Florida Professor’s Mention of ‘Black Privilege’ on Twitter Prompts Calls on Social Media to Fire Him
Calls to fire Charles Negy, a psychology professor at the University of Central Florida, recently resonated on social media among students at the school. The calls were prompted by his mentioning "black privilege" in tweets amid the nationwide demonstrations over George Floyd's death.
The professor has made his opinions known in the past. As author of "White Shaming: Bullying Based on Prejudice, Virtue-Signaling, and Ignorance," Negy's work asserts that white Americans and the white culture are often "under siege of a series of disobediences that range from colonialism to slavery, Jim Crow laws to racism, and from micro-aggressions to white privilege".
The professor has been very active on social media recently particularly on Twitter, since Floyd's death under the custody of Minneapolis police on May 25 and the demonstrations across the nation and elsewhere in the world.
A spokesman at the university confirmed that the profile on Twitter belongs to Negy. It appeared to be a reaction to the article Taki's Magazine posted on its page stating that the so-called "white elites" presently fantasize that they can use the "People of Color" flock out of young looters, as stated in the piece, "to overthrow President Trump" which, the article writer, Steve Sailer said, is "somewhat like in Ukraine in 2014 and in Geogia in 2003."
Negy, reacting to the article, said this in his Twitter post:
Asking a "Sincere Question"
Negy, in a separate tweet, also asked what he considered is a ''sincere question'' -- 'if African-Americans as a group had similar behavioral profiles to the Asian Americans', who are averagely performing the best scholastically, with the highest income and the lowest crimes committed, among others, would "systematic racism" be proclaimed as existent?
The psychology instructor, moreover, re-tweeted posts about the killing of Tessa Majors in New York City in December, and another post about a white woman who had reported to the police that a black man in Central Park had asked her to put a leash on her dog.
The professor continued to cite alleged instances of blacks treating the whites unjustly. In another instance, he claimed that this "is the most perverse and bizarre nation in the world where black teens needlessly stab a white college student to death, and no one cares."
And, he continued tweeting, when a black man is killed by a white person, the world, "comes to an end."
Negy's tweets and re-tweets had prompted a change.org petition that calls for the professor to be fired from the university which is based in Orlando where, the school said, almost half of the student population belongs to the minorities.
A "Pro-Black"?
In an email, the professor told NBC News that he is "pro-Black, pro-Hispanic, pro-Asian" and at the same time, pro-White.
He explained that in his mind, everyone is equal, adding that his belief and support for "the humanity of all ethnic groups" doesn't mean he should promote what he perceives as misguided and even "draconian" schemes by some political groups like the Black Lives Matter or BLM.
While the timing of his controversial opinions was probably poor, he said, his views did not refer to Floyd's brutal and sadistic murder. Instead, the professor wrote, he is addressing other issues he thinks needed to be discussed "if we're ever going to make progress on race relations."
Incidentally, late last month, the school had run a news article titled, "Now is Our Time to be Actively Anti-Racist." University President Alexander N. Cartwright also made a declaration on June 2 saying, "Our future is inclusion."
On Thursday morning, the school posted a statement on Twitter saying that being actively anti-racist means calling out and confronting comments that are racist. The statement also mentioned that the school is aware of recent personal Twitter posts by Negy which it considers to be totally counter to the values of the school.
The university said it is currently reviewing the matter more thoroughly while it remains mindful of the First Amendment.
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