We have previously discussed how many professors seem to compete in finding new forms of racism in every facet of society and education. Astrophysics, math, runoffs, science, statistics, and meritocracy have all been denounced as racist. In this academic cottage industry, professors secure publications and speaking opportunities by identifying racism in expressions, images, or entire fields. Even time itself has been declared racist. Now, however, academics have found another undiscovered continent of white privilege: niceness.
When I saw a story in The College Fix on a study of “niceness as Whiteness,” I was skeptical and decided to take a look. The study by Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Research Fellow Abigail Beneke, Professors Benjamin Fisher (U. Wisconsin-Madison), F. Chris Curran (U. Florida), and Samantha Viano (George Mason) was first flagged by Dr. James Nuzzo.
The paper “Niceness as Whiteness in School Police Officers’ Perceptions of Student Arrest” addresses the “perceptions of arrest” by school resource officers, or SROs) in two school districts.
The officers appear to be precisely what you are looking for in an SRO: empathetic and reluctant to make arrests. The researchers admit that they try to avoid arrests. However, according to the authors, hidden behind those sympathetic approaches was, of course, a boiling caldron of racism in terms of the racial disparity of those arrested.
Indeed, the researchers realized that it was the niceness itself that was the evidence of oppressive “Whiteness.” Indeed, the officers may not want to be engines of racism and use “niceness” as a “coping mechanism,” but do so by deluding themselves and others that they are nice:
“Nice SROs did not want to arrest children. Nice police officers thought of themselves as well-meaning. Yet, they expressed being required to arrest children because of real or imagined mandates. They used niceness as a strategy for upholding a system of Whiteness that systematically privileges White people and excludes those who fall outside of Whiteness. Niceness hinders possibilities for the types of political, communal relationships central to authentic care.”
The paper makes it sound like everyone would be better off, or at least more honest, to return to hostile, racist-spewing officers. The reason is that niceness is an “enduring component of Whiteness” which “allows predominantly White people to elide how their own actions contribute to inequality by maintaining a sense of their own benevolence.”
The evidence of niceness includes such findings as how officers work at “minimiz[ing] the negative impact of arrest by highlighting their own goodness.” (This includes saying things like “You want to listen to the radio? You want the window down? Is there a station you want to listen to?” after an arrest.)
Then there is the fact that these officers have good relationships and perspectives of the students. Again, it is just a shield of “whiteness”:
“SROs used niceness as Whiteness in their recounts of arrest … by highlighting the positive relationships they had with students they arrested…As with highlighting their own goodness, highlighting these positive relationships reframes violence (i.e., arrest) that contributes to racial inequality as a positive, since students still like the SROs. This strategy emphasizes the officer’s ability to retain his niceness—by virtue of the maintained interpersonal relationship—despite having arrested the student.”
The paper is an example of ideological screeds posing as academic research. Based on a few interviews, the researchers simply declare the empathy and relationships to be shields perpetuating “whiteness.” They cite other studies identifying niceness as a whiteness tactic:
“Prior research has demonstrated how primarily White women educators use niceness to uphold Whiteness in their work with children (Bissonnette 2016; Drake & Rodriguez 2022; Gardiner et al., 2023; Vlach et al., 2022; Wiborg, 2022). We found niceness was also present in the work of SROs, suggesting the potential for broader application of niceness to well-intentioned actors working in structurally violent systems. In addition to framing niceness as a means of excusing behavior that upholds Whiteness, we equally center the structural binds that delimit SROs’ capacity for providing care. In doing so, we identify niceness as a coping mechanism for arresting children.”
At these universities (Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, George Mason, and the University of Florida), these faculty members and their obvious agenda are viewed as ideal choices to teach their students.
With four kids, I found the SROs at their schools to be extraordinary and popular figures. They would routinely intervene with kids to see if they were having trouble or try to direct them away from trouble. It turns out that everything that parents valued in their SROs was a perpetuation of privilege, according to these researchers.
While the researchers insist that “we do not intend to demonize individual SROs,” they reward the cooperating officers by twisting their every comment as revealing their deep white privilege. Presumably, they conveyed to the SROs that this would be a fair, unbiased study. It was neither, and, perhaps reaffirming their own triumph over racism, they were not a bit nice about it.
Right the wrong… SEND THEM ALL BACK TO WHERE THEIR ANCESTORS CAME.
