Police stand guard outside Florida university class on 'white racism'

Something else to drive the cracker barrel snowflake boys wild.



(CNN)A Florida university posted campus police outside a sociology class titled "White Racism" after the professor was flooded with harassing emails and messages -- some of them openly racist.

"All that it takes is that one person to act on their views," said Ted Thornhill, assistant professor of sociology at Florida Gulf Coast University, in a phone call with CNN. "We've got to be cautious because you don't know what people are capable of."

Tuesday was the first day of class, and there were no incidents reported. But Thornhill's course has been creating headlines, and controversy, since it was announced last fall.

A course description says the class will "interrogate the concept of race; examine the racist ideologies, laws, policies, and practices that have operated for hundreds of years to maintain white racial domination over those racialized as non-white." It also aims to "discuss ways to challenge white racism and white supremacy toward promoting an anti-racist society where whiteness is not tied to greater life chances."




http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/10/us/white-racism-class-florida-gulf-coast-university-trnd/index.html

Uh oh...

This course got much easier to teach.

2seaoat wrote:This course got much easier to teach.

All they need do is read the White House tweets.

I had a professor at UWF in 2002 who stood in front of a diverse class and railed against affirmative action. He then asked members of the class to raise their hands if they were racist...and a few did. No surprise that they were all in the back of the classroom. I should have reported him, but I had too much going on at the time. Apparently, though, someone did. He was from Alabama. No surprise there either. Let me qualify that by saying that I have quite a few good friends from Alabama, including a family that were honorary aunt & uncle to my husband.

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EmeraldGhost wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:
I had a professor at UWF in 2002 who stood in front of a diverse class and railed against affirmative action.   He then asked members of the class to raise their hands if they were racist...and a few did.  No surprise that they were all in the back of the classroom.  I should have reported him, but I had too much going on at the time.  Apparently, though, someone did.  He was from Alabama.  No surprise there either.  Let me qualify that by saying that I have quite a few good friends from Alabama, including a family that were honorary aunt & uncle to my husband.  

Interesting post.  A few questions though if you'd care to clarify:

Anyone who disagrees affirmative action is good public policy is a racist?    

Did any non-whites raise their hand to the question?   Or did you notice their race/ethnicities?

For what were you going to report the professor?

What has any of this to do with anyone being from Alabama?

Is there any meaning to the part of your story that it was mostly people in the back of the classroom who raised their hands as to being racist?   Some kind of metaphorical back-of-the-bus? Racists prefer to sit in the back of rooms?  Or ?

I don't know whether it's relevant that all of the students who raised their hands were white or what the significance is that they mostly chose to sit in the back. This was a business marketing class. Almost all business courses require group work. I don't know how people function in that atmosphere when they're uncomfortable with people of other races/ethnicities...and how about the real world? I think racism is stupid. I think on some level people who are admittedly racist don't like themselves.

Oh, and the professor...he was stoking racism, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the course. And he tried to put me on the spot after making his remarks and query by asking me to respond to his poll. There were other reasons as well.

Floridatexan wrote:
 Almost all business courses require group work.  I don't know how people function in that atmosphere when they're uncomfortable with people of other races/ethnicities...and how about the real world?  

Nonsense.

I've done a lot of "group work" with people I didn't like. Some who I outright despised. And not because of their race/ethnicity.

I wouldn't automatically assume someone with racist ideas in their head shouldn't/wouldn't be able to work in a group with persons of other races>

EmeraldGhost wrote:

Telstar wrote:Something else to drive the cracker barrel snowflake boys wild.

Well, at least we know you're not racist.  

Is that the royal "we" or the opinion of the whole family?

I remember in a freshman english class where I wrote a paper on Mark Twain having outrageous racist views of native americans. My professor decided to take my paper and debate me in front of the class that Mark Twain was not racist and that Native Americans were animals. This was the fall of 1970 and I was appalled, but tore into her and almost made her cry in front of the entire class. I knew she was mormon as she had complemented me on a paper I had written on the murders in the Carthage jail and the forcing of the Mormons from Illinois by mobs. So I simply began to spew negative stereotype after negative stereotype about Mormons which the mobs believed when they killed the Smith brothers in the Jail. She finally after having an emotional breakdown in front of the class had a light bulb go off and realized that stereotypes can hurt and that simply having the mob agree with her opinion about native americans did not make it right, nor the fact that Mark Twain was considered a genius could his racism be excused. Racism is mostly about fear. I have spent a lifetime confronting the same, and I must say that to her credit she gave me an A, and asked me to take other classes with her. She even invited me to a faculty party where a history professor she was dating got all piszed at me about bury my heart at wounded knee which had just been written and which I was just attacking the revisionist history and entrenched racism of the faculty. I think he was more piszed because his girl friend was getting too friendly with a student.

2seaoat wrote:I remember in a freshman english class where I wrote a paper on Mark Twain having outrageous racist views of native americans.   My professor decided to take my paper and debate me in front of the class that Mark Twain was not racist and that Native Americans were animals.  This was the fall of 1970 and I was appalled, but tore into her and almost made her cry in front of the entire class.  I knew she was mormon as she had complemented me on a paper I had written on the murders in the Carthage jail and the forcing of the Mormons from Illinois by mobs.  So I simply began to spew negative stereotype after negative stereotype about Mormons which the mobs believed when they killed the Smith brothers in the Jail.   She finally after having an emotional breakdown in front of the class had a light bulb go off and realized that stereotypes can hurt and that simply having the mob agree with her opinion about native americans did not make it right, nor the fact that Mark Twain was considered a genius could his racism be excused.  Racism is mostly about fear.  I have spent a lifetime confronting the same, and I must say that to her credit she gave me an A, and asked me to take other classes with her.  She even invited me to a faculty party where a history professor she was dating got all piszed at me about bury my heart at wounded knee which had just been written and which I was just attacking the revisionist history and entrenched racism of the faculty.  I think he was more piszed because his girl friend was getting too friendly with a student.

So what's your point? That the way to fight racism is to spew negative stereotypes?

my point is that Trump's mother's domestic servant years should be discussed on TV and in the written media. He wants to say evil chit about others, we need to meet fire with fire. How many of your friend's mothers were a domestic servant? I mean, his mother came from very modest origins and worked just like millions of brown people worked, but she must have instilled a whole lot of our chit does not stink in his half developed mind as a child. Bring it up and discuss it in the national media. Not in a mean way, but a factual way that people of modest origins have built this country, and the few who then turn around and want to close the door to other immigrants.....they are despicable.

2seaoat wrote:my point is that Trump's mother's domestic servant years should be discussed on TV and in the written media.  He wants to say evil chit about others, we need to meet fire with fire.  How many of your friend's mothers were  a domestic servant?  I mean, his mother came from very modest origins and worked just like millions of brown people worked, but she must have instilled a whole lot of our chit does not stink in his half developed mind as a child.   Bring it up and discuss it in the national media.  Not in a mean way, but a factual way that people of modest origins have built this country, and the few who then turn around and want to close the door to other immigrants.....they are despicable.

Brilliant! They'll turn around and say millions of Irish, German and Italian immigrants came here, were discriminated against--Irish Need Not Apply and so on--and managed to succeed, so why haven't non-whites been able to?

I realize it's a specious argument but that's how it will be countered--they'll use it as evidence of white superiority.

Telstar wrote:

EmeraldGhost wrote:

Telstar wrote:Something else to drive the cracker barrel snowflake boys wild.

Well, at least we know you're not racist.  

Is that the royal "we" or the opinion of the whole family?

The former.