I must've missed the memo that declared hanging nooses and white college kids donning blackface cool and in vogue.

See, the funny thing is ... it's really not that funny ... at all. It's actually quite racist, but members of the football team at a Minnesota school decided to give it the old' college try anyway:

Hamline University has suspended six players from its football team for donning blackface and body paint to dress up as African tribesmen for an off-campus Halloween party, an incident that has sparked a discussion about racial sensitivity at the St. Paul liberal arts college. [...] Two cheerleaders who helped the players with their costumes and reportedly posted photos of them on the Internet social-networking site Facebook with a caption about "spooks" are also under investigation.

Once again, not that amusing. Dressing up like a slutty nurse, skanky cop or dirty [enter noun] for Halloween will make a few people chuckle here and there. Being an idiot who sports blackface then posts the pics on Facebook, that's just a little sick. (Note: not funny.)

Like those who hung nooses in the Jena Six case, the Minnesota students in blackface defend their actions by saying things such as it was only supposed to be a "joke" and that they're not racist, but "misunderstood." (All while probably thinking, "I have a black friend, I can't be racist.")

What's there to misunderstand? You went to a Halloween party sporting a symbol of racism on your face. What? Did you also think 'Schindler's List' was a comedy?

Concluding that Kevin Federline is Father of the Year because he is slightly more responsible than Britney Spears. Misunderstanding.

Assuming Dr. Dre is a physician trained in the healing arts and licensed to practice some type of medicine. Misunderstanding.

Wearing blackface or hanging up a noose as a "joke"? Dumb and racist.

In Minnesota and elsewhere, this isn't the first time students masquerading as blacks have stirred up controversy.

Early this year, Macalester College in St. Paul condemned an incident where a student in blackface wore a noose around his neck, accompanied by a student dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member, at a campus house party. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is investigating a case of four white students who dressed in blackface the weekend before Halloween to portray Jamaican bobsledders from the movie "Cool Runnings." Last month, four Colorado College hockey players, including two from Minnesota, were suspended after going to a golf outing in blackface to portray characters from the TV show "Family Matters."

Perhaps the costume store was sold out of Hitler's Nazi uniform.

An investigation is currently underway looking into what the students' intent was. If the investigation finds that a university policy was violated, the students would go in front of a judicial board, where they could get a warning or even a suspension from school.