A professor at Michigan State University (MSU) is now under investigation by the college after beginning his college writing class by slamming the Romneys and blathering about “old Republicans” who “raped” the country. Professor William S. Penn told one student that Republicans want “black people” not to vote: “If you go to the Republican convention in Florida, you see all of the old Republicans with the dead skin cells washing off them. They are cheap. They don’t want to pay taxes because they have already raped this country and gotten everything out of it they possibly could. They don’t want to pay for your tuition because who are you? Well, to me you are somebody.”
When a student made a face, Penn launched into the student: “You can frown if you want. You look like you are frowning. Are you frowning?”
Penn was a Distinguished Faculty Award recipient at MSU in 2003, and has won the Stephen Crane Prize for Fiction twice. In that vein, he said, “This country still is full of closet racists. What do you think is going on in South Carolina and North Carolina. Voter suppression. Its about getting black people not to vote. Why? Because black people tend to vote Democratic. Why would would Republicans want to do it? Because Republicans are not a majority in this country anymore. They are a bunch of dead white people. Or dying white people.”
Kent Cassella, a spokesperson for MSU, said, “At MSU it is important the classroom environment is conducive to a free exchange of ideas and is respectful of the opinions of others…We will be looking into it.”
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