A video of an unknown man shouting racial slurs at IU students on campus began circulating Twitter on Sunday.
The man can be heard yelling “I’ll kill your children,” and “You’d better recognize who’s the majority around here,” in the 20-second video.
When freshman Alice Aluko saw the video on Twitter, she recognized the man. She said she was leaving class around 3:45 p.m. Thursday, walking toward the bus stop near Third Street and Indiana Avenue when she heard someone shouting.
She said she was the only black person of about 50 people waiting for the bus, and everyone was looking at her, seeming to know the shouting man was about to approach her, but no one said anything.
“It’s like they almost parted the way for him to come up and talk to me,” she said. “No one warned me, no one said anything to him before or after. No one asked me if I was okay after.”
She said the man got in her face and shouted “There’s a majority here! Do you understand me? Do you understand me?” repeatedly.
Two white men standing behind her started laughing, she said, and the shouting man walked up to them and said “You think it’s funny? You’re the ones who should care.”
Aluko said she heard similar stories from other black students later that night. A man approached them yelling racial slurs and other obscenities. No one warned them. No one asked if they were okay. No one called the police.
She said she was in shock when it happened, but what really bothered her was how she stood at that bus stop for about 10 minutes after the man left, and no one asked if she was okay.
“That makes me even more mad because I feel like they had the authority, the power to say something to him because they were all white, but no one did,” she said.
University spokesperson Chuck Carney said IU is investigating the incident from the video. He called the man’s actions in the video reprehensible.
“We’re going to find out what happened the best we can and do something about it.” Carney said.
Aluko said she reported the incident to the IU Police Department and they told her a few other people reported similar things, but they haven’t located the man.
She said the man was white and in his mid-to-late 30s, with well-groomed reddish brown hair and some facial hair. He was wearing jeans, a nice jacket and a plaid or flannel shirt when he approached her.
