Prof calls diversity of thought ‘white supremacist b******t’

Professors at a recent conference hosted by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis reportedly called whiteness “inherently violent,” saying “diversity of opinion” is just “white supremacist bullshit.” 

The conference, held between May 31 and June 2, was organized by the Critical Race Studies in Education Association (CRSEA), an organization that frequently hosts similar events to bring together an “interdisciplinary consortium of experts who recognize global implications of race and education for minoritized people.”

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“As a community, we are committed to (1) countering and combating systemic and structural racism with scholarship and praxis, (2) recognizing the multiple locations of oppression and the myriad manifestations and effects of their intersections and (3) co-constructing liberating knowledge that facilitates collective agency to transform schools and communities,” the group describes itself on its website, a description supported by several attendees at its most recent conference, who quoted highlights from the event on Twitter.  

“Whiteness has already been constructed against blackness. There is no virtue in whiteness, it is inherently violent,” one conference-goer tweeted, referencing a quote from Michael Dumas, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who spoke at the event.

“Whiteness and the United States knows itself through the violence and death of the subordinated,” another attendee quoted Dumas as saying, with one academic at the conference noting Dumas claimed that there “is no position of whiteness that isn’t already violent.”

Dumas, notably, has expressed similar views in the past, tweeting that “whiteness” is “violent and delusional, delighting in Black death in every historical moment,” claiming at the recent conference that “there will never be anything close to justice in the U.S. because the system is built upon violence.”

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Other conference speakers, such as University of Illinois at Chicago Professor David Stovall, apparently called the term “diversity of opinion” “white supremacist bullshit,” saying “white tears are an act of physical and political violence.”

According to another attendee, Professor James Scheurich, who also teaches at Indiana University’s Purdue campus, claimed that “research” is a “colonial, white supremacist, elite process,” while Professor Theodorea Berry suggested that “some people need to be slapped into wokeness.”

Berry explained to Campus Reform that the “notion of being ‘slapped into wokeness’ is one where an individual comes to gain [a] level of understanding about others’ oppression by experiencing oppression,” saying this is “especially true for those socially marginalized” people “who subscribe to respectability politics.” 

”The proverbial ‘slap’ is the incident of marginalization,” she added. “The ‘wokeness’ is the realization that regardless of your privilege, marginalization can occur.” 

One attendee, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago, concluded her time at the conference by noting that she’s “happy” since she managed to collect “a few white tears.”

Campus Reform reached out to all of the professors quoted in this article, and will update it if and when responses are received.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter:  @JustinCaruso2

CORRECTION: This article incorrectly said that Prof. David Stovall was employed by Indiana University at Purdue; he is employed by the University of Illinois at Chicago. Campus Reform regrets the error.