A student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill described a recent incident in which a man, who she said was unaffiliated with the university, harassed and assaulted Black students on campus. The account was shared in a TikTok video posted by the user @gugunicole.
The video shows a young Black woman speaking directly to the camera. She said the incident occurred “last night at UNC Chapel Hill” and involved a man who “completely unaffiliated with the university came on campus and harassed, assaulted, and threatened the safety of numerous Black students.”
According to the student, the man “broke people’s properties, were pushing them around, following them around,” before entering a room where Black student organizations were hosting a watch party for the show “Love Island.”
Student describes man reaching into bag during confrontation
Inside the watch party, the student claimed the man “continued to be disruptive,” throwing objects and yelling “racist things.” She then stated that he “reached into his bag,” an action that caused panic among those present. “By the grace of God, he did not have a weapon, but that is such a traumatizing experience, having to run in fear for your life when someone you don’t know comes out of nowhere and starts spewing hate,” she said in the video.
The student criticized the university’s communication about the event. “And the worst part about it all is that students, me included, are finding this information out from other people who experienced this or from social media,” she stated. She added that “UNC Police released a statement saying that they determined that there wasn’t enough of an ongoing threat to release an Alert Carolina notification.”
“When you’re on campus and someone’s making racist threats towards you and you genuinely fear for your life, it’s terrifying to then go from there and try to figure out what’s going on on your own,” she continued. The student argued that the incident underscores a contemporary reality. According to the video’s creator, “Racism is not just something that we learned in history class. It’s not something that existed 30, 40, 50 years ago,” she said.
She described the impact on students, stating, “We’re still being made to feel like we don’t belong in certain spaces, and we’re still having to think about our safety in situations where we should just be able to be students.” She connected the event to the state’s past, saying, “And especially in North Carolina, given our history— when you know your history, things like this feel different because it’s not just something that you read in textbook. These are things that are actively happening.”
Student argues Black students should not have to leave campuses
According to the video’s creator, the student directly addressed a common response to racism at predominantly white institutions. “And let me just say, please don’t tell Black students who attend PWIs to just go to an HBCU. I don’t understand why the first solution to racism should be that Black students remove themselves,” she said. “I feel like we should be able to go to a PWI because we want to, or go to an HBCU because we want to.”
She concluded her video by outlining what she believes Black students deserve. “At the end of the day, every single student earned their place here, and every student deserves to feel safe here,” she stated. According to the video’s creator, “I’m not saying that UNC can prevent every single racist person from stepping foot on their campus. All I’m saying is that when Black students are scared and in fear for their lives, we deserve to feel like somebody has our back.”
“We deserve communication, we deserve support, and we deserve to know that our safety matters,” she insisted. “At the end of the day, it is unfair for Black students to have to pick between getting an education and feeling safe, because we all earn our place here, we all belong here, and we all deserve to exist here without being afraid.”
According to the video’s creator, the video’s caption reads, “Black students deserve to feel safe on the campuses we call home.” The post includes hashtags like #uncchapelhill and #racism.
Viewers of the video expressed their reactions in the comments section. One commenter wrote, “the university failed yall.” Another asked, “What is going on in North Carolina?” A third comment stated, “It’s the fact that UNC has YET to say anything about this!!!!” Another commenter remarked, “yeah in nc there’s been SO many attacks on black people recently we need to keep protection on us and stay vigilant.”
