Viral Video of Monkey Noises Outside Black Students' Apartment at Ole Miss: 18-Year-Old Apologizes and Withdraws as University Investigates
A 13-second doorbell-camera video recorded on the evening of November 6 has been viewed more than 12.9 million times on TikTok: three white women walk past the apartment door of University of Mississippi student Jakiyra Metcalf, who lives there with two other Black students, and two of them beat their chests and make monkey noises and gestures toward the camera before walking away laughing. Metcalf posted the video and tagged the university; the women in it live upstairs in the same building, a student housing complex leased by the university.
Shawnboda Mead, the university's vice chancellor for student affairs, issued a statement on November 8 condemning the behavior in the video as offensive, hurtful and unacceptable, and said the university's student conduct and equal opportunity offices had opened an investigation and confirmed that the women are students at the school. Comparing Black people to monkeys has a long racist history in the United States, and such gestures are widely regarded as a slur; in May 2024 a student at the same university was filmed making monkey gestures at a Black student during a protest and was later removed by his fraternity.
On November 10, Alaina Kunes, the 18-year-old freshman seen making the gestures first, issued an apology through her attorney. She said that before the incident she had never met the women involved and was unaware of their race, while recognizing that her actions were insensitive, inappropriate and deeply harmful. A spokesperson for her attorney confirmed she has voluntarily withdrawn from the university and was neither suspended nor asked to leave. Online users then tied her family to a Wisconsin car dealership, which came under fire on social media. Metcalf and her two roommates spoke to local media on November 11 about confronting the trio outside that night; no one has been criminally charged, and the university investigation is continuing.
Source: University of Mississippi
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：密西西比大学位于 Oxford 校区的 Lyceum 大楼（资料图）。CC BY-SA 3.0，经维基共享资源 / The Lyceum building on the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford (file photo). CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
