A white University of Mississippi student making monkey moves at a black woman on campus earlier this year was shown in a video at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday night.
The video was meant to praise college students who are against being “woke.” It used a clip from early May of pro-Palestinian protesters and counterprotesters fighting over the current war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
Announcing that these students are “giving us some hope that not all college students have gone woke” can be heard as the white fraternity member approaches the black woman and makes the racist moves.
Democrats, including the Biden team, were angry about the use of the video.
An official with the Biden team told The Hill in a statement, “Donald Trump promised unity at his convention.” Instead, he brought hate, division, and racism that made “dog whistles” into “bullhorns.”
“The video that Trump and his RNC pushed is beneath the office of the President, and it shows that their empty attempts to appeal to voters of color are nothing more than empty words to cover up decades of racism,” Chitika said.
A Democrat organizer named Antjuan Seawright said the pictures showed how Republicans “really feel about us.”
Seawright said, “It says a lot about what they think and feel about us.” “That is, they are saying the quiet part out loud.”
People on social media were also angry. One person asked if there would be “a cross burning to wrap things up.” Someone else said that “their base” would not push back.
When the video first started going around in the spring, political leaders had a range of responses. At first, Republican Rep. Mike Collins told the counterprotesters they were “taking care of business.”
Later, he took back what he said and said, “If that person is found to have treated another person badly because of their race, they should be punished appropriately and will hopefully ask for forgiveness.”
At the time, the NAACP criticized both the student and Collins. President Derrick Johnson wrote on the social platform X, “A Black Woman was victim to pandering, racist remarks and gestures, and hateful speech with the hope of breeding fear, isolation, and retreat.”
“She marched on anyway,” he said. “I hope racists like Mike Collins also paid attention to that.”
Officials from Phi Delta Theta said they didn’t like the film and that the male student was “removed” from the group.