Dear USA, the very fact that you feel the need to have police officers in your schools shows just how broken your society is…
This ‘Niceness’ is ‘Whiteness’ is just another repackaging of blackness-industry types to evade responsibility for crime and both personal and social immaturity that exist in elements of the black community (for a variety of causes such as insufficient parental – especially paternal – guidance and discipline, the lack of desire or will to embrace any sort of organized and disciplined life (or even self) and the valorization of rule-breaking).
To support this conceptual scamming, the vital and necessary discipline of social respect for others and a basic civic politeness are recast as MERE ‘niceness’, as if such vital habits were merely unnecessary or even dangerously self-suppressing characteristics and habits imposed simply in the service of imposing subordination on blacks by whites and thus – but of course and tah-dahhhh! – racist.
So too the virtue of ‘benevolence’, grounded in the presumption that each of one’s fellow (and sister) students are to be treated with dignity and well-wishing respect until the behavior of one or some demonstrates otherwise.
Once again, I would say, what we see with the scamming described in the above article demonstrates what has been for at least the past half-century as a standardized ‘modus operandi’: first you presume that whatever you’re looking it is ‘racist’, then you put together whatever bits and pieces of observation can be cobbled together to arrive at the ‘evidence of’ and ‘proof of’ – but of course – ‘racism’, as always and ever by white persons against non-whites. And the game goes on.
The study’s contents reflect confirmation bias. It relies on the naive and those who require proof to satisfy their DEI-driven argumentative nature, even though unbiased evidence was not obtained. The selection process in the study excludes important variables such as state laws and liability, so with the inclusion of confirmation bias, it fails from the start.
SM, what would an actual research methodologist say about this, someone with no stake in the politics either way? Probably a mixed verdict, and worth hearing both sides honestly.
So no, it’s not simply “two locations, therefore junk science.” It’s two locations, a framework applied instead of tested, and conclusions written a lot bigger than the evidence can carry. That’s the version of this critique that holds up under actual scrutiny, not just political pushback.
This sounds more like a Monty Python skit than an academic study. I can just hear John Cleese saying something in his snarky voice about niceness as Whiteness.
If the role of the government is to secure man’s right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness,
then the government should not be in the business of making enemy lists.
Doing so is not conducive to this role.
It is not an enumerated power in Article 2 of the Constitution.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/
“Now, however, academics have found another undiscovered continent of white privilege: niceness.” (JT)
The tribalistic claim that whites being nice to minorities is racist (aka “nice racism”) has been on the streets for some 20 years. Collectivist academics have just now turned it into a cottage industry.
Here are just a few of those (racist) on-the-street assertions of “racism:”
Compliments, using a light tone of voice (you’re just sublimating a harsh tone), noting shared values (e.g., music), opening a door, helping a distressed minority motorist, offering directions, saying “well said,” a party invitation (aka “tokenism”), saying “well done,” agreement, financial help.
And now we have American professors giving academic respectability to culture-wide racial animosity. Unless reversed, this does not end well.
As a great black orator and thespian once said, “What you talkin’ about Willis?”
This study like many others is just another excuse for why public education, including higher education is a complete failure.
The professors writing these studies are doing nothing more than protecting employment for public educators from kindergarten to college. The studies are nothing more than excuses for the failure of public education at every level.
Colleges did away with SAT testing to open the door for bilking millions more under educated and low IQ students and their parents out of large amounts of money, Leaving students with overwhelming student debt. They did so under the false pretense of racism, equity, and inclusion.
A large percentage of students entering colleges have sub-middle school educations. They are the perfect prey for colleges and professors to prop up the finances of the Colleges and protect professors lucrative employment.
Our public education system from K through college has failed. Young students take on large student debt only to get degrees that are useless or lack financial return.
Our public education system, with politicians leading refuses to except their failure. If they were to do so, their whole lucrative financial structure would fall. Unions wouldn’t get their dues, politicians wouldn’t get their kickbacks from the unions, and public educators wouldn’t retain their jobs.
the best thing we could do for both the students and their parents is exposed the failure of the public education system, and their scam to Profit from their failure.
“Niceness as Whiteness” is so true at the University of Texas at Austin.
From the Police Chief’s chain of command right down to the SRO Cadet, Niceness parading as Whiteness is the truth.
