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The Student News Site of North Carolina A&T State University

The A&T Register

WFU student demeans minority perspectives

WFU+student+demeans+minority+perspectives

A Wake Forest University student has been under fire after rationalizing a joke, which was perceived as blatant racism by students of WSSU and WFU.

An Instagram post was created in support of a student falsely campaigning for Student Government Association president. The post indicated one of the candidate’s initiatives was to “build a wall” between WFU and Winston Salem State University, a neighboring HBCU. It also stated that he would make WSSU pay for the wall.

Jordan Lancaster, a junior WFU student attempted in justification of the post after the university’s president, Nathan Hatch released an email to apologize to the WSSU community.

“While the intent of the authors may have been a parody of a national issue, it was deeply offensive and unacceptable,” the email included.

https://twitter.com/jordylancaster/status/1109565876125224960?s=21

The joke outraged students; however, Lancaster’s act to undermine the racial and classist offensiveness in the joke sparked Twitter controversy.

“Seeing the replies from students/alumni of Wake Forest shows a lot about some of y’all’s character. But of course privileged white students at a predominantly white institution wouldn’t understand where we’re coming from,” Matthew Parker, WSSU junior replied to Lancaster’s tweet.

Many Americans are aware of President Trump’s efforts to build and improve upon the border wall between the United States and Mexico.

“As far as the wall is concerned, we’re going to build a wall. We’re going to create a border. We’re going to let people in, but they’re going to come in legally,” said Trump in the Republican president debate.

Twitter users, black WFU students and WSSU students attempted to educate Lancaster and her supporters of why the joke was offensive.

The reasoning: a joke made in poor taste by a white student in regards to a black university. This equates to segregation, divisive tendencies and overall perpetual hate within the country.

https://twitter.com/ohsweetlexie/status/1109908438899924992

Lancaster followed up her “people need to grow up” post with several screenshots of the comments made by outraged users.

The situation garnered media attention from Barstool Sports who dedicated an article in complete support of Lancaster and the post, calling those who were offended “sexist pigs.”

WSSU students were not provided the opportunity to have their voices heard. Instead, they are being perceived as negative people.

https://twitter.com/souheilayy/status/1111771837481000967

Differences in views are posed when it comes to feuds between predominantly white institutions and historically black colleges and universities. For example, there is a constant conversation between the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and N.C. A&T centered around UNCG becoming classified as a HBCU.

 

Many people decided to leave Lancaster and those in support of her to ponder the consequences of their actions.

“Jordan, honey, do you know you go to a school that had to punish a group of White men for running through the halls yelling “nigg*r?” Or that a separate group of men targeted hijabi women on the night of the 2016 election? Or that they happened on the same day?,” one user tweeted.

“The problem is that most of the people who don’t see a problem with the implications of this post aren’t interested in thinking that deep about it,” another user tweeted.

https://twitter.com/Lexiz_nexiz/status/1109861815989747712

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About the Contributors
Elaijah Gibbs-Jones, Managing Editor
Junior journalism and mass communication student with a concentration in multimedia journalism
Donecia Dunk
Donecia Dunk, theWORD Section Editor
Senior,  journalism and mass communication student with a concentration in mass media production and international management student.

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