The History of Cable TV

 The Greatest Lie Ever Told: HPUCR Club Blames Black Student Union for Distasteful Event

Written by: Starla Bamba

On the evening of Sunday, January 22nd, a High Point University College Republican club posted a movie event titled The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM. It was a documentary created by seemingly controversial activist Candace Owens where the film discusses more so how the money donated to the Black Lives Matter movement was used poorly. As you may or may not know, yes, there were some members of the BLM movement who took advantage of the money they were given to them, but let's not divert the entirety of the movement and label it as negative because of a few members. Of course, this event garnered so much attention from many students and created yet another divide between what is right and what is wrong. 

The HPUCR club's Instagram account shows how they do not push out a lot of content. This is important because this debuted event came out of nowhere. Thinking about the timeline, Martin Luther King day was on the 16th. The last post prior to their announcement of the event was the involvement fair taking place on HPU's campus. Is it not odd how they would post this event so out of the blue and a week after we had a day celebrating Martin Luther King? Many students had similar questions as well. This caused outrage, not just from black students, but from many students who believed this event was disgraceful. Their comments section started to flood: 

As you can see, I too made a comment expressing my outrage. I tried to my best to compose myself despite my grammatical error and the go-to-hell part. That was when the person behind the HPUCR account started to delete the comments, then turned off the comments, then deleted the post altogether. It was alleged that Student Life did not approve this event due to copyright issues with the documentary and they should not have posted this event in the first place. Was an apology issued to students who were affected? No. As of January 29th, they have not made one public statement since. So why am I writing this? Well, I think we should clarify a few things.

A fellow student named Caroline Peacock who is also a HPUCR member wrote a journal piece on this issue where she argues how their voices were not being heard due to the event shutting down. Another article was pushed out on the Daily Caller where writer, Alexa Schwerha, paints a narrative that it was black students and Black Student Union who threatened HPUCR. Interestingly enough, she included one of my comments in her piece. No, not the long paragraph explaining how dangerous this event was to the black community, but this:

Did I lack professionalism, yes, but I was spamming their comments section after finding out they were deleting comments. Delete this too f*ckers meaning delete this comment while you are at it. Either way, I did lose my cool. The problem was the article did not include all the comments where other students were writing lengthy paragraphs discussing the wrong of this event. Instead, they posted comments showing "angry black people" attacking them. 

No matter your political affiliation, there is a right and there is a wrong. The Black Student Union as well as other black students have created events to promote diversity and simple fun. HPUCR posted this event to provoke black students and play the victim when it came down to having accountability. If they wanted equitable dialogue about BLM and hold events surrounding BLM, why didn't they contact the Black Student Union club so there can be a consensus or mediator? Why hold an event discussing black lives and not include nor inform people who are knowledgeable about this topic if the documentary was not negative?

Semester after semester, black students at High Point University are affected by racism. You cannot provoke a community and become surprised when you receive backlash. You cannot use your political affiliation as a shield to justify your racist reasoning. Do you feel like you don't have a voice? When have we ever had one at this school? Just in November of 2021, we faced a similar situation:

Were our voices heard then? Was HPUCR just as outraged when students were saying threatening comments toward our community? We are not a punching bag to use whenever you want to stir the pot. You understand your privilege when you had people write only your side and feel attacked through it all. We all have collectively minded our business for this nonsense to continue. We are not done creating an impact on this campus. WE will continue to stand up against those who feel entitled to our space and culture. We will continue to stand against those who abuse their privilege and play victim once they don't get what they want. We will not stop being excellent for no one!