As of Sunday morning, the “cultural appropriation” video showing a San Francisco State University campus employee harassing a Jewish student has been viewed 3,470,110 times on YouTube. It shows Bonnie “Bonita” Tindle lecturing Cory Goldstein about how his being white means he shouldn’t have dreadlocks, calling it “cultural appropriation.” At one point she grabs his arm as he tries to walk away.
Now SFSU is investigating the circumstances around the video. A spokesman for the university said that school police were called to the scene of the incident, which was captured on video last Monday afternoon. For one thing, the school denies the fact that Tindle is their employee. School spokesman Jonathan Morales confirmed that both individuals are students, but “are not San Francisco State University employees.”
“You’re saying that I can’t have a hairstyle because of your culture? Why?” he asked.
“Because it’s my culture,” she tells him, which makes one wonder if she absorbed any of the teachings of the civil rights movement, other than Black is beautiful.
“Do you know it was in Egyptian culture?” Cory argues “Are you Egyptian? Nah man, you’re not.”
“Are you Egyptian?” Bonita counters.
“No, but it doesn’t matter,” Cory insists.
“Where’s Egypt? Tell me,” she demands to know, meaning, naturally, that it’s in Africa, where she obviously has dibs on the hairstyles. Cory tries to walk away, but Bonita blocks him and hits his arm.
“You have no right to tell me what I cannot wear,” he says.
“Where’s Egypt?” she insists, stopping him physically from taking to the stairs.
“Yo, yo, stop touching me right now,” Cory says, a little anxiously—Bonita’s silent friend is standing close by. She mocks the Jewish student and grabs him by the sleeve to stop him from leaving, saying, “Come back!”
“Get off me!” he says.
She then makes an outlandish accusation that is belied by the video: “You put your hands on me—you’ll learn.”
“I don’t need your disrespect,” he says, pulls away from her and disappears.
At which point Bonita attacks the cameraman, demanding to know, “Why you filming this?” and blocking his view with her hand.
An SFSU student named Maddy Marie posted on Facebook that Goldstein supposedly made a derogatory remark using the B-word as Tindle tried to hand him a flier. Cory responded that, “Right before she handed me one she said, ‘Oh sorry we don’t want people with your hair here.'”
The video of Cory Goldstein describing the event from his point of view has had 435,944 views by Sunday morning.