A member of the “Black Menaces,” a group of Black Brigham Young University students who regularly share on social media video interviews with white classmates, said that a university staff member confronted him while he was conducting an interview last week and that a classmate harassed him immediately afterward.
Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, a senior studying political science at the university in Provo, Utah, said he was recording an interview with a student on Sept. 19 when a BYU staff member approached and told him to immediately desist or else she would call 911.
After the argument, he said, the woman left. It was not clear whether the staff member called 911, but Stewart-Johnson said he never heard anything else from her or the police.
After the incident, he said, he was followed by another student, who had been recording him before the confrontation with the staff member. The student continued to follow him for 15 minutes, Stewart-Johnson said, and stood in front of his camera operator during interviews in an attempt to obstruct recording.
In a video shared on the Black Menaces’ social platforms, Stewart-Johnson, 23, is seen asking the student following him whether he felt it was OK to follow people.
“Yeah, especially you guys,” the man responds. “You guys are the worst piece of journalism I’ve ever seen.”
The Black Menaces is a group of students at BYU who interview fellow students on camera about race, faith, equity and political topics. Members said in April 2022 that it was created to highlight the challenges that come with being a person of color on campus, where only 1% of 34,000 students are Black. BYU is a private university affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
BYU’s filming and photography policy says people or businesses cannot record on campus for “promotional marketing, commercial, advocacy, or similar purposes.” That extends to anyone recording work that generates income through ads, music sales or other means. Stewart-Johnson said he does not make any money off ad revenue on Black Menaces’ videos.
The policy also says people “may take video and photographs for personal use that are unobtrusive, are in keeping with other campus policies, and do not interrupt campus programs, classes, or activities.”
The Cougar Chronicle, a conservative student-run newspaper that is unaffiliated with the university, posted on Instagram that its editor-in-chief, Jacob Christensen, was the man following Stewart-Johnson and that he was encouraged to do so by the unidentified staff member. Neither the Chronicle nor Christensen responded to a request for comment.
“It was irritating me a lot, because I’m a Black person who goes to this campus. There’s not much for me to do to protect myself,” said Stewart-Johnson, a senior studying political science.
The Black Menaces’ social media posts received national attention last year, and today the group has more than 700,000 followers on TikTok.
In an Instagram video posted from his car shortly after the interactions with the faculty member and the student, Stewart-Johnson said he believes the incident wouldn’t have happened to a white student conducting similar interviews. He said he felt so frustrated and unsafe after the incidents that he left campus. He said he didn’t return for two days.
Todd Hollingshead, BYU’s media relations manager, said that he didn’t have much information about what happened and that the university’s Office of Belonging reached out to Stewart-Johnson to talk about his concerns.
“We want to help all BYU students feel a sense of belonging and community on our campus,” Hollingshead said in an email.
Stewart-Johnson confirmed that the Office of Belonging reached out and that he ended up filing a report with the office, but he said he doesn’t “really have much trust in them.”
Stewart-Johnson said that after having taken a week off recording after the incident, he resumed recording Tuesday.
“I was very lucky that multiple people came up to me to say sorry,” he said.
Why are any of them at BYU? Why are you supporting the Mormons if you’re black? Don’t you know their history? I don’t get it. I know it says 1% are black, but it should be 0%.
There were jews who supported the nazis. Tons of minorities vote for the republican party.
The human motivation to be accepted into a tribe is strong and even when the group you’re trying to join actively works against you, there will always be someone who justifies it and continues on.
Not just their history but their scripture too. 21-24 have some interesting things to say about non-white people.
Manipulation, propaganda, deception, among other things. Mormons have been known to be extremely persuasive and pretty bad at guilt tripping people to join there ranks in there cult.
Also privilege And forced into it. Can’t leave the church when all your family friends who you need to have in order to live will disown you and potentially be without a community or (because of dorms) housing among other things.
Isn’t it the best school in the state?
They should get the fuck out of Utah before some Mormon cop tries to stop them.
Yes, because undergraduate students of color famously have access to the money and resources they need to enroll in out-of-state universities and move long distances across the nation.
I mean… Utah State exists and it isn’t a private Mormon school…
It’s a public Mormon school.
If you’re seeking higher education as a person of color, there are universities ready to just throw money at you to get you there. I say this as a former black student myself, the opportunities are available and BYU has got to be the absolute worst possible option for anyone who isn’t white and likely Mormon.
Attending BYU is a major disservice to any person of color because university is about both traditional education and also social education. One would be better off delaying education until better options present than attending that school. It isn’t like being black and going to Yale or something, or being white and attending an HBCU. It’s like attending The Himmler School for the Advocates of Anti-Semitism and as a Jew and being surprised that there are so many bigots on campus.
Segregation wasn’t ended by having black teens pick a worse school to avoid racism
Segregation isn’t voluntarily choosing to not go to a Mormon university when you’re black.
I think you know there was a lot of fear, from legit cases of violence following the first instances of black people integrating some spaces, pushing a pervasive self-censoring from the end of segregation onwards, this is what I meant though it “ended” in one on paper
Huh, I just checked US News and World Report, and they not only rank BYU higher than U of Utah but also list tuition as being cheaper than the public flagship universities.
I’ll be damned. Probably by the Mormons.
BYU is always on the racist/sexist side of things, along with a large chunk of the population there. Check out Utah’s demographics from census.gov:
- White alone, percent - 90.0%
- Black or African American alone, percent - 1.6%
- American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent - 1.5%
- Asian alone, percent - 2.8%
- Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent - 1.2%
- Two or More Races, percent - 2.9%
- Hispanic or Latino, percent - 15.1%
- White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent - 76.7%
For BYU, while the share of White students is overall lower compared to the state, there is an even smaller share of Black students, with the Dept. of Education reporting 0% Black students (this doesn’t mean there aren’t any, but it shows how few Black students there are):
- White alone, percent - 81.0%
- Black or African American alone, percent - 0.0%
- American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent - 0.0%
- Asian alone, percent - 2.0%
- Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent - 1.0%
- Two or More Races, percent - 4.0%
- Hispanic or Latino, percent - 7.0%
- White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent - 81.0%
Growing up in Utah, it’s like you’re in a bubble. Barely any diversity, the Church controls the government, and behind-the-back racism and discrimination is the norm. It’s a state I’m very glad I was able to escape.
Yeah with any situation in Utah or with Mormons can always be counted on to be really racist. It might have something to do with how incredibly racist Brigham Young was even in the context of his time.
Good point. He wasn’t just a 19th-century guy living with 19th-century values. He was worse.
He’s like Lovecraft un the sense that other people made note of it.
What else did you expect from BYU?
Good example of a Black Menaces videos: https://youtu.be/2c_LlE30wAs
They have a lot more on Tik Tok. They are absolutely worth watching/supporting.
Okay, their name is actually offensive, because that is easily the LEAST menacing YT street interview video I’ve ever seen. I’m not being hyperbolic at all, it’s not even close. Even for Mormons, they were polite. POLITE BY MORMON STANDARDS.
Mormons aren’t that polite. It isn’t polite when it is overtly fake
If this was anywhere but BYU I’d assume they were being a public nuisance. Really wish it wasn’t so normalized/accepted to accost people for videos or really anything in public. Sales, signatures w/e.
