Informative Article on Rutgers ‘Zoom Bombings’ by Aryan Doshi

 Informative Article on Rutgers ‘Zoom Bombings’

       Multiple Black Lives Matter programs were hijacked by racist individuals who sent messages and images to spread hate. Back Lives Matter is a social movement protesting against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence. Their message is an important one. Students at Rutgers have been supporting this movement through Zoom for COVID-19 precautions for Black History Month. The events had nothing to do with academics. They were organized outside of it. This first Zoom meeting was to discuss Black Leaders in America. The first report was by a fraternity leader by an Instagram post. The post stated that before the program began, the Zoom was ‘bombed’ and sabotaged the program. It went on to say that these criminals verbally used racial slurs and changed the name of participants to mock them. After the investigation, they concluded the individuals “began sharing their screen and playing the KKK’s famous theme song, which includes words such as ‘kill all blacks’ and ‘we will find you.” However, this was not the end of the horrendous events. They “put together a slideshow/video compilation which displayed extremely vulgar images of black people being murdered... all while laughing and spewing racial terror in the chat”. No one knows much about the group who orchestrated the attacks because it was online, and it was assumed to be “international activity.” Nonetheless, their intentions were clear. I believe it is evident that these horrendous people were trying to spread a hate message against African-Americans. In addition, they would have known in advance about this event to plan for it and create a plan. As a society, we can stop the message from being spread. These people wanted to spread hate, but if we disregard them, their actions become meaningless. Also, we can make sure the people attending the events are genuinely committed to the cause. This way, these events will not repeat. Fortunately, there is still an investigation going on to apprehend the criminals who committed these heinous acts. I have my faith in the multiple law enforcement agencies and the technology companies involved. This process is complicated, but I trust justice will be served. 

https://www.nj.com/education/2021/02/rutgers-black-history-events-disrupted-by-racist-Zoom-bombings-school-says.html 

https://www.insightintodiversity.com/rutgers-university-to-investigate-series-of-racist-Zoom-bombings/