Public University Faces Backlash Over ‘Problem Of Whiteness’ Course

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Is there anyway you still have a contact there and could get your hands on a syllabus? Anybody? I'm sure it's on a computer somewhere..........

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Second, there isn't "reverse racism," there is just racism.

Agreed, I was just using their word.

Therefore, racism only is possible against minorities."

Nope, that's not what I said. Of course, ANYBODY can be a racist, against ANY other color or race. It's just silly to think otherwise.

It's weather or not it's Racism, or perceived racism.

^True, but again, we need to stop denying that some people have experienced it. Also, people ARE penning online and in articles some offensive statements about White people. This needs to not be excused. We can't excuse things just because one group has experienced more than another.

Fifth, you and others make these binary arguments in order to justify and not deal with topics like these such as double standards.

No. These arguments are used to show how White People, just perceive themselves as being the victims of Racism, when in fact, they are not.

^But this is the point we are making. SOME white people HAVE experienced racism. Do you think that some white boy who gets jumped in the wrong neighborhood for being white hasn't experienced racism? There are some white people who have been targeted.

Once again, please note my point that just because the system allows for oppression of other races here far more, does not mean it's not problematic nor that racism doesn't happen to white people. On one hand, you said that people can be racist against white people. On the other hand, you are not saying that whites can't be victims?

While claiming to be against stereotyping, prejudice, hatred, essentialism, based on race, magically people like you turn a blind eye as soon as someone does that towards Whites.

No I don't. The vast majority of white people will never actually encounter such things because they are white. Not in any serious fashion anyway. It does happen. Just not nearly as often as it does to minorities.

^which I noted. But again, why is it so hard for someone like you to say "yes, the system of oppression is stacked against minorities. However, we cannot accept it the times when someone else DOES say or do something prejudiced against whites. Double standards will divide our cause, not help it." Why is that so darn hard?

Sixth, when we refuse to look at the universal psychological roots of racism and oppression, we fail to guard against it happening in the future.

Correct, but White people will NEVER face that kind of institutionalized racism or prejudice. Either because it doesn't really exist on that level, or people like you and me will keep it from happening, by discussing it and bringing these ideas to the fore front.

^The problem is, is you assume that the tables will never turn. Looking at history, many many other groups have demonstrated institutionalized oppression of other groups. The Turks practiced institutionalized oppression of much of Eastern Europe, including colonizing Constantinople. White people HAVE before experienced such full power oppression, just not recently.

Second, note my example of Palestine. It is very dangerous to ignore all people's propensity for such in-group out-group bias and racism.

Noam Chomsky once said that the only way to kill racism, is to stop participating in it. If people want to cry racism and foul over the name of a university course then by all means go ahead, but it's a pretty big moot point in comparison to other things we could be talking about.

^I am not calling racism, I am calling out a double standard. Seriously, one way to move towards ending racism, prejudice, hatred, you name it, is we have to have a ZERO tolerance attitude. Justifying or ignoring prejudice or hateful statements, or double standards, isn't zero tolerance, it is hypocrisy.

~Tenth

A more appropriate title would be "The Problem With Majority". Racism and bigotry aren't diseases of white people they are diseases of the majority. White people are the majority in the US so the name isn't wrong or racist but maybe unnecessarily provocative.

That said, the majority should always be challenged especially when they are so oblivious as in the US.

originally posted by: ladyinwaiting
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Is there anyway you still have a contact there and could get your hands on a syllabus? Anybody? I'm sure it's on a computer somewhere..........

Good question, I probably could get it, as I have friends who are instructors there. But it would be a lot of effort lol.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

It's not a double standard. It's a societal norm that was created by some group of people, treating other groups of people like garbage.

For a very long time. So I see why, people would be more offended at a course titled:

"The problem with Blackness"

vs

"The problem with Whiteness"

It is technically, a double standard, but White people haven't really suffered any oppression, historically, on the level of minorities. It's part of the reason we called them 'minorities' in the first place, cause we were sorta trying to actively remove them all from the Earth at some point or another.

At the very least, turn them into our servants, either physically, mentally, culturally, economically, religiously etc..

And I also understand white people, being a little worried and even apprehensive about that kind of talk, because, let's face it, White people will be the minority in a lot of places, very quickly.

Nobody wants to think about what would happen if the it suddenly because Whites who were oppressed in all those ways by other minorities, or the newly formed majority.

And I'd be worried too, if I actually thought that there was some kind of popular, activist movement who sought to destroy whites.

But there isn't.

So all of this is mostly just 'reverse racism' talk, again, for faux outrage, by people who WANT to actively put race in anything and everything they do.

~Tenth

Plenty of whites were treated terribly for much longer than any other minority by whites.

Irish for example, who still persist to this very day, despite hundreds of years of the British empire trying to wipe them out.

By the way, they are called minorities because of population numbers...ie...whites are the majority in this country, all other races are in the minority.

How do you ignore these obvious facts?

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Yeah, I figured it was a lot to ask. Sorry. But the right person could just email it you, or send a link. I wonder if it's on their website? Or sometimes they will put a "course description" on the website.

Wouldn't that be convenient. : )

a reply to: infinityorder

Plenty of whites were treated terribly for much longer than any other minority by whites.

Yes and that's a moot point, because all people of all races have been oppressed by their own, at some point in history.

