Professor Blames Mass Shootings on ‘White Male Privilege’

Some opinions only get attention because they come from people with advanced degrees who make their living on the taxpayer dime. That’s certainly the case for Hugo Schwyzer, a history and gender studies professor at Pasadena City College.

He has a history of blaming white men for most of the mass killings that take place in the United States. Friday’s tragic shootings in Newtown, Connecticut gave him a great opportunity to spout his nonsense once again.

Less than 40 minutes after the events — while (woefully inaccurate) news was still breaking — he tweeted, “MEN committing acts of Mass Violence is an epidemic that the U.S. needs to immediately address!”

About 16 minutes later, he re-tweeted a statement that came from his children’s pediatrician: “If there is anybody on Twitter who thinks we do not need gun control, go f**k yourselves.”

Minutes later Schwyzer tweeted, “F**k You, Guns…”

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Back in July, just after the movie theater shootings in Colorado, he wrote:

“Are white men particularly prone to carrying out the all-too-familiar mass killings of which last week’s Aurora shooting is just the latest iteration? Is there something about the white, male, middle-class experience that makes it easier for troubled young men to turn schools and movie theaters into killing fields? In a word, yes.”

He then goes on to disprove his theory, by pointing out a Korean student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007 and a Muslim killed several people in Fort Hood, Texas.

But never fear, those psychotic criminals were also men, so that’s close enough.

{snip} Schwyzer has some professorial answers, paid for with your tax dollars:

White men from prosperous families grow up with the expectation that our voices will be heard. We expect politicians and professors to listen to us and respond to our concerns. We expect public solutions to our problems. And when we’re hurting, the discrepancy between what we’ve been led to believe is our birthright and what we feel we’re receiving in terms of attention can be bewildering and infuriating. Every killer makes his pain another’s problem. But only those who’ve marinated in privilege can conclude that their private pain is the entire world’s problem with which to deal. This is why, while men of all races and classes murder their intimate partners, it is privileged young white dudes who are by far the likeliest to shoot up schools and movie theaters.

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