An Indiana University student is facing backlash for her racist remarks on social media, sparking protests on campus.
“I’m sorry, but if you’re Black, you’re not country. I don’t care,” the student said in the video reshared on TikTok. “I wish I meant that in the nicest way, but babe, I know you were raised in the country or your grandparents were … but they was picking, OK?”
She added, “They wasn’t planting. Just keep that in mind. They wasn’t making money. They were getting sold for money. You ain’t country.”
Her comments were seemingly in response to Beyonce’s record-breaking country album, “Cowboy Carter.” The 27-track highly anticipated project was released on March 29 and included features from Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Linda Martell, Miley Cyrus, and Post Malone. Additionally, the mega-star highlighted Black artists — Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy, Shaboozy, Willie Jones, and Reyna Roberts.
The woman was exposed as a nursing student at the Terre Haute-based university, where the student population is mostly white. People also called out how dangerous it would be if she entered the medical field with white supremacist views, pointing out how racism is a public health crisis.
Demonstrations erupted on campus this week, calling on the school to take action, shouting: “Hate has no place here” and “Silence is violence.”
“We’re here to make sure something like this doesn’t get swept under the rug again. The damage that occurs because of that [the lack of university response] is that students are told silence is OK and that they don’t matter,” Nadia Lomax, a protest organizer, told Indiana Statesman, the university’s newspaper.
The video was originally posted on Yik Yak, a popular social media app for college students. Protesters made a list of demands for university officials, including that they condemn the video and that the student face consequences. Indiana State University addressed the student’s outcry in a statement on Monday.
“As stated in our University Mission Statement, Indiana State University has a long history of valuing diversity and inclusiveness on our campus. We are aware and continue to monitor the situation involving comments published online by an Indiana State University student,” officials said, per the Terre Haute Tribune-Star. “The student’s comments do not align with our institutional values. We reaffirm our commitment to fostering an inclusive environment. ISU takes incidents of this nature seriously and is committed to ensuring a welcoming environment for everyone.”
However, some people told the Tribune-Star that the response was lackluster: “This should be something that comes out from leadership, and it should be emphatic that this is not tolerated on our campus,” said Darrell Morton Jr., president of the university’s Black Alumni Network.
“What I would like to see is ISU come out and define what their policy is on hate speech. It should be defined,” Morton added.
