reposted from revcom.us
On the morning of September 11, multiple historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) across the South received racist threats against their campuses. The threats caused the schools to go on lockdown and call on students, faculty and school workers to stay away from the campuses. The lockdowns were lifted later in the day, but a number of campuses cancelled classes for the rest of the week out of caution.
The schools reporting receiving threats were Alabama State University, Hampton University (Virginia), Virginia State University, Southern University and A&M College (Louisiana), Bethune-Cookman University (Florida), and Clark Atlanta University. A number of HBCUs that did not directly receive threats, including Spelman College in Atlanta, also locked down or increased security measures out of caution.
The exact content of the threats made against the HBCUs has not been made public. But according to the Washington Post, the threatening letter sent to Southern University “reportedly contained racist language and a reference to the recent fatal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte [North Carolina]. A homeless Black man with a history of severe mental illness has been charged with her murder.” A threat received by another HBCU had almost the same wording. The murder of the Ukrainian woman, which took place in August, has been seized on by Trump as further justification for fascist crackdowns across the country in the name of “fighting crime” and “restoring law and order.”
These threats against HBCUs—clearly intended to stoke fear and terror—came just a few hours after Donald Trump went on national TV from the White House to blame the “radical left” for the assassination of fascist agitator Charlie Kirk. As the statement at revcom.us on Kirk’s assassination and Trump’s distortions points out: “Trump has been joined in this stance by a unified chorus coming out from the fascist ranks—with major fascist spokespeople like Steve Bannon, Fox News host Jesse Watters, and Alex Jones all calling this ‘war.’ It is clear that, at this point, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is being seized on by the fascists to put all those who oppose them on the political defensive; to rally the MAGA-fascist troops to their banner; and to create the basis to do far worse highly repressive moves.”
One of the key things at the core of Trump/MAGA fascism (including what Charlie Kirk spread on campuses and the media) is undisguised racism and white supremacy. Under the banner of getting rid of “wokeness” and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), the Trump fascist regime has moved quickly from day one to demolish any and all attempts to reform the blatant discrimination, segregation, exclusion and erasure of Black and other oppressed people in this country, and bring back the overt racism and harsh and open discrimination that characterized all aspects of life in the U.S. until just 60 years ago. Kirk himself took blatantly racist stands such as denouncing the 1964 Civil Rights Act—which addressed some of the glaring inequalities against Black and other oppressed people—as a “mistake” and an “anti-white weapon.” He mocked Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as a “diversity hire” and made depraved statements belittling Black people such as, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”
In the context of everything we have described above, these threats are ominous attacks and need to be taken very seriously.