'Whiteness' to be blamed for Texas church massacre, says Drexel University professor

A Drexel University professor, who was under fire for tweeting "all I want for Christmas is white genocide" in December 2016, has blamed "whiteness" for the recent Texas massacre.

George Ciccariello-Maher made the comments during an interview with Democracy Now! on Monday (6 November). Speaking with host Amy Goodman, Ciccariello-Maher said that "white entitlement" was a factor in the shootings.

The 38-year-old was banned from the Drexel University campus after questioning why mass shootings in the US are almost always carried out by white men. During the show on Monday, he asserted that "this is a question that we all need to grapple with: When you see these cases of sort of mass—this shocking mass brutality, what is it that makes white men so prone to this kind of behaviour?"

The professor not only questioned white men, but also did not hesitate to bring President Donald Trump into the discussion and said: "Trump makes hay out of the fact that white men, in particular, feel as though they're the victims of this society, despite being in absolute control of it.

"And this is something that is powerfully dangerous, and that's why we're not seeing only the rise in violent attacks, but we're certainly seeing sort of some very serious incidents of mass violence, as well."

Ciccariello-Maher, who used to teach political science at the University, was invited to the Democracy Now! show to talk about the rise in attacks in the country, particularly the Texas church shooting. The gunman Devin Kelley had opened fire at First Baptist Church in Texas on 5 November, claiming lives of 26 people and injuring more than 20.

The educator, who currently only takes online classes, stressed that "whiteness is a structure of privilege and it's a structure of power, and a structure that, when it feels threatened... lashes out".

This is not the first time Ciccariello-Maher has raised eyebrows because of his comments. In October, after the Las Vegas shooting that killed 59 and injured at least 515 others, he had blamed extreme "Trumpism" and "white victimization" for the incident.

Just hours after the massacre, he had tweeted: "white people and men" will go on shooting sprees "when they don't get what they want".

Gunman Stephen Paddock had opened fire at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on the night of 1 October. It is believed to be the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.