Professor's tweets on whites, slavery spark outrage

theGrio REPORT - An incoming Boston University professor of African-American Studies has brought controversy to campus after a series of tweets many are calling racially intolerant.

TheGrio Staff

May 11, 2015

An incoming Boston University professor of African-American Studies has brought controversy to campus after a series of tweets many are calling racially intolerant.

Saida Grundy will begin teaching in July, but already, some students say they would think twice about taking her classes after a series of tweets putting down white people surfaced.

In the tweets, she called “white college males” a “problem population,” and said that “white masculinity is THE problem for America’s colleges.” Another tweet read: “Deal with your white (expletive), white people. slavery is a *YALL* thing,” while another said: “Every MLK week I commit myself to not spending a dime in white-owned businesses. And every year I find it nearly impossible.”

“If I’m hiring a professor, I want someone who can relate to all students, all groups of people from all walks of life,” said Ava Mack, a junior majoring in political science. “It just seems to me that she is just not able to do that.”

“BU is one of the most diverse schools in the country, and it actually has a lot of people who come from different backgrounds, and her tweets would just be exclusionary to a lot of those people,” said Mariia Yelizarova, a Ukrainian student studying sociology.

“You want to give students as much leeway to have their own opinion as possible, and I just don’t feel this would happen with her. If I was a freshman, and that’s the impression I got about our department, I would definitely change my major as soon as possible.”

Other students have defended the new professor. A student group called People of Color Coalition has expressed its support, and one member, Noor Toraif, a junior studying neuroscience and philosophy denied that the tweets were racially charged.

“I don’t think reverse racism against white folks is a thing,” Toraif said. “You need to have institutional and systemic power in order to be racist. People of color like Professor Grundy don’t have that. … I’m 100 percent supportive of her and excited for her to come to campus.”