A video clip of White members of the Virginia Tech women’s lacrosse team singing along to Lil Dicky’s song “Freaky Friday” has made its rounds on the internet. The song features Chris Brown and conceptually tells a story of the two entertainers switching bodies. Lil Dicky, who is a White rapper, asks if he can say the N-word when he becomes Chris Brown for the day. The players can repeatedly be heard singing along and using the slur as Chris blurts it over the song.
Since the upload of the video the team’s coach, John Sung, has referred to it as “a teachable moment.”
In an interview with The Roanoke Times, Sung said, “It’s not something that we’re proud of. The team is very apologetic and sorry.” Sung, who is of Korea descent, continued, “There’s nobody of any color that should say it. Period. There’s nobody that should say it.”
Sung suggests that this time can be used to for the team to be “educated to make better decisions.”
“They’ve got to know what’s socially acceptable, and I think they’re learning all those things. It’s a lot on me as the leader. People forget—I’m a minority.”
Since becoming aware of the video, Sung and members of the Virginia Tech athletic department met with the team. Sung insists they were enjoying music and made a “bad decision” as they are good kids.
“We are engaged in conversations with the campus community to share our sincere apology,” Sung said in the statement. “We have confidence that the team will learn from this mistake and understand that these actions reflect poorly on our program and do not represent the values of our program or the principles of the university.”
There has been no mention of whether the team will face disciplinary action for using racial slurs.
