The editorial board for Auburn University's primary campus newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman, released an opinion piece in response to the list of white racial slurs leaked from a group message titled "AU Connect."
1819 News reported on the leaked list earlier this month. We spoke to Auburn student Jaden Heard, who initially received the list, as well as several screenshots of the group chat, from a member of Auburn's Black Student Union (BSU). The individual claimed that the group chat contained current members and alumni of the BSU and even members of the BSU executive committee.
Further, he claimed that the whistleblower said the chat had either been deleted or he had been kicked out since the Google Doc was leaked.
The document, titled "Creaker Names," contained seven pages of a single-column list of racial slurs. 1819 News obtained a copy of the document from Heard. According to Urban Dictionary, "Creaker" is another word for "cracker," used particularly when referring to an old white man.
The list included names such as "failed abortions," "diseased neanderthals," "untamed beasts," "sugar sardines" and more.
In an email to 1819 News, a university spokeswoman said that the group message in question was not the official group message of the BSU. Though the group message is titled "AU Connect: Brought to you by The Throwdown" and contains an Auburn logo, as seen on the screenshots obtained by 1819 News, the spokeswoman also said that the group "includes hundreds of people from multiple universities."
The spokeswoman stated that the university's Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Employment is investigating the matter.
Heard initially reported the leaked information to Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a conservative campus organization that published a short article about the findings.
In the editorial, The Plainsman's editorial board insisted that racial slurs against white people did not carry the same weight as racial slurs against black people and encouraged readers to ignore the outrage over the incident and, instead, focus on honoring Black History Month.
"It seems that, for the most part, everyone is in agreement that a Google document of 'anti-white racial slurs' is in no way, shape or form the same as the historic systematic and structural racism that has produced the type of racial slurs Black people have had to endure for centuries," the editorial read. "...Instead of spoon-feeding our readers all of the ways that this incident is not at all comparable to if the opposite were true, The Plainsman encourages our readers to remember the importance of Black History Month and engage in events that recognize it."
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email will.blakely@1819news.com or find him on Twitter and Facebook.
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