Racism Rears its Ugly Head at University of Missouri

Michael B. Thomas

Earlier this week, the hashtag #Mizzou has been trending, and not under any good circumstances.

Earlier this week, Black students attending University of Missouri shared their stories on Twitter about facing racism daily. They talked about their daily encounters with White students who would shout racial slurs and threats at them while they walked through campus. They also talked about the racist comments made about and to them in class.

The social media bomb dropped when Tim Wolfe, President of the university, resigned after less than a week of Mizzou students protesting. Forms of protesting included a hunger strike and the football team’s refusal to play in any games. One particular student went a whole month without eating as contribution to the cause.

It didn’t help when an anonymous Yik Yak (a social media app) was posted on Tuesday, threatening that they would “Stand [their] ground… and shoot every Black person [they see.]”

As this information was being released on social media, people from everywhere were shocked, terrified, and disgusted, to see that these events were unraveling and even more so to find out that University staff and security weren’t doing much to help.

One student tweeted a screenshot of an email she sent to her professor, saying that she was fearing for her life and wouldn’t be able to attend class the next day. The screenshot also showed that he had replied that class would go on as usual, and that she needed to “stand up to the bully.”

The University’s own Twitter account released a statement that security around campus would be tightened, but that there was no “active threat.”

Regardless of their statement of no active threat existing, an arrest was made hours later.

19-year-old Hunter Park was arrested under the suspicion of making terroristic threats on the anonymous app.

More videos and pictures can be seen on Twitter using the hashtag #Mizzou