“The eyes of Texas are upon you” if you don’t fit into a congenial profile.
Like all Turley posts, this one is highly misleading. Being nice is not white privilege, but cops are using their “niceness” as a cover for their racism. “They used niceness as a strategy for upholding a system of Whiteness that systematically privileges White people and excludes those who fall outside of Whiteness.”
LOL
No shit! This is by far the stupidest argument put forth so far this year!
So, what about the minority SROs? I guess they’re racist because they’re “white adjacent”?
Is the indispensable right for liberals, too?
Here is what Trump is doing to free speech.
There should be a lawsuit against the Whitehouse.
This is like curtailing voting rights.
Here is the study abstract…
Yes folks that right, they went into this study with a clear critical race theory agenda which drove them to bias the study by “using a niceness as Whiteness framework”, everything is going to look rosy when you’re looking through biased rose colored glasses.
I take anything that Professors Benjamin Fisher (U. Wisconsin-Madison) is involved in writing as absurd social justice nonsense. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a social justice moron activist promoting critical race theory and DEI.
The following is from the University of Wisconsin…
Yup, DEI and critical race theory activists, don’t trust anything this indoctrinated hack is involved in.
Steve,
Thank you for posting that.
Further evidence how in some parts, higher-education has become even more absurd, i.e. Civil Society & Community Studies.
I’ve dealt with these “cops out of schools”, “school criminalization”, anti-discipline moron activists like Ben Fisher before, here is how actual conversations with these morons tend to transpire.
Politicians In A Political Bubble
Steve, the bio link is useful, worth separating from the personal shot at Fisher though. What it actually shows is that the “framework first” problem isn’t unique to this one paper, it’s consistent with how he approaches the subject generally. His own university describes his research as starting from the premise that school criminalization “disproportionately has negative effects on Black and brown students.” That’s the same structure we’ve been pointing to in the study itself: the conclusion is the starting premise, not something being tested. Worth noting on its own, no need for “moron” or “hack” to make the point land, the pattern speaks for itself.
OLLY wrote, “Worth noting on its own, no need for “moron” or “hack” to make the point land…”
You’re certainly welcome to your opinion on that.
Personally, I think when someone shows a pattern of being a moron or a hack, it really should be pointed out.
Steve, fair, you’re welcome to call it how you see it. My point isn’t that you’re wrong about the pattern. It’s tactical. If the bio quote already shows the framework first problem on its own, calling him a moron or a hack doesn’t strengthen that. It gives people a reason to focus on the insult instead of the pattern. The evidence does the work by itself. Add the label and you hand anyone who wants to dismiss the thread an easy exit. “Oh, they’re just name calling.” Instead of sitting with the actual quote and having to explain it away. I’d rather make the point too solid to dodge than give it a loose thread to pull.
OLLY wrote, “My point isn’t that you’re wrong about the pattern. It’s tactical.”
Now I’m going to be the Devils advocate and put a bit of spin to this…
So I may not necessarily be wrong about the observed pattern just wrong about being bluntly mean.
So as I see it now, my choices are:
1. If I’m “nice” I can be falsely tarred as a racist.
2. If I’m bluntly honest and point out observed patterns using descriptive word(s) some people won’t like then I’m being correctly tarred as being unnecessarily mean.
I choose to be correctly tarred for my actual actions instead of being falsely tarred as a racist.
How do you like my spin? 😉 😉 😉
Steve,
“Personally, I think when someone shows a pattern of being a moron or a hack, it really should be pointed out.”
Okay, that made me chuckle!
Well Jonathan, to a Hammer everything looks like a Nail.
I have no idea of the validity of the study, but based on the way Turley frames other issues and agrees with his findings. I suspect there’s a side he didn’t share. He’s describing niceness after an arrest, did there need to be an arrest in the first place? I’m happy that Turley’s children and one commenter never had problems with their children which is hardly the absence of racism. I have seen dozens of videos of Black/brown children being slammed to the ground by SRO’s and a highly disproportionate arrest rate from which the phrase “school to prison pipeline” originates. It is possible that some cases in the study are exaggerated, it’s also possible that SRO’s have learned to be nice after arrests in the same way they thought someone “reached into their waistband,” or “feared for my life.”
Have you watched an episode of Cops or the First 48?
Yeah, it’s those racist Cops s/