It was mid-December and I had just finished the first semester of my Sophomore year at Whittier College. I had made the flight from Whittier, California to my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland and was excited to be reunited with my friends and family for the winter break.
A few of my friends and I decided it would be fun to create a Tinder Social group and match with other groups around the area. For those of you that don’t know, Tinder is a dating app. It not only functions as a way for single people to meet other singles in their area by swiping on or away from their profiles, but it also has a “social” feature which allows you and your friends to, as a group, match with other groups for parties, concerts, or any other type of event you could think of. Most people use the social aspect of the app just to talk with other people (it’s honestly very entertaining.)
The group was made up of three of us– myself and two of my white friends. One of my friends in the group was still traveling back from New York University at the time so I wasn’t too surprised when we matched with a group of four students from Cornell on December 19th. As soon as we matched, I got a notification from the app saying that we had received messages. I opened the app and read two messages from a girl named Kristina in the chat. They said, “Hi losers!” and “Feelings on trump?” At first I was surprised. However, I soon remembered that in my Tinder biography I had clearly stated, “If you voted for Trump please swipe left" in an attempt to ward off people who clearly didn't care about my existence from matching with me. I imagined she was a supporter of Trump and so I didn’t respond assuming the conversation would become lengthy and pointed. In fact, none of my friends responded. I assumed that that was that and that I would move on with my life. However, I was wrong.
Four days later, I received four notifications from the app saying I had received messages. I opened the app and my jaw dropped. The first two were harmless. One of the boys in the group named John messaged, “Lol” followed by, “@Detrick honey I’d be swiping left anyway.” The third message came from a different girl, named Sarah. It said, "F**kers." While I did feel uncomfortable at this point, I wasn't yet disturbed. The fourth message was what actually shook me. The girl, Kristina, who had initially started the conversation had messaged us, “NIGGERS.” Considering I was the only person of color in the group I knew that her words were pointed at me. I knew that they were meant to hurt me. I immediately began to wonder what had possessed her to say that?
Being gay and black, I had had my fair share of racist encounters in the dating world. The LGBTQ community is notorious for being racist and prejudiced when it comes to their queer brothers and sisters of color. However, most of the encounters I had had were on Grindr where users often provide little to no information about themselves. This wasn't Grindr. It wasn’t an anonymous online forum or a private group chat. Her pictures, hometown, University, sorority, Spotify account, etc. were all readily available through the app. She wasn’t a faceless account behind a computer screen. She was on the app as herself. She had called me a nigger knowing (and not caring) that I knew who she was.
It only took me a quick Facebook search of her first name to find her account. Her name was Kristina Thoren. She was a Research Intern at the Hurricane Research Division at AOML/NOAA, she was a Junior studying Atmospheric Science at Cornell University and she was a member of the Kappa Delta sorority's Cornell chapter. Annoyed, agitated, and shocked, I took screenshots of the entire conversation, her profile on Tinder and her Facebook profile and started to type. At 11:48pm that night I posted this,
"Today I was on Tinder Social in a group with a few of my friends. In my biography among other things I have 'If you voted for Trump please swipe left.' Today, we matched with a group and I was met with this response. I did nothing to prompt this. I didn't react to the first five replies, but the last one made my entire body numb. I have never met this woman. I have done nothing to her, but yet she thought it was okay to call me a nigger. There is so much racism and hatred in the world and we can see it o much more clearly in the aftermath of this past election cycle. Kristina, sweetie, your racism is showing. #KristinaThoren @Kappa Delta Sorority @Cornell University"
I posted it thinking nothing serious would come of it, however, I should have known how powerful social media was. Even having been posted so late, within hours it had received hundreds of shares, likes and comments. Friends I had who attended Cornell started tagging their friends in the comments, people I didn't know were sharing the post and I was receiving texts and Facebook messages from people telling me to reach out to the University about what happened.
As I was rapidly checking my Facebook updates, I received another message from Tinder. It was from the same group. I quickly opened it. It was from the boy in the group, John. It simply read, "Oh shit." I made sure to screenshot it, and as soon as I did the entire group disappeared. Even stranger, I did a quick Facebook search and Kristina's Facebook profile had also disappeared. I figured that she must have seen my post and that I'd soon receive an apology from her that would also ask me to take the post down. That's not at all that happened.
