Teaching White Racism at Florida Gulf Coast University

One of the great and pervasive urban myths that circulates through large portions of the white American population is that racism is pretty much dead in this country. The logic goes this way, "Oh sure there are still pockets of it, but those hold outs are confined to a few crazy groups, like Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan."

There are several reasons for this. One, a lot of Americans of European descent would rather not talk about race relations because the nation's long tradition of racial repression makes them uncomfortable. They just want it to disappear from history, or in other, more warped cases, be able to deny it ever happened in the first place.

Along the same lines, the thinking is, yes, it was evil, but all of it ended years ago when black people were allowed to send their kids to traditionally white schools, eat at lunch counters with white folks, and drink from the same water fountain as us.  

Third, if you talk about it, many white Americans are forced to face the fact that at some point in their lives, they were fully functioning racists, but learned better. Or, even if they won't admit their past attitudes, they know in flashes of anger, or frustration, vile racist names and terms pop into their heads seemingly out of the blue. After those moments people, if they think at all, are forced to the realization the words came from someplace in their personal history. That's right, someone taught you what they meant and you just lashed out with them, even if silently.

No, it isn't as bad as it used to be, as anyone, like myself, born in 1950, can tell you. The election of Barack H. Obama was testimony to the progress that has been made. Conversely the Obama presidency also ripped apart the whole racism is dead fantasy. The entire birther movement reeked of it. So did many anti-Obama memes which showed up on conservative chat sites and in comments sections every where online. The one which immediately comes to mind was a cartoon that, on the surface, was an attack on the Affordable Care Act. It pictured a bare chested Obama festooned in an ostrich plume headdress, wearing a grass skirt, holding a spear, while sporting a large bone through his nose.

Yes, how non racist that was.

Skipping right past the whole white backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement and frantic legislative efforts to restrict voting rights, we come to one, Ted Thornhill. He is an Assistant Professor of sociology at Florida Gulf Coast University. This term he is teaching a class titled, "White Racism."

When word got out about the new course the reaction was swift and severe. Thornhill, who is African-American, turned over 46 pages worth of white outrage to CNN the other day.

Some of the messages were from parents who threatened to pull their kids and thereby their tuition money out of FGCU. Others wondered why it was called, "White Racism," when racism comes in all colors and cultures. At least one demanded he devote time in his class to black racism.

Those were the saner responses.

Others, not so much. CNN reports one email read, "Cancer (Stage 4) is what you and your family deserve for spreading hate, lies, and intolerance." Another said, "I would ask you to stop using the names Ted and Thornhill, as I feel you are using a cultural appropriation. Change it to Obongo Deviantray, you racist pig."

He also received messages calling him, "a pitiful little boy, a subhuman mongrel, and an alt left piece of shit."

Some other threats were apparently specific enough that Tuesday, the first day of the class, FGCU posted campus police outside the door of Thornhill's room. The Assistant Professor told CNN, "All that it takes is one person to act on their views. We've got to be cautious because you don't know what people are capable of."

Actually, professor, we know exactly what they are capable of. The presence of security at your door is not unwarranted.

Thornhill issued a written statement to CNN and other news outlets which read, "My White Racism course is not anti-white; it is anti-white racism. Clearly not all white people are racists; some are even anti-racist." He finished with, "However, all people racialized as white derive, in some measure, material and psychological benefits by virtue of being racialized as white."

If you think that last sentence isn't true, then you are delusional. And, yes, probably white.



Author's note: No, I'm not casting stones without sin.



sic vita est




1-11-18