VMI cadets attack Black students, women on anonymous chat app as furor over racism grows

Source: Washington Post

VMI cadets attack Black students, women on anonymous chat app as furor over racism grows

By Ian Shapira
10/27/2020, 8:00:00 a.m.

The cadets were angry, venting on an anonymous chat app widely used at the Virginia Military Institute.

The target of their rage: Black cadets and alumni who publicly detailed in a Washington Post story the relentless racism they had encountered at the nation’s oldest state-supported military college.

On Jodel — pronounced “Yodel” — the reaction from VMI students was filled with exactly the kind of bigotry that prompted Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and other state officials to order an independent investigation of VMI’s culture last week. On Monday, the school’s superintendent, retired Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, resigned, saying he’d been told by the governor’s chief of staff that Northam and other state legislators had “lost confidence in my leadership” and wanted him out.

While a VMI official assured Northam that “systemic racism does not exist here and a fair and independent review will find that to be true,” students on Jodel offered an unfiltered glimpse of the sometimes virulent atmosphere on the Lexington campus. The app, which does not require users to register by name, is popular at military colleges and service academies.

“I’m sorry but to the cadets (who) reported to the Washington Post you are the reason we are more divided. You decide to be a professional victim and bitch and complain,” one student posted. “Someone is making a racist joke. GET OVER IT. Comedians can make them. Why can’t I. Everyday in Crozet” — VMI’s dining hall — “black cadet(s) separate yourselves by sitting in the corner of crozet and sometimes acting foolish.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vmi-jodel-racism-cadets/2020/10/27/23d43d34-12f1-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html