Amid investigation, white prof who went on racist rant doubles down: ‘Don’t want to be white’
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Rutgers University may be investigating James Livingston, the white Rutgers professor who went on a racist rant against white kids in a Harlem restaurant, but that hasn’t stopped him from expounding on — and defending — his viral rant.
What’s a brief history?
Livingston went on a racist Facebook rant against white kids and their parents at Harlem Shake on May 31 after visiting a Harlem restaurant.
The rant has since been deleted from his page.
The post targeted young, white children as “little Caucasian a**holes.”
According to the post, Livingston wrote, “OK, officially, I now hate white people. I am a white people, for God’s sake, but can we keep them — us — us out of my neighborhood? I just went to Harlem Shake on 124 and Lenox for a Classic burger to go, that would [be] my dinner, and the place is overrun with little Caucasian a**holes who know their parents will approve of anything they do.”
He added, “Slide around the floor, you little s***head, sing loudly, you moron. Do what you want, nobody here is gonna restrict your right to be white.”
“I hereby resign from my race,” Livingston concluded. “F*** these people. Yeah, I know it’s about access to my dinner. F*** you, too.”
Livingston later revealed that he’d received threats as a result of his rant, and has not publicly updated his Facebook page since Sunday.
As a result of his remarks, Rutgers University announced that they would be launching an investigation of the professor and his remarks.
A statement from the Rutgers University Media Relations department read, “There is no place for racial intolerance at Rutgers. This matter has been referred to the appropriate leaders at the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus, where Dr. Livingston teaches, to determine whether his comments violate university policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment.”
Additionally, the owners of Harlem Shake condemned Livingston’s remarks in a scathing statement provided to TheBlaze, noting that he is no longer welcome in their restaurant.
Jelena Pasic and Dardra Coaxum told TheBlaze, “For five years and counting, we built our business on a prerogative [of] cherishing diversity within our ownership, staff and customers in our beloved Harlem COMMUNITY. We refuse to be sucked into your racist rants, so if you wish to name drop, please use names of those with similar views.”
“We ask that our name is removed from your rant because we do not want to have anything to do with you,” the women added. “And yeah, we ask that you get your burgers somewhere else. We do not tolerate ‘racism’ either. We thrive on equality and fairness and have full intentions to keep it that way!”
What’s he saying now?
In a scathing rebuke against his critics, which was published on Politics/Letters, Livingston doubles down on his initial remarks.
The outlet describes Livingston’s racist diatribe as an “impassioned broadside on Facebook against gentrification.”
In his explanation, the professor claims that his offending remarks were a “joke” — which he meant to be “hilarious” — and goes on to detail threats he received as a result of his commentary.
“I’d be worried, and maybe even penitent, if I thought that ‘reverse racism’ — that’s what I stand accused of by the alt-right and their comrades among mere conservatives — was in the realm of reality, where we could measure its results,” he explains.
But he’s not worried, and he isn’t sorry, because he says such a thing doesn’t exist.
“Racism is the exclusive property of white, mostly European people in this part of the world … because such people were able to impose their will on 9 million Africans via a labor system called slavery,” Livingston writes, noting that even black people can’t be racist.
“Black people can hate white people, but you can’t call them racists unless they have power over you, and not just over you but your people, those white people you call your own,” he reasons. “Have black people ever been able to enslave you, degrade you, confine you, define you, as the consequence of your phenotype, as white people have done for centuries in oppressing, employing, excluding, and representing black folk?”
“If your answer is [n]o,” Livingston continues, “then, give up on calling me a racist.”
In the post, Livingston explains that white privilege actually is very real and very worrisome, and seems to suggest that those who don’t believe in white privilege are no better than torch-wielding KKK members.
“You want to think you never benefited from the color of your skin, and indeed that your beigeness has somehow marginalized you, socially and culturally, maybe economically,” he writes. “What a joke. On you. You’re ridiculous. You ought to be wearing white robes and burning crosses on your field of dreams, except that you send your hate mail via Apple watches.”
Livingston even goes on to attack TheBlaze itself — and other conservative outlets — for coverage of his remarks.
“These are uniformly right-wing publications driven by conspiracy theory, which makes them bizarre, stupid, strident, and extreme,” he says.
Then he attacks Trump supporters themselves, bringing up his hate mail once more.
“Still, we ought to remember that the alt-right that sent me its less-than-love letters, and that serves as Trump’s core constituency, is the logical outcome, not the embarrassing remainder, of the Republican Party’s ‘Southern Strategy,’ which it has pursued for a half-century,” he adds.
He concludes, “Me, I just say enough already with the code that tells us that white is the norm, the standard to which we must all adjust. I’d like to be free of its imperatives, and its permissions. I don’t want to be black. I just don’t want to be white.”
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