The White House on Tuesday criticized sharing of the video of University of Mississippi students mimicking a monkey to harass a Black protester at the college’s pro-Palestine protest after GOP Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) shared it on social media.
The video, which went viral last week, showed a group of white men dancing and yelling at a Black woman who was protesting. Collins, who shared it on the social platform/ X, has since said he understands the video might have some “potentially inappropriate behavior.”
When asked about Collins sharing the video, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized the idea of sharing it.
“It’s beneath any person to be sharing that video. Its beneath any elected official or leader to be sharing that kind of material. The action in that video is beneath who we are supposed to be,” she said.
Additionally, Jean-Pierre called the behavior captured in the video “undignified” and “just racist, period.”
“What we saw in that video, it certainly is sickening, it is sickening,” she added.
Ole Miss opened a conduct investigation Saturday into the incident, with Chancellor Glenn Boyce saying the counterprotesters’ chants and actions Thursday contained “hostility and racist overtones.”
And the Ole Miss fraternity Phi Delta Theta removed a member who was accused of mimicking a monkey in the video.