Duke University professor of political science Jerry Hough wrote a long-winded and wildly racist comment on a
New York Times editorial piece about the Baltimore riots two Sundays ago. It stirred up some passions because Professor Hough is crazy racist.
Let me preface what follows with this: Professor Hough is not alone in his sentiments. He's not alone in the New York Times comment thread on this very story. He is a professor at a major university where he has worked for the last 40 years. Professor Hough, who was already on leave, has also said he planned on retiring (he's 80) next year. The thrust of his piece is the old racist tenet about how Asian immigrants are better than African Americans. Here are some highlights from his piece:
The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves.
But not Asian immigrants:
Just so you know whose opinion this is:
I am a professor at Duke University. Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.
Okey dokey, Mr. Science.
He goes on to say that Asians and whites have more interracial relationships and that this is because of "ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white."
Hough has responded to the outpouring of criticism in the New Observer:
“I don’t know if you will find anyone to agree with me,” he said in an email to The News & Observer. “Anyone who says anything is a racist and ignorant as I was called by a colleague. The question is whether you want to get involved in the harassment and few do. I am 80 and figure I can speak the truth as I see it. Ignorant I am not.”
I am not a professor of political science at Duke University but I can tell you this: saying you aren't a racist doesn't make you
not a racist.
Also, with Malcolm X's birthday being in May, Hough's sign off was as sophisticated as you might imagine it would be.
It was appropriate that a Chinese design won the competition for the Martin Luther King state. King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.
Duke University's response:
"The comments were noxious, offensive, and have no place in civil discourse," said Duke Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Affairs Michael Schoenfeld. "Duke University has a deeply-held commitment to inclusiveness grounded in respect for all, and we encourage our community to speak out when they feel that those ideals are challenged or undermined, as they were in this case."
In order to feel like you have the full context of Professor Hough's racism I've included the comment in its entirety below the fold. I've also added Hough's larger response saying that no one is saying he isn't telling the truth ... which is amazingly tone deaf and racist in and of itself.
Jerry Hough Durham, NC 10 days ago
This editorial is what is wrong. The Democrats are an alliance of Westchester and Harlem, of Montgomery County and intercity Baltimore. Westchester and Montgomery get a Citigroup asset stimulus policy that triples the market. The blacks get a decline in wages after inflation.
But the blacks get symbolic recognition in an utterly incompetent mayor who handled this so badly from beginning to end that her resignation would be demanded if she were white.The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves.
In 1965 the Asians were discriminated against as least as badly as blacks. That was reflected in the word "colored." The racism against what even Eleanor Roosevelt called the yellow races was at least as bad.
So where are the editorials that say racism doomed the Asian-Americans. They didn't feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.
I am a professor at Duke University. Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration. The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existemt because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white.
It was appropriate that a Chinese design won the competition for the Martin Luther King state. King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.
Here is Hough's larger response,
care of ABC 11:
"Martin Luther King was my hero and I was a big proponent of all the measures taken at the time, including Affirmative Action. But the degree of integration is not what I expected, and it is time to ask why and to change our approach. I am, of course, strongly against the toleration of racial discrimination. I do not know what racial intolerance means in modern code words and hesitate to comment on that specific comment.
"The issue is whether my comments were largely accurate. In writing me, no one has said I was wrong, just racist. The question is whether I was right or what the nuanced story is since anything in a paragraph is too simple.
"I am strongly against the obsession with "sensitivity." The more we have emphasized sensitivity in recent years, the worse race relations have become. I think that is not an accident. I know that the 60 years since the Montgomery bus boycott is a long time, and things must be changed. The Japanese and other Asians did not obsess with the concentration camps and the fact they were linked with blacks as "colored." They pushed ahead and achieved. Coach K did not obsess with all the Polish jokes about Polish stupidity. He pushed ahead and achieved. And by his achievement and visibility, he has played a huge role in destroying stereotypes about Poles. Many blacks have done that too, but no one says they have done as well on the average as the Asians. In my opinion, the time has come to stop talking incessantly about race relations in general terms as the President and activists have advocated, but talk about how the Asians and Poles got ahead--and to copy their approach. I don't see why that is insensitive or racist."