'We Got to Take White People Out': NJ Professor Says White People Deserve 'Low Birth Rates'

Prof Brittney Cooper, 41, teaches classes on women's and genders studies at Rutgers University.

A New Jersey professor was heard saying "we've got to take white people out," during an online discussion on national backlash on Critical Race Theory. A professor at Rutgers University, Brittney Cooper, 41, made the controversial comment during an online discussion titled Unpacking The Attacks On Critical Race Theory with The Root's Michael Harriot on September 21. "Critical Race Theory is just the proper teaching of American history, " the prof said.

Prof Cooper further added that white people "didn't discover America" because indigenous people were already inhabiting the land. Referencing slavery, Prof Cooper noted that "it's not that white people don't know what they have done." She also added that while speaking to a white person, she has always noticed that they write off "all of this power" as a part of "human nature".

"The thing I want to say to you is, "We got to take these motherf*****s out," but like we can't say that," Prof Cooper said in response to a question from Harriot. She, however, noted that she "doesn't believe in a project of violence," before adding that she "thinks that white people are committed to being villains in the aggregate".

Prof Betty Cooper
(Screengrab) Prof Brittney Cooper The Root

'White colonialism'

Prof Cooper, called 'white colonialism' a "very inconvenient apocalyptic interruption of black and indigenous world-making."

"Despite what white people think of themselves they do not define the laws of eternity," she said. Prof Cooper stated that she "showed up" in this point of history "precisely so that we could help to figure out an end and a way to the other side of this gargantuan historical tragedy that is white supremacy".

White people 'deserve' low birth rates

"White people's birth rates are going down...because they literally cannot afford to put newer generations into the middle class," Prof Cooper said at one point during the discussion. "They kind of deserve it," she said with a smile. Shedding light on the importance of Critical Race Theory, Prof Cooper noted that it helps black people "'reclaim our own heritage, our own power, our own sense of the ways that our life-giving strategies". "That's why white people are afraid of us," she added. "Until they need us."

Who is Prof Brittney Cooper?

A Howard University graduate in Washington DC, Prof Betty Cooper teaches classes on women's and genders studies. According to Cooper's website, She also wrote three books, Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women, The Crunk Feminist Collection and Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower.

The Root Institute described the conversation as "a healthy dose of reality". Rutgers University has not commented on Prof Cooper's statements yet.

This article was first published on October 29, 2021
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