The Republican National Convention chose to elevate a clip of some eyebrow-raising frat boy behavior on Wednesday.
The original viral clip, filmed in early May, emerged from a collision between a Palestine solidarity protest and a group of counterprotesters at the University of Mississippi. One fraternity brother, dressed in a blue shirt and cheered on by a crowd of white men, harassed a Black woman in the pro-Palestine group by dancing and screaming at her like a monkey.
“Not all college students have gone woke,” the RNC announcer praised over a shot of the video. “They should be celebrated.”
Maybe not a good idea to include this clip pic.twitter.com/vRESazdPep
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2024
While that level of racism was apparently perfect for the Republican convention, it was too extreme even for the fraternity and the school. The behavior sparked an investigation by the University of Mississippi, and led University Chancellor Glenn Boyce to issue a statement describing the counterprotesters’ chants and actions as containing “hostility and racist overtones.”
The Phi Delta Theta fraternity that the student belonged to also opted to kick him out, noting in a statement shortly after the video was publicized that “the racist actions in the video were those of an individual and are antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta and the Mississippi Alpha chapter.”
“After reviewing the incident, it was determined that the individual’s behavior was unacceptable,” an updated version of the statement read. “The action in question was offensive, outside the bounds of this discourse, and contradictory to our values.”
Sounds like the RNC got a different message.
