Black college student reports racist messages scrawled on bananas
The University of Warwick is investigating after a college student reported that her roommate had left bananas scrawled with racist graffiti in their living space.
The bananas, which were left for 19-year-old biomedical science student, Faramade Ifaturoti to find, had words like “monkey” and “n****r” written on them in black, and there was reportedly a picture of Donald Trump placed on the fridge.
“Just entered the kitchen and look at what one of my flatmates has done. I am extremely disgusted,” Ifaturoti wrote on Twitter along with an image of the bananas.
https://twitter.com/Faramade_/status/717350054294654977
https://twitter.com/Faramade_/status/717350636623421440
When first approached for comment, a Warwick official said that the school had no knowledge of the incident, but upon learning about the situation, a spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “The head of accommodation is personally investigating this complaint. It has been escalated instantly.”
The university said that it was investigating the incident, explaining that there were few students staying at the school during the Easter holidays but that a few were staying in the halls at the time the bananas were found. They also offered her new accommodations.
However, Ifaturoti expressed disappointment in the school’s reaction, calling them out for being slow to respond: “I’m highly disappointed that it took a Twitter escalation in order for you to respond.”
Since then many students have rallied around her to support using the hashtag #WeStandWithFara and gathered 1500 signatures for a petition demanding action.
https://twitter.com/MelanatedEntity/status/717382781496639488
In response to the incident, student newspapers from across the UK are also banning together to run a national survey about racism. The survey is “a collaborative attempt” to see how often incidents like these happen on campus and what universities do about them.
