A Nottingham Trent fresher has filmed people chanting “we hate blacks” outside her room
Rufaro Chisango, who is the only black student on her floor in halls, tweeted a video of the racist abuse.
Two male voices can be heard chanting “we hate the blacks,” “oh, ah, fuck the blacks” and “sign the Brexit papers.”
https://twitter.com/rufarochisango_/status/971452205181161472
The incident took place on Monday night, Rufaro said another chant not recorded was “blacks would go back to picking cotton.”
A female voice can be heard arguing with the men telling them to “leave her alone.”
Rufaro posted the video to Twitter on Wednesday night, claiming she had contacted Nottingham Trent University about the incident but was yet to hear anything back.
She said: “I’m the only black person on my floor and they were chanting this outside my door so don’t be surprised why I didn’t leave my room.”
“I want to highlight how serious this is and if I had broken their [the uni’s] table or anything they would have dealt with it straight away but not this.”
At the time of writing the tweet Rufaro said she had not heard from the university, despite reporting the abuse and being told it would be dealt with on Tuesday morning.
Just before midnight on Wednesday night Nottingham Trent University said via a tweet: “We are investigating this as a matter of urgency.
“We are taking this extremely seriously and do not tolerate behaviour like this.”
We are investigating this as a matter of urgency. We are taking this extremely seriously and do not tolerate behaviour like this.
— Nottingham Trent University (@NottmTrentUni) March 7, 2018
Nottingham Police tweeted Rufaro: “Our team will be able to take the details of this incident and see what can be done.”
Good evening. If you’ve not already done so, please can you give us a call on 101 to report this.
Our team will be able to take the details of this incident and see what can be done.
— Nottinghamshire Police (@nottspolice) March 7, 2018
Labour MP David Lammy also replied to Rufaro. He wrote: “Please contact the Police and your Member of Parliament and cc me in. All my love and solidarity.”
Please contact the Police and your Member of Parliament and cc me in. All my love and solidarity.
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) March 7, 2018
JOE have approached Nottingham Trent University for comment. They have since tweeted the following statement: “We are shocked and appalled to see the video of racist chanting posted yesterday evening. This kind of vile behaviour will not be tolerated at NTU. Those suspected perpetrators have been suspended immediately pending a full investigation.
We have contacted the student who made the complaint and are providing support to her and others affected. And we are liaising with the police about this incident. We value being a diverse global community, with staff and students from across the world.
We are also working with our accommodation partner to understand why the University was only alerted to this on Wednesday evening after this was reported to them in the very early hours of Tuesday.
