College Student Considers Leaving School After Racist Note Is Placed In Backpack
IRVINE (CBSLA.com) — A UC Irvine honors student says she is considering leaving the school after someone placed a racist note in her backpack.
A freshman student named Charity Lyons said she discovered the note earlier this week.
It read, "Go Back 2 Africa, Slave."
KCAL9's Juan Fernandez reports there is a lot of anger on the campus over the incident. The student's mother is not only concerned about her daughter's safety and it's not the first time she's gone through an incident like this one.
Student Venessa Ichull said, "What type of person would say that? Do they even understand what they are saying? Slave?"
Other students on campus told Fernandez there is no room for this type of racism anywhere.
Elizabeth Bankole says she knows how the young freshman must feel. She was bullied in the 7th grade, also because she is African. "I was bullied, I was beat up, cause I was from Africa, because I had an accent. I would hear, 'Go back to Africa, where you are from.'"
All of this racial tension comes on the heels of a controversial video created by Lamba Theta Delta, an Asian fraternity on campus.
On the video, which just surfaced recently, one of the fraternity members portrays rapper Jay-Z in blackface.
The fraternity received so much heat, they voluntarily suspended their charter for a year.
Ichull said, "This type of humor is never funny."
Of these recent incidents, Cathy Lawthon, a spokeswoman for the university said, "It is disappointing and it means we must work harder to make sure academic and co-curricular learning opportunities raise awareness and challenge incidents of this type."
The University also told Fernandez they had the note in their possession and they would be conducting an investigation. The person responsible, they said, would be disciplined.
