genitalia. You probably laughed your ass off the entire time.
Living in the area, I am fully aware of the existence of “White Trash” and “Red Neck” parties that go on ANNUALLY by several of the sororities and fraternities. I didn’t hear your outrage on the behalf of white people as students dressed up as pregnant teens and toothless inbred morons who are unable to speak proper English. I don’t hear you complaining when videos by a variety of Black recording artists promote and idealize almost exactly the same image promoted by this party.
Your racism, bigotry, and idiocy DISGUST me. Grow up, get a job, and try and contribute something to society other than hatred. When you can do that, you will have earned your right to complain about college parties, and will likely have lost the desire to do so.
March 3, 2010 at 7:27 pm
exposer of lies
heres the proof that he organized it hahahahahaha you fail!!!!
http://link-exchange-link.com/college/?p=2118
March 7, 2010 at 4:01 am
good-in-theory
Actually this doesn’t prove anything of the sort. It proves – like was said in the initial comment – that Jigaboo Jones has taken claim for the event. That a right wing radio host with an ax to grind believes him doesn’t make the claim any more, or less, legitimate.
May 4, 2010 at 12:59 am
Nipsey Washington
This was all a bunch of crap ! You morons ruined a bad assed DVD project we worked months on. Your B.S. will not delay or obstruct future Nigga Night Events…. after all this crap is long forgotten I will have the last laugh.