Racist Graffiti Strikes Fear Among Black Students at Northern Illinois

On December 14, 2007 Eurweb.com reported that administrators at Northern Illinois University (NIU) have taken actions to ensure the safety of its students following an incident in which racist graffiti was found on the bathroom wall of a campus residence hall. The graffiti used a racial slur to describe African American students and made a reference to the Virginia Tech shootings.

Eurweb describes the content of the graffiti as follows:       

One of the text-message-style rants scribbled on the wall read: “Tell those n*****s to go home.” Another read: “The VA tech shooters messed up w/ having only one shooter….”   

As a precaution, NIU officials cancelled classes on the Monday after the graffiti was found. Classes resumed the next day. Still, many students remain frightened by the messages’ implied threat:

Although the school has forged forward with a business-as-usual approach, many of NIU’s black students – which compose nearly 13 percent of the university’s 18,816 undergraduates – remain uneasy about the incident. School officials estimate that some 200 students have left campus, many heading home.  

Some African American students have linked the sentiment in the scrawled words to a larger climate of racial intolerance on the NIU campus. Here is the way it was expressed by one of the Black student leaders at the University:

“This threat did not come out of the blue,” said Mitchell Gaddis, president of the university’s NAACP chapter. “It’s unsafe for us to walk down Greek Row … and we’re tired of it.”

For the full text of the Eurweb.com article, click HERE. 

Posted by Ajuan Mance