University of Oklahoma linebacker Eric Striker talked to CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday evening about how it felt to know that some of the students he calls his peers could be so nice in person and then turn around and say such horribly racist things when he isn’t around.
“These guys, some of them -- not all of them -- that feel this way [about black people] after the game … are smiling and taking pictures with us, shaking our hands, giving us hugs,” he said. “[And] the fact that some of them feel that way behind closed doors when we’re not around really hurts us.”
The junior linebacker joined Lemon to discuss a video that surfaced Sunday showing members of the school’s now-defunct Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) fraternity chanting “there will never be a n----- in SAE” over and over again.
Oklahoma has since announced the school was cutting off all association with the fraternity, effective immediately. "We vow that we will be an example to the entire country of how to deal with this issue," school president David Boren wrote in a statement.
Lemon also asked Striker about an angry and expletive-laden Snapchat video he posted in response to the chant.
“I was angered. I was outraged," he said. “I apologize for the profanity, but I’m not apologizing about how I felt because that's how I felt in my heart.”
The school’s football team has already been tangibly affected by the controversy as well. Four-star recruit Jean Delance announced on Twitter Monday that he was rescinding his commitment to the school, telling a CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth that the video was “very disturbing” to him.
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