A professor in Pennsylvania said ‘whiteness’ is to blame for the latest shooting massacre in Texas that took the lives 26 people.
George Ciccariello-Maher, a teacher at Drexel University in Philadelphia, made the comments during an interview with Democracy Now! on Monday, claiming ‘white’ entitlement’ was a factor in the killings.
‘Whiteness is never seen as a cause, in and of itself, of these kinds of massacres,’ Ciccariello-Maher told host Amy Goodman.
George Ciccariello-Maher (pictured right) said during an interview that ‘whiteness’ was to blame for recent shootings in Texas and Las Vegas
Ciccariello-Maher was placed on administrative leave from Drexel University due to safety concerns after blaming ‘Trumpism’ for Las Vegas shooting
The 38-year-old educator contends that ‘whiteness is a structure of privilege and it’s a structure of power, and a structure that, when it feels threatened… lashes out.’
Devin Patrick Kelley, a married father, walked into the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs last Sunday with tactical gear and an assault rifle, and began shooting.
The 38-year-old professor contends that the phenomenon arises in part from an institutional, social apparatus that trains white men in violence
At least 26 people were killed in the incident, including a two-year-old girl and the 14-year-old adopted daughter of the pastor.
Asked by Daily Mail Online what point he was trying to convey in the interview, Ciccariello-Maher said that ‘many white males are raised with a double sense of entitlement, since being both white and male are structures of power and dominance over (non-white and female) others.’
‘When that power is perceived to be threatened, as Donald Trump and other racist misogynists encourage people to believe, the results can be incredibly dangerous,’ he added.
Last month, Ciccariello-Maher was placed on administrative leave from Drexel University due to safety concerns after blaming ‘Trumpism’ and ‘white victimization’ in the days after a previous shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead.
Ciccariello-Maher, who now teaches online classes for the University, said the American people need to asking a simple question: ‘What makes white men so prone to this kind of behavior?’
In his estimation, the phenomenon arises in part from an ‘institutional apparatus that trains people in violence and that encourages them to feel as though they’re on the losing side of history.’
Ciccariello-Maher said the far right ‘jumps on any violence by people of color,’ but ‘doesn’t want to talk about the real deep structures of white supremacy in our society…not just the fringe, not just the Nazi movements, but what people are going through every day and what it is that is driving people to these kinds of situations, where they feel so entitled to dominance, that when that’s questioned, they can explode in these very, very unpredictable ways.’
The professor also said that the President represents much of the misguided anger peculating among white males in American society today.
‘Trump makes hay out of the fact that white men, in particular, feel as though they’re the victims of this society, despite being in absolute control of it,’ Ciccariello-Maher said during the broadcast.
The professor said that the President represents much of the misguided anger (Pictured: Devin Kelley)
‘And this is something that is powerfully dangerous, and it’s why we’re not seeing only the rise in violent attacks, more generally, and the rise of far-right movements, but we’re certainly seeing, you know, clearly, sort of some very serious incidents of mass violence, as well,’ he added.
Soon after news of Sutherland Springs massacre hit the airwaves, Ciccariello-Maher tweeted out the same message he posted to Twitter after the Las Vegas shooting, stating simply: ‘A White Man.’
This is not the first time the 38-year-old professor has found himself mired in controversy.
In 2016, he tweeted that all he wanted for Christmas was ‘White genocide.’
He was also heavily criticized after posting that he was ‘trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul’ when he witnessed someone relinquish their first-class seat on an airplane for a soldier earlier this year.
The incident occurred two days after American forces accidentally killed 200 civilians after bombing the Iraqi city.
Drexel University did not offer comment on Ciccariello-Maher’s recent interview.
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