Black BYU Students Go Viral For Combatting Racism
A group of Black BYU students have gathered millions of views on TikTok for their interviews with other students on campus and videos about their experiences at BYU.
The account @blackmenaces has 204 thousand followers, with their most popular video reaching over 14 million views.
“We try to change the culture at BYU but also in the church, and bring awareness to the Black reality in majority white spaces,” Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, a sophomore studying Political Science, said.
The five students behind the Black Menaces started the account in early February after joking around together about the idea, according to Stewart-Johnson.
“It started very light-hearted. One day we were talking and we were like ‘let’s do this,’ and then on the spot I was like ‘lets make it right now,’ and then we moved from there,” Stewart-Johnson said.
Most of their videos are compilations of interviews with random students on campus. The Black Menaces have asked students if they have any Black friends, if they can identify Harriett Tubman and Malcom X or if they know whether it was a confederate leader or a prophet from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who said a specific racist quote.
The platform has received a mixed reaction, according to Kylee Shepherd, a junior studying Psychology.
“Mostly people will come up to us and say ‘oh my gosh, I love what you're doing,’” Shepherd said. “I don't look too much into the negative. I'll just stop reading comments or I won't read them at all.”
The account posts a new video every day, using prompts generated by the team, the TikTok comment section and other Black BYU students.
“In my four years I've been here I've been on a lot of committees, and sometimes it doesn't feel like my change is going anywhere,” Rachel Weaver, a senior studying Sociology, said. “But this TikTok really made me feel like I'm making other people aware of the reality of Black students. It makes me feel like I actually can make a change at BYU.”