Oct 31, 2016 — A video and a selfie shared on the social media app Snapchat are stirring more debate about race and bias on the SUNY Potsdam campus. They show white students who appear to be wearing black face. The administration initially offered a more innocent explanation, but then stepped back from that position. This is the latest in a string of racially charged incidents at SUNY Potsdam.

The video first surfaced last weekend, and was shared widely on various social media. It shows two young women in what appears to be black face. They’re in their dorm room, dancing, at one point twerking. A line of text reads, “You’re ruining culture.” But they are also seen dancing arm in arm to “the Chicken Dance.” The video could be interpreted as just students having a slumber party.

A selfie surfaced, too, showing a third white female student in cornrow braids and again what appears to be black face, flashing hip hop-like hand signs.

NCPR has seen both the video and the photo, but has not posted them publicly due to the age of the students involved.

After a preliminary investigation, SUNY Potsdam president Kristin Esterberg told the campus by email the students were actually wearing charcoal facial beauty masks, and their actions were taken out of context. But then Esterberg sent another email two days later. She “personally apologized” and backed off the facial mask explanation.

Esterberg was away on business Friday. Alexandra Jacobs Wilke, SUNY Potsdam’s spokesperson, spoke with NCPR in her place. "Since [the earlier emails to the campus community] there’s been more information that’s come to light that maybe could possibly bring into question the facial mask explanation," Jacobs Wilke said.

Jacobs Wilke said the school’s Bias Incident Response Team was continuing an investigation as of Friday, led by SUNY Potsdam's newly hired chief diversity officer. Regardless of the young students’ intent, Jacobs Wilke said the university takes seriously insensitive or stereotypical depictions of people. "We may never know truly what’s going on as far as intent in concerned. But at the end of the day we have to realize seeing these kinds of depictions is deeply offensive and derogatory."

The school held a community meeting about the incident earlier this week. Jacobs Wilke said a couple dozen students held a peaceful protest outside the administration building Thursday. "They held signs. They sang ‘We Shall Overcome’. It was a mostly silent protest."

Last year, several hundred students marched on campus and across Potsdam in a much larger protest, after a professor received three racist and homophobic hate letters in his office. A former student, Amjad Hussein, was indicted for the crimes last month. But many students who protested believed the administration didn’t act strongly or swiftly enough. The protests echoed others nationwide over race and bias on campus.

So the alleged black face video struck a nerve. Student Kirsta Brown participated in those protests and said the intent of the video was clear to her. "I see two girls who got to Potsdam, heard about the things that were happening before they got there, and decided to mock it because they thought it was funny, not truly understanding what their actions and behaviors were representing," Brown said.

Brown is studying to be a music education teacher, like many at SUNY Potsdam. She is currently student teaching in the Albany area but was back on campus earlier this week. She said the administration’s response to the videos was clumsy and not enough, and it upset her. "It makes me cry. You have all these future educators of tomorrow, and a majority of them are white, and you’re teaching them that it’s ok to put up with all these microaggressions and put up with black face? To me, that’s inexcusable."

In her most recent email to campus, Esterberg said, “regardless of intent, we do not condone the actions of these students.” Jacobs Wilke said Esterberg planned to meet with students who were protesting about the videos over the weekend.