Academics Call to ‘Challenge and Dismantle White Spaces’ Such as ‘Residential Neighborhoods’

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Sociology professors wrote an academic article mired in critical race theory (CRT), which calls for academics to resist, “challenge and dismantle white spaces,” including “residential neighborhoods.”

The article titled “Tearing Down to Take Up Space: Dismantling White Spaces in the United States” preaches the alleged need to “meaningfully transform white space” through resistance and disruption.

“We focus on two broad arenas of social space, one geographical (residential neighborhoods) and one institutional (education), in the hopes of generating more engagement from scholars of race and racism in conversations about policies that can meaningfully transform white space,” the article’s abstract reads.

It goes on to say, “We share experiences from the Systemic Justice Seminar and student activism at Harvard to highlight some innovative ideas about challenging, disrupting, and resisting white space.”

The academics also “encourage academic and public communities to continue exploring the best methods for deconstructing white space.” 

The article begins by bemoaning the protest on January 6th, 2021, citing it as a “logical end to a Trump presidency that was organized around a vocal politics of white grievance.”

“The empirical reality is that the United States is deeply structured by white supremacy and systemic racism,” the article claims.

The authors expanded on the alleged role of “white space,” writing:

White institutional, organizational, geographical, and cultural spaces normalize the existing racial order, enable white fantasy (ies) of complete dominion over place and space, perpetuate (global) anti-Blackness, and facilitate white entitlement to maintain coercive control over BIPOC individuals and communities.

They also discuss their aims, saying, “Our objective with this article is to begin a conversation about transformational activism and policy interventions that will challenge and, ultimately, dismantle white spaces at the organizational, institutional, and structural levels of U.S. society.”

The academics turned their attention to predominantly white neighborhoods, writing, “White residential/neighborhood space does a great deal of the work in the creation and maintenance of white supremacy in the U.S.”

One policy intervention that the authors propose are “policies that create mixed income public housing that specifically require racial diversity,” effectively creating racial quotas for housing. 

The authors also discuss the education system, writing, “The educational system in the U.S. is a major institutional force in the maintenance and reproduction of structural white supremacy.”

They also claim that “White ideologies and discourse are embedded within educational institutions in the United States,” despite Critical Race Theory, taking root throughout public and private K-12 education. 

The authors go on to favorably cite other academics who propose “ending seemingly race-neutral school choice policies.” They also refer to the school choice movement as being “based on (implicitly racist) neoliberal ideologies.”

“Race conscious, affirmatively remedial policies will be required to dismantle white institutional space,” the authors claim.

Another course of action they discuss is “deliberative hiring of BIPOC faculty and administrators into positions of institutional power and authority to lead meaningful institutional changes to all elements of educational space.”

The authors also cite other academics who “suggest that to promote greater hiring of faculty and administrators of color, colleges and universities should create material incentives for departments and colleges that hire underrepresented BIPOC candidates”

In addition, the authors even suggested further financially incentivizing leftist academic activism. “We suggest that colleges and universities must provide material support for racial equity work,” they write.

Throughout the article, they also contend that “white logics” have entrenched themselves in university curriculum, including in the physical sciences.

In addition, they also suggest activism as a tool to disrupt “white space.” The article reads, “Direct action, such as physically occupying space within white space to challenge the tacit whiteness of an organization or institution, is a powerful disrupter of white space.”

One of the authors, sociology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Connecticut Manuel Ramirez, earned a master’s degree from the University of South Florida where he “focused on whiteness at comic book conventions and the racial discourses and ideologies among cosplayers.”

Another author, Associate Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M Wendy Moore, specializes in research pertaining to critical race theory, as well as race, class, and gender. She teaches several courses, including on topics like “Introduction to Sociology,” “Racial and Ethnic Relations,” and “Critical Race Theory.”

David G. Embrick, an associate professor of sociology and Africana studies, is also an author of the article. According to his bio, he “has published on race and education, racial microaggressions, the impact of schools-welfare-and prisons on people of color, and issues of sex discrimination.”

The article from the trio is just one more example of anti-white sentiment in academia. Breitbart News previously revealed that an education journal published a call to “eradicate whiteness” and “send it to its grave.” The academic article claimed that “abandoning whiteness, destroying it, and sending it to its grave” was the “greatest act of love that whites can show.”

Breitbart News also revealed that a college of education department chair wrote an article called “Dead Honky” in which he called on educators to “commit to realizing the death of whiteness.” The author claims “whiteness is itself a violence.”

One article in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association described being white as “a malignant, parasitic-like condition” for which there “is not yet a permanent cure.”

In another instance, social workers received credit for attending a training called “Recovery from White Conditioning” that was hosted by the University of Minnesota. 

Meanwhile, colleges across America, including the University of Tennessee Knoxville, the University of North Texas, and the University of California San Diego, have hosted “White Accountability Groups.”

Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com

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