In June 2017 in the USA, a White woman sociology professor was fired for harassing a Black woman student. The student had merely questioned the logic of a quiz question about slavery, but this escalated with the professor challenging the student to present evidence to the class. She did a great job, and the professor retaliated with a series of threats on Facebook. This may seem like an extreme example of racism, but it’s only because the student went public. White educated people, including in sociology, hold an image of themselves that they can’t be racist, even though they reproduce racism in their teaching. I wrote about this at the time, and now reproduce my discussion of the abuse of power by this White educator and the concept of pedagogy in relation to racism.
White Supremacy in Sociology
