UT students and community members joined forces Tuesday evening to protest “bleach bombing” incidents that many believe were racially motivated.
Reports of bleach-filled water balloons being thrown at minority students have raised alarm in the UT community. The incidents seem to have all taken place near UT’s West Campus apartments.
Some members of the UT community claim that the attacks were not exclusively targeting minority students, but others point out that the most recent victims had been mostly African-American, Hispanic and Asian students. Different student sources who have come forward to The Horn, however, gave widely varied accounts of the bleach bombings, leaving much unclear about the attacks.
Nevertheless, this didn’t stop the anti-racism demonstration that took place Tuesday evening following an afternoon press conference on the issue.
“This is not 1960,” Chas Moore, a former UT student and current community activist, declared. “We are not going to be afraid to walk anywhere. We are not going back in time.”
The bleach bombs mark the second recent incident on UT campus where minority students have felt targeted. The university’s Greek community has recently come under attack for throwing racially-themed parties that were seen as offensive.