Black Freshmen At University Of Pennsylvania Receive Racist Messages Depicting Lynchings
A number of black freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania on Friday received multiple messages via a mobile group messaging application containing graphic racist imagery and racial slurs.
The students were added to a GroupMe account titled “Mud Men” that contained “violent, racist and thoroughly repugnant images and messages,” the university said in a statement about the incident. The school added that it is still trying to determine how many students had been targeted .
GroupMe is a mobile app in which users can add people to a group chat and then send them photos and messages; the UPenn students were added to the racist group without their consent. It remains unclear how those responsible for the group obtained the contact information of the freshmen, and university officials declined to comment on the matter.
Screenshots of the group chat posted to social media show a series of vile messages, including a photo depicting lynchings with “I love America” written below it. Another message came in the form of a calendar invitation to a “Daily lynching” event set to Friday’s date, with a statement reading “Never be a n****r in SAE,” a college fraternity. The profile picture for the group, which appeared to have been altered, showed an African-American man wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.
Adrienne Hopkins, a 28-year-old MBA student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who had seen the messages, told The Huffington Post that the name of the group changed throughout the day, and that at one point it was called “Trump lovers.” Hopkins also said she believed the individuals sending the racist messages had political motivations, because they had usernames that were variations on “Barack Obama” or “Trump disciples.” Some messages contained other racist slurs and Trump-related images, she said.
According to the university’s student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, in a group chat message titled, “Trump is love,” an individual wrote “dumb slave.” Another individual posted a photo of the Donald Trump campaign’s signature red hat with the words, “GRAB THEM BY THE P***Y,” the newspaper reported.
Hopkins, who is black, said the mood on campus was deeply somber and students felt “uprooted” by the racist messages. For many, she said, it was the first time they had been confronted by such explicit racism and vitriol.
“It was really sad to see their faces, they were crying,” Hopkins said, her voice cracking. “It was a reminder for them that no matter how much education you obtain, no matter the riches you amass, there are some people who will view your humanity as not worth the same amount as theirs.”