By the way, they are called minorities because of population numbers...ie...whites are the majority in this country, all other races are in the minority.

Most of these cultures existed as Majorities, before the imperial conquests of Europe.

How do you ignore these obvious facts?

I've not ignored any facts. We were not talking about inter-race racism, but of the kind where one race hates another.

~Tenth

This is a course designed for the none-too-swift to pump up their GPA's. It looks like a subset of "Black Studies" whose only apparent purpose is to perpetuate itself by producing professors of the same while ensuring athletes will be academically eligible.
Read their version of Mao's little red book. Repeat the dogma within, in chorus. Get a degree that is useless and realize that the system has failed you....yet again.

originally posted by: Kali74
A more appropriate title would be "The Problem With Majority". Racism and bigotry aren't diseases of white people they are diseases of the majority.

Racism and bigotry aren't diseases of the majority ... they are diseases of humanity.
Racists and bigots are found across all the races on the planet.

a reply to: Kali74

I agree with you, but out of curiosity, would you apply that same logic to South Africa, where the majority is NON-white?


IMO, it certainly should apply.

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: Kali74
A more appropriate title would be "The Problem With Majority". Racism and bigotry aren't diseases of white people they are diseases of the majority.

Racism and bigotry aren't diseases of the majority ... they are diseases of humanity.
Racists and bigots are found across all the races on the planet.

Truth. But this is a point we are making. That all people are capable of racism, and often do it. The difference by country really is who is in power.

That doesn't excuse any of it, by any means. But solving the problem means understanding it.

originally posted by: ladyinwaiting
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Yeah, I figured it was a lot to ask. Sorry. But the right person could just email it you, or send a link. I wonder if it's on their website? Or sometimes they will put a "course description" on the website.

Wouldn't that be convenient. : )

I'm sure it will be online at some point, course description that is. Because this is just a course in question, trying to contact people will be more effort than it's worth.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: infinityorder

Plenty of whites were treated terribly for much longer than any other minority by whites.

Yes and that's a moot point, because all people of all races have been oppressed by their own, at some point in history.

By the way, they are called minorities because of population numbers...ie...whites are the majority in this country, all other races are in the minority.

Most of these cultures existed as Majorities, before the imperial conquests of Europe.

How do you ignore these obvious facts?

I've not ignored any facts. We were not talking about inter-race racism, but of the kind where one race hates another.

~Tenth

Random question, which shows my lack of ATS skills. How do I do the multi-quote thing like you are doing?

a reply to: FlyersFan

True however it doesn't translate into much beyond interpersonal. Once in a while someone like Farrakhan comes along and whips up a lot of trouble but even then it still doesn't translate into what racism against a minority does.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Please Check Your Pm's

~Tenth

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Random question, which shows my lack of ATS skills. How do I do the multi-quote thing like you are doing?

Anytime you want to know how someone did something here, just "quote" the post, and you can see it there.

Just a tip someone else taught me.

Sorry for the OT.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

It is technically, a double standard, but White people haven't really suffered any oppression, historically, on the level of minorities. It's part of the reason we called them 'minorities' in the first place, cause we were sorta trying to actively remove them all from the Earth at some point or another.

Really whites haven't suffered oppression? Oppression is actually quite color blind. All that no Irish or no Italians was not oppressive? Or are you using faulty logic and lumping all people of African descent as being of one nationality? As for it just being a white thing, find out what a person of Chinese descent thinks of a white or black. That may be very enlightening. I was dating a Guyanese woman of Indian descent and let me tell you she would have made a KKK member proud with her views on blacks. Which was ironic considering how many blacks thought she was black, just because of the dark skin tone and kinky hair. The whole problem with this course go's beyond a poorly chosen title. It is the assumption the whites are the cause and reason for racism. Since a vast majority don't even know the actual history and more importantly recent history of the enslavement of Africans, we are going to get half truths that will be accepted as actual history.

originally posted by: Maverick1
a reply to: Kali74

I agree with you, but out of curiosity, would you apply that same logic to South Africa, where the majority is NON-white?


IMO, it certainly should apply.

South Africa is unique. I don't know enough of the nuances post-apartheid to give a fully informed reply. It's really difficult to make comparisons to most other majority/minority scenarios. In most other places, India for example, when the minority British rulers lost their power, almost all the British left beforehand.

I will say this though... there are white South Africans that do suffer because of racism but there are also black South Africans still suffering from the apartheid era.

The entire wealth of South Africa was stolen from its people and placed in the hands of a ruling minority. Black poverty is still massive because of it and European business still holds much economic power. It does seem though that now black South Africans have an advantage with getting out of poverty over white South Africans... most of whom had nothing to do with apartheid with some coming from families that fell in love with SA and fought too, to end apartheid.

Lack of equal access and opportunity and equality in law... are wrong period. I know that there's been a large number of white people murdered by black people who didn't agree with the new government that white people could stay, and there hasn't been much effort to get any justice... that is obviously wrong and a very clear "problem" with the majority.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

So what you are saying is it has nothing to do with the nazi class?

Shocking.

originally posted by: Quetzalcoatl14
That all people are capable of racism, and often do it. The difference by country really is who is in power.

There is a whole lotta' racism by people who aren't in power. Those not in power are just as racist as those who are. And white people aren't 'in power' in America. It's just people.