Harvard's biannual naked fun run "Primal Scream" had a new feature this year, as a group of protesters attempted to get the naked and drunk students participating in the pre-exam tradition of streaking Harvard Yard before finals to delay their run for a "die-in" protest.
The Harvard Crimson writes that the attempted protest, which was led both by members of the Harvard administration and students, led to a chaotic exchange between Primal Scream participants and protesters.
The protesters felt "ignored and angered" by the Primal Scream runners, who performed a "U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A." chant in the middle of the attempted silence. This caused the protesters to break their silence, with a chant of "Silence, Silence, Silence," according to the Crimson.
The streakers eventually just ran the opposite direction away from the protests, and their fellow Primal Screamers followed suit, avoiding the call for a "die-in."
The U.S.A. chants bothered the protesters.
"For people to say black lives matter, and for the crowd to shout back ‘U.S.A.,’ which is upholding a system that is oppressing black people, I think that that is problematic," one of the protesters told the Crimson.
The school paper notes, however, that U.S.A. chants have been done before during the Primal Scream, and also that most of the runners did not even notice that a protest was being attempted.
Students noted to the paper that it was hard to notice the protest "because of the noise and nature of the gathering."