Within 30 minutes of receiving that message between 5-10 members of her sorority were messaging me on Facebook claiming that her account had been hacked and literally begging me to take my post down. They told me that their sorority was looking into the matter and that they took claims like this very seriously. They also told me that Kristina wasn't racist and that she would never say something like that. When I pointed out to them that her Spotify account was connected to her Tinder account and that in order for her account to have been hacked the hacker would have had to have access to her Facebook, Tinder and Spotify accounts I was met with dismissive responses. Obviously, I wasn't buying it. I went to sleep that night at around 2am. By that time the post had received close to 1000 shares and likes and around 500 or so comments.
The next morning I woke up to friends texting me saying that my post had received close to 1.5K shares. I was overwhelmed. I opened my phone and tried to open Facebook, however, I couldn't. For some reason, I was immediately logged out. I tried to log back in and was met with a notification telling me that my account was temporarily suspended. I was furious. I couldn't respond to messages, post or even view other posts on the app. I was completely locked out. So, of course, I took to Twitter.
I logged into Twitter and searched 'Kristina Thoren' to see if anyone had posted about the incident already. Sure enough, someone had. And of course, I responded to his tweet. Afterward, I drafted my own tweet addressing the issue and demanding that Cornell University take action. Of course, Black Twitter did its thing and began RTing, Liking and Quoting my post tagging both Cornell as well as Kappa Delta demanding some sort of action. For so many of the people demanding action, this was personal. Too many college students within marginalized communities feel the effects of discrimination and racism on a regular basis.
I could write for another page or two about the events that followed including how both my institution as well as Cornell University contacted me about the incident hoping to resolve it as soon as possible, how the student in question had the audacity to privately message me and continue to lie and say that her Tinder account had been hacked (even though her personal Spotify account was connected to it), how her dad tried to contact me on LinkedIn, how family friends of hers messaged me on Twitter and Facebook defending “the girl they knew,” how her friend from Cornell who was in the Tinder group liked tweets making fun of me on social media and then protected his account when I called him out for it, how some of her sisters in the Kappa Delta chapter at Cornell continued to berate me with messages begging me to take down my posts about the incident on social media, how I received over 10 death threats, many of which called me a nigger, faggot, etc. and how ultimately the girl in question is still a member of her sorority and, to my knowledge, had no actions taken against her by Cornell, however, while important, that is all beside the point.
The point is that on December 23rd I received a message on Tinder from a student a little older than me attending one of the most elite and prestigious universities in the world calling me a nigger. Her friends in the group chat, who attended that same University did not know me but rather than correcting her or calling her out, they stayed quiet and later on supported her behavior. Universities and College campuses are not these progressive safe havens void of racism that America all too often makes them out to be. College campuses and Universities can house some of the most racist and prejudiced behaviors. Sadly, many of these Colleges and Universities do not take the necessary steps to protect their most vulnerable students from such behaviors. I was lucky in that my College took every measure to ensure both my mental health as well as emotional health, offering resources, counseling, etc. Cornell University, on the other hand, failed..miserably. Not only did they fail me as a student dealing with verbal violence on behalf of one of their students, but they also failed their many students of color who watched this unfold on social media and saw their University do absolutely nothing. They didn't write a statement, they didn't issue a punishment (to my knowledge) and they didn't offer any type of way to address issues such as this in the future.
It is too often that schools, like Cornell, who pride themselves on being the best of the best, falter when it comes to actually protecting the mental and emotional well being of their students, who, oftentimes sacrifice so much to be there. It is wrong, it is immoral and we must demand that this trend within institutions of learning changes. Universities, with their actions, must continuously send the message that prejudices of any kind are not tolerated within spaces of learning. We're not asking for anything unreasonable. We're just asking our institutions to do what's right. Students of marginalized communities should not have to worry about being targeted on college campuses, let alone wondering whether or not their institution will protect them.
