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A white student from Columbia University recently came under fire after a video of him recently circulated in the recesses of Twitter that showed him harassing black students and ranting about white supremacy.
The video of the rant was posted on Twitter last Dec. 9 by a certain Aala (@aalanasir) and showed the white student screaming hysterically at a group of black students about how white people built the modern world.
“We built the modern world, Europeans built the modern world,” shouted the white student amid uproar from the black students. “We invented science and industry and you wanna tell us to stop because ‘oh my god we’re so bad…”
Disappointed, but not surprised. Twitter, do your thing@Columbia @CC_Columbia #ColumbiaWhiteExcellence pic.twitter.com/UCcyv4aII5
— Aala (@aalanasir) December 9, 2018
He continued his racist tirade saying, “We saved billions of people from starvation, we built modern civilization. White people are the best that’s ever happened in the world…”
The student has since been identified as sophomore Julian von Abele, with the incident taking place at 4 a.m. on Dec. 10 outside the Butler Library. As per Columbia Daily Spectator on the same day, the black students von Abele harassed were first year students.
Von Abele’s “racially charged” actions have since been condemned by the school. School officials also offered support to the harassed black students, with the deans of Columbia College along with the School of General Studies and the School Engineering and Applied Science inviting them to an open reflection on the same day.
Barnard administrators, on their end, sent out an e-mail to students reminding them of the importance of campus safety in regard to “diversity and inclusion.” Many organizations also expressed their solidarity with the harassed students, such as The Black Student Organization and the Student Organization of Latinxs.
Meanwhile, Kwolanne Felix, one of the students harassed by von Abele, called on the university to take action in regard to the racially charged incident.
“I really hope that Columbia takes further action,” Felix was quoted as saying. “They should definitely try to talk to the students that were affected by that and ensure everyone’s okay because that’s really hard to internalize.” Cody Cepeda /ra
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