First, it was a video showing racism. Now this.
Less than a week after Georgia Congressman Mike Collins shared a video posted online that showed a man making monkey noises at a Black protester, the GOP lawmaker was at it again. This time, cracking an off-color joke about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. telling The New York Times doctors found a dead worm in his head amid a brain tumor scare.
“You either die a Kennedy with a hole in the brain or live long enough to become a Kennedy with a hole in the brain,” Collins posted to X, referring to the assassination of Kennedy’s uncle, former President John F. Kennedy.
Collins half-walked back his previous post that made headlines.
“Ole Miss taking care of business,” Collins wrote Friday on X with a link to the video showing a protest at the University of Mississippi that turned ugly when counter-protesters ridiculed the Black woman, including the man who jumped around making the noises.
Collins put out a statement Monday saying he doesn’t tolerate “any form of discrimination, racism or otherwise.”
The unidentified man was “removed from membership” Friday, according to a statement put out by Phi Delta Theta. The frat said, “The racist actions in the video were those of an individual and are antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta and the Mississippi Alpha chapter.”
Student journalist Stacey J. Spiehler shot video that showed campus police officers and the dean of students standing between anti-war protesters and hecklers. After the Black woman protesting the war had what appeared to be a heated exchange of words with several white hecklers, one of the men made the monkey gestures and noises at her.
About 76% of the university’s students were white and about 11% were Black in 2022-23, the most recent data available on the school’s website.
University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce said the school is committed to people expressing their views. He said some statements made on campus Thursday were “offensive and unacceptable.”
“Students were calling for an end to genocide. They were met with racism,” James M. Thomas, a sociology professor at the University of Mississippi, wrote Friday on X.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.
