Footage has gone viral of a confrontation between two black female students telling two white male students to leave a room at Arizona State University (ASU) over a “racist” sticker.
The woman filming said the room was a multicultural space and asked why the men were there and not studying anywhere else in “(any other) single part of the campus”.
In the seven-minute video, the pair – members of the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition which shared the clip with the caption “Defending the Space” – approached the men, who are seated at a desk, and tells one of them that he is “offensive”.
“Police lives matter?” one of the women behind the camera said, referring to a sticker on his laptop.
The man retorted: “you have the same sticker, just the other” (meaning Black Lives Matter).
“But this is our space,” the other woman told him.
His friend – who wore a “didn’t vote for (US President) Biden” T-shirt, who then began filming the women said he was “just trying to do school” and was “getting kicked out”.
“Nobody’s kicking you out,” another voice said.
“You just said we have to leave,” the Biden T-shirt-wearer replied, before multiple voices told him and his friend that they are making the space “uncomfortable”.
The men were approached over a “police lives matter” sticker. Picture: Instagram
One was wearing a “did not vote for Biden” T-shirt. Picture: Instagram
‘White man taking up our space’
“You’re white,” the woman behind the camera said. “Do you understand what a multicultural space [means]? It means you’re not being centred.”
“White’s not a culture?” he asked.
“No, it’s not a culture,” both women explained “White is not a culture. Say it again into the camera – white is not a culture. You think whiteness is a culture?”
The situation only grows more fraught from there.
“This is the violence that ASU does and this is the type of people that they protect,” the first woman said, with the camera still trained on the two male students.
“OK, this white man thinks he can take up our space, and this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with this sh*t.”
When the men again replied, the other woman told them that “we’re not kicking you out, we’re asking you to leave if you have any consideration for people of colour and marginalisation”.
“Is there anywhere that I can go?” the first male asksed.
“Yeah, the whole rest of the campus, the second floor, the first floor, the whole MU, every single part of the campus centres you. This is the only space that you’re not centred and you’re still trying to centre yourself, which is peak white male cis bullsh*t,” the first woman said.
“I’m not racist, I’m just here to study,” he said.
“You are racist! Your sticker is racist, because police — that’s a job, you can choose to be a police officer, I don’t choose to be black,” the woman told him.
“OK, you know what, you can choose to be a cop, you can choose to kill people with a badge, and you’re protecting that sh*t, which means that you’re racist.”
“I wasn’t trying to be racist,” he said again.
“I know, but this offends us automatically because these people kill people like me and like us, right. So you’re promoting our murderers. So please just don’t do that,” one of the other women said.
Another (non-white) student eventually approached the escalating scene and told the women that the pair “went out of your way to inconvenience them”.
“Because this is our space. We fought for this sh*t for five years, since 2016. You have no idea about the labour that was created to create this space,” one of the females yelled.
After at least five minutes of confrontation, the men eventually tell the girls “f*** you”, and leave.
“We’re here, we had to protect this space because ASU wasn’t and you know, like, we fought for this space. It was years of organising and we’re not gonna just let some white supremacists change that,” the women explained to the camera as the men walked away.
One of the women behind the camera. Picture: Instagram
“We had to protect this space,” the women said. Picture: Instagram
“So anyway, that’s why we’re here, they’re going to make a scene and go talk to their Karens and all of that, but it’s important to recognise why we have to do that and what a multicultural space means.
“Because multiculturalism doesn’t mean that ‘Oh, we all come together and hold hands’, it means that you provide space and you protect the most marginalised. And sh*t like that is — makes this space uncomfortable.”
ASU is yet to comment on the situation.
A similar scenario occurred last year at the University of Virginia (UVA), when a viral video showed a black student asking white students to leave the campus diversity centre.
“Frankly, there’s just too many white people in here,” the student said in the clip, posted last February.
The footage sparked a debate over race, with the UVA administration claiming that the centre is “open to all members of the university community”.
White students ‘kicked out’ of diversity space
Footage has gone viral of a confrontation between two black female students telling two white male students to leave a room at Arizona State University (ASU) over a “racist” sticker.
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ASU Statement:
The Dean of Students Office is aware of the disagreement between a handful of students that was captured in a video circulated on social media. The Dean of Students Office will be discussing it with all involved. ASU is a community of more than 100,000 people from all 50 states and more than 150 countries. Differences of opinion are part of the university experience. The university expects respectful dialogue between students in all engagements.
University Statement on Multicultural Center Viral Video
The Dean of Students Office is aware of the incident between a handful of students that was captured in a video circulated on social media
"Multi-Cultural" Club IG: https://instagram.com/mcsolidarityco/
r/asu Discussion Thread:
r/ASU - You cannot just walk in and kick people out in the name of racism. Stop harassing innocent people and get your shit straight. please share and raise awareness.
720 votes and 409 comments so far on Reddit
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You cannot just walk in and kick people out in the name of racism. St…
archived 25 Sep 2021 02:54:30 UTC
