Asian Northwestern University Students Were Racially Taunted At Basketball Game
Content Warning
Recently, a white man racially taunted a group of Asian students at a basketball game.
On January 19, 2022, (EST), video documentation of the event went viral on TikTok. The Northwestern University Wildcats played the University of Wisconsin–Madison Badgers at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Tuesday night. From a couple of rows behind, a witness of the shocking incident recorded a Badgers fan as he racially taunted a group of students from Northwestern University.
Clearly, the man was not only flipping the students off but was doing the slanted-eye pose, a racist gesture against Asians. And, when the recorder panned over to the group of targeted students, it included a small group of Asian boys and an Asian girl in front of them.
Thankfully, the man was kicked out of the game. So, these students would be able to enjoy the remaining time free of harassment. Nonetheless, the man continued to harass them even as he was escorted out.
It’s only been a day since it was posted, and the video has already garnered 874.9K views. As of January 20, 2022, it also has 114.4K likes.
Now, one of the targeted students has also posted their own POV. Similarly, the video has gone viral with 418.6K views as of today.
Kirsten Lee, a Northwestern University student, shared that she was excited to go to her first basketball game at the school. She captioned the video, “never thought I’d get to put ‘got a racist kicked out of basketball game’ on the list of things I’ve done at NU but here we are.”
She explained that leading up to the event, there was the competitive atmosphere of the competing team’s fans booing one another. This Wisconsin fan, however, got so heated that he resorted to racism.
the student section (including the one across from us) was booing the Wisconsin team when they scored (the Wisconsin fans were doing this to the nu team too), and this man started getting so upset about it that he started turning around to pull his eyelids, flip us off, and screamed at us very time Wisconsin scored. he did this a good at least 5 or 6 times before the group of asian guys behind me suggested recording the man.
— Kirstin Lee via @leejiwonnie/TikTok
Lee said that, ultimately, students had to get directly involved by telling security about the man. It wasn’t until then that Northwestern University Police Department removed him from the premises.
my friends and I got some videos and some of the students in the student section told the security that the guy kept harassing us during halftime and nupd was called to remove the man. the woman he was with walked out as fast as she could when nupd showed up and he was escorted out after talking to the officers for a couple of minutes.
— Kirstin Lee via @leejiwonnie/TikTok
She recounted that he targeted them with racist gestures multiple times throughout the game. So, this continually happened until security got involved.
he probably pulled his eyelids a total of 10+ times, and these were only the times I caught him doing it. there is ABSOLUTELY NO reason to be racist, especially over a college basketball game.
— Kirstin Lee via @leejiwonnie/TikTok
Netizens are calling the man in question’s behavior “embarrassing.” As Lee said, there’s “NO reason to be racist, especially over a college basketball game.”
While the racist individual was successfully removed from the event, netizens believe that he deserves to face more consequences for his actions. Some suggest that his identity should be revealed, and he needs to be fired from his job.
The athletics department for Wisconsin released a statement in regards to the event. The official TikTok posted comments on both viral videos, denouncing the fans’ behavior.
We are deeply disturbed by this behavior and we find it abhorrent and disgusting. This is no representation of what it means to be a Badger. We denounce any acts of racism or discrimination. We applaud Northwestern for removing this individual. His actions have no place at our events.
— @uwbadgers/TikTok
You can watch both TikTok videos below:
@user910344455 …
@leejiwonnie never thought I’d get to put ‘got a racist kicked out of a basketball game’ on the list of things I’ve done at NU but here we are #greenscreenvideo
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