Professor who sent satirical 'white genocide' tweet calls it 'a figment of the racist imagination'

The Drexel University professor who about “white genocide” defended himself Monday in a statement to the university’s student newspaper The Triangle, arguing white genocide is a “figment of the racist imagination.”

George Ciccariello-Maher, associate professor of political science, sent a tweet Sunday that read, “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide.” Almost immediately, the professor received backlash—including death threats—for his tongue-in-cheek declaration. Sunday night, his employer responded to the tweet, calling it “utterly reprehensible, and deeply disturbing.”

Monday, Ciccariello-Maher dismissed his critics, calling white genocide an “imaginary concept” worthy of ridicule.

“For those who haven’t bothered to do their research, ‘white genocide’ is an idea invented by white supremacists and used to denounce everything from interracial relationships to multicultural policies (and most recently, against a tweet by State Farm Insurance),” Ciccariello-Maher said, referring to the vitriol levied against an ad by the insurance company that featured an interracial couple. “It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I’m glad to have mocked it.”

According to Ciccariello-Maher, white supremacists—beginning with Breitbart.com—used his words as fodder to harass him and his employer, Drexel University. “A coordinated smear campaign was orchestrated to send mass tweets and emails to myself, my employer and my colleagues,” he wrote. “I have received hundreds of death threats.”

Noting the university’s disavowal of his tweet, Ciccariello-Maher called Drexel’s reposes “worrying.”

“While upholding my right to free expression, the statement refers to my (satirical) tweets as ‘utterly reprehensible,’” he wrote. “What is most unfortunate is that this statement amounts to caving to the truly reprehensible movements and organizations that I was critiquing.”

Ciccariello-Maher went on to argue “that violent racism will now have a voice in the White House,” insisting he is “not the first and … won’t be the last to be harassed and threatened by Bannon, Trump and co.”

“White supremacy is on the rise, and we must fight it by any means,” Ciccariello-Maher concluded. “In that fight, universities will need to choose whether they are on the side of free expression and academic debate, or on the side of the racist mob.”