Controversial Drexel Professor Blames Texas Shooting on ‘Whiteness’

Controversial Drexel University professor George Ciccariello-Maher argued that the recent Texas church shooting was caused by “whiteness.”

Drexel professor George Ciccariello-Maher, who is currently banned from campus for incendiary comments he made following the Las Vegas massacre, argued in a radio interview that “whiteness” is to blame for the recent Texas church shooting. In the radio interview, Ciccariello-Maher explicitly blamed Breitbart News’ reporting on his Las Vegas comments for Drexel’s decision to ban him from campus. During the ban, Ciccariello-Maher is teaching classes online.

“You know, 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,” he said during his interview. “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.”

“Whiteness is never seen as a cause, in and of itself, of these kinds of massacres, of other forms of violence,” Ciccariello-Maher added, asserting that “whiteness is a structure of privilege and it’s a structure of power, and a structure that, when it feels threatened, you know, lashes out.”

In the interview, Ciccariello-Maher, argued that there is an “institutional apparatus” that teaches white men “in violence and that encourages them to feel as though they’re on the losing side of history.”

Ciccariello-Maher condemned Drexel’s decision to ban him from campus, arguing that college faculty are supposed to ask hard questions. “I’m currently teaching classes online,” he acknowledged, though he posited that “there’s no reason, certainly, to exclude faculty from campus for having important public conversations and for teaching about hard questions. That’s what we’re there to do.”