MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

Aruna Khilanani labeled a 'cockroach' for hiding her tweets after getting the 'attention' she needs

Aruna Khilanani, after the outrage over her Yale lecture, said in a statement that she has received threats on her life and against loved ones

Dr Aruna Khilanani, the Manhattan-based psychiatrist who gave a lecture at Yale University where she reportedly fantasized of “unloading a revolver into the head of any White person that got in my way”, is protecting her tweets by turning her account private. It is unclear when she protected. 

In the online lecture, on April 6, titled “Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind”, Khilanani addressed medical students and faculty at the Yale School of Medicine's Child Study Center. During the talk, she said, “I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any White person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a f**king favor.” 

RELATED ARTICLES

Aruna Khilanani bombarded with 1-star ratings after ‘shoot whites’ Yale talk

Has Aruna Khilanani been fired? Calls grow loud to 'lock up' NYC psychiatrist in hospital

She also said that White people feel they are being bullied when people of color bring up race and described it as a “psychological predicament”. She said, “they feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain't gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It's like banging your head against a brick wall. It's just like sort of not a good idea.”

Following the 50-minute lecture getting published on Substack by conservative journalist Bari Weiss, the psychiatrist has received near-constant criticism and trolling. She was bombarded with embarrassing 1-star ratings. On social media as well, she has been found backlash. She also said in a statement that she has received threats on her life and against loved ones since the lecture was published. 

Following the initial outrage around her words, she issued a statement on June 8. She said then: “All of the press over the past few days have been about my metaphorical fantasy of killing White people. My talk has been reduced to a sensational headline and clickbait as a distraction - and it worked.” 

“When we [BIPOC people] get angry, they [White people] use our responses as confirmation that we're crazy or have emotional problems,” she said. I spoke metaphorically about destruction and creation, around having a new kind of conversation, capturing the difficulty of speaking about race. What was edited out of the headlines is that my speaking in this way about my frustration, was a method for people to reflect on negative feelings. Too much of the discourse on race is a dry bland regurgitation of new vocabulary words with a shiny certificate. We stay abstract and comfortable with no real change.”

Later, on June 15, in an interview with former CNN pundit Marc Lamont Hill, she said, “I think that there’s many lies… the level of lying that White people do that has started since colonialism, we’re just used to it.” She added, “Every time that you steal a country, you loot, you say you’ve discovered something. I mean, this level of lies is actually part of history. We don’t say that we killed all these people, we got rid of all the Native Americans, we say we discovered America. You don’t talk about the level of death. You don’t talk about the level of what actually occurred.”

Now, since she protected her tweets, Khilanani has received criticism (and trolling) for that as well. One person tweeted, “Dumbest people scream the loudest and then hide when they're done getting the attention they need. This is her,” in response to another tweet that said, “@aruna_khilanani so you think I'm a racist? You must have graduated last in your class. It's people like you who pour poison in the well of civil society. May your hate being you the karma you deserve.”

Another person tweeted, “It is funny you can have diarrhea the mouth about white people and your tweets are protected. You keep the world divided. You want hate.” One Twitter user wrote, “@aruna_khilanani I love that @prageru has exposed you and you now hide your tweets. You're like a cockroach — when light is shined on you you run and hide in the dark place you come from.”

While her tweets remain protected, Khilanani’s Instagram is not. However, her last post on the platform was on June 19. At the same time, she has limited people from commenting on her posts.