Matthew Heimbach insists he’s not a racist. This comes as a surprise to his fellow students at Towson University, in the suburbs of Baltimore, where Matthew has formed a group called the White Student Union that advocates for “persons of European heritage” – what most of us call “white people”. It also comes as a surprise to the African American students who feel targeted by the night patrols the senior history major began conducting in March. The patrols target supposed “black predators”, Matthew wrote on the WSU’s website, citing (among others) a case in which an African American man pulled out a knife and his penis, and wagged both at a co-ed couple who were copulating in a parking garage. “White Southern men,” he wrote, “have long been called to defend their communities when law enforcement and the State seem unwilling to protect our people.”
We recently went to Towson to meet Matthew and his cronies, as well as the students who want him off campus… or at least muzzled. White Student Union is a documentary about race, class and self-righteous college students yelling at each other. It premieres Thursday, May 23, on VICE.com.
