Black students call out racism at A&M

Joseph Collins was headed to his summer job on Texas A&M’s main campus in early June, taking the walk he does every day, when a car slowed beside him.

A white man, who appeared to be around Collins’ age, stuck his head out of the car window and yelled an expletive and the Nword. Collins, an African American man and a second-generation Aggie, was taken aback.

“I haven’t had any bad experiences (at Texas A&M) until that incident,” said Collins, who reported what happened to university police.

The flagship at College Station, located in a rural setting, has long struggled with a reputation of not always being a welcoming place for African American students. The campus, nicknamed “Aggieland,” is predominantly white, with Black students making up only 3 percent of the student body and on the decline. Surveys have ranked its student body as among the most conservative in the country.

Four years after students and alumni took to social media to publicize racist comments, such concerns are coming to the surface again. They were sparked by the killing of George Floyd, an African American man who died in the custody of Minneapolis police, and nationwide protests about police violence toward Black people.

Hundreds of A&M students and generations of alumni have shared their experiences on social media using hashtags such as #RacismAtTAMUFeelsLike and #hateisthehiddencorevalue.

Last month, Infinite Tucker, a student and hurdler at Texas A&M, posted a video in which he said he was peacefully protesting the presence on campus of a statue of Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross, a Confederate general who went on to serve two terms as Texas governor