Avoiding smashing your monitor with your clenched fist after watching this video.
Instead, we must channel our anger towards speaking out against emboldening racism and attacks on marginalized people currently plaguing our country.
A recent video in which a group of fraternity brothers making a mockery of slavery while using the N-word is a prime example of increasing racist behavior.
In the appalling video, a Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity member from the University of Georgia can be seen whipping another member with a belt while hurling expletives and racial epithets as onlookers are laughing in the background.
The perpetrator can be heard saying:
"Pick my cotton! Pick my cotton, b****h."
The victim being hit says, "I'm not black," to which someone else says, "you're not using the right words."
The perpetrator then responds by saying:
"pick my cotton, n*****"
To record video evidence of their stupidity added to their ignorance of facing consequences.
As a result of their offensive role-playing circulating on the internet, the Georgia University student government association announced that the fraternity was suspended in a memo addressed to the Xi Lambda chapter.
"The executive officers of the Student Government Association are aware of a video circulating on social media that depicts individuals identified as members of a UGA Greek organization using racist language and engaging in behaviors that mock the suffering of enslaved peoples."
"We have been notified that the chapter is currently suspended, and we can confirm that there is an investigation underway regarding the students involved in the video."
TKE announced that on March 23, 2019, the chapter expelled the four members involved after following "prescribed procedures." They denounced the members in a statement, saying the fraternity was "disgusted, appalled and angered by the remarks shown in a video of four expelled members."
"TKE will not tolerate any actions such as these that would be defined as racist, discriminatory and/or offensive."
According to their statement, the fraternity's spokesperson said the incident didn't occur at a TKE event or on their premises.
"These four individuals acted outside the expectations of our membership and their chapter and therefore were removed from both."
Twitter responded to the sickening behavior.
Current and former TKE members came forward and expressed their disappointment.
This is a part of the problem.
Enough is enough.
The racist video is the latest example of many others circulating from fraternities across the country, with many of them targeting the LGBTQ community as well as people with disabilities.
A similar incident occurred last April when the Theta Tau fraternity in Syracuse University were suspended after a video of a hazing ritual surfaced in which a kneeling member pledged:
"I solemnly swear to always have hatred in my heart for n*****s, spics and most importantly the f**king kikes."
In 2015, the University of Oklahoma shut down Sigma Alpha Epsilon after a video of members chanting racial slurs and referencing lynching circulated on the internet.
This needs to stop.
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter