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Who is Sam Richards? Penn State prof shames White student for privilege, Internet wants resignation

Netizens want sociology professor Dr Sam Richards at Penn State to resign for telling a White student about his privileges over any other Black student

A professor recently made headlines for picking an "average White" student from a crowd of 700 and claiming he has an inherent "benefit" over any Black student, no matter his behavior. The video of the incident, uploaded to YouTube on June 30, 2021, shows the timestamp of the recording as January 2019. Identified as Dr Sam Richards, the professor is now the focus of ample social media scrutiny for attempting to demonstrate systemic racism. Some have even gone on to blame critical race theory for this far from usual interactive session with students

News of Richards' odd illustration comes after New York City shrink Aruna Khilanani earned major internet flak for saying in a Yale lecture that she has fantasies about shooting White people who get in her way. Another Iowa State professor was faced with similar social media criticism for saying she limits her conversations to White people as far as possible. Another California professor was dubbed pseudo woke for chastising a 19-year-old student for idolizing cops. Incidentally enough, in Richards's case, the white student wasn't the only one he pulled up. He also picked a Black student from the crowd and asked the white boy to reflect on his privileges as someone with white skin tone.

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Who is Sam Richards?

The Penn State University professor is now being slammed on Twitter for the way he chose to demonstrate privilege that white students enjoy. In the video of his lecture at the Pennsylvania school, Richards can be seen approaching a section of students, claiming: "I just take the average white guy in class, whoever it is, it doesn't really matter," before he makes his random selection. "Dude, this guy here. Stand up, bro. What's your name, bro?"

Richards asks the student, continuing: "Look at Russell, right here, it doesn't matter what he does. If I match him up with a black guy in class, or a brown guy, even... who's just like him, has the same GPA, looks like him, walks like him, talks like him, acts in a similar way, has been involved in the same groups on campus, takes the same leadership positions, whatever it is... and we send them into the same jobs, Russell has a benefit of having white skin." Richards' demonstration also saw him pull up a Black student just moments before he picks Russell. With the Black student, he picks another White kid and point-blank asks the latter what he thinks about the privilege of being White. "Bro, how does it feel knowing that [when] push comes to shove your skin's kind of nice?" Richards confronts the student, who then answers: "I don't know, it makes me feel sad."

Twitter demands Richards's resignation

The video was also shared on Twitter from an account called Mythinformed MKE, which noted in the caption how "Critical Race Theory pedagogy teaches the same lessons to k-12 students. This is why it does not belong in k-12." While this lecture was given to a college class, it matches the sentiments of critical race theory, which has become extremely controversial, with the far-right calling for, and some even successfully banning the introduction of the concept into school curriculums. Twitter users are of similar sentiments as most are demanding Richards resign from his post as an educator at Penn State. 

"When is Dr Sam Richards going to resign his position to a black professor due to his white privilege?" a user tweeted to the official Penn State twitter account. Others slammed the students for sitting through this lecture in the first place, tweeting: "Students at @penn_state need to get a backbone and stand up to these idiot professors. Students need to know this is the way Hitler worked. Hitler was able to get into the minds of young people and make them think in the way he wanted them to think." Another blamed it all on critical race theory, sharing: "Massive white guilt Penn State Professor shames white students during critical race theory class. If white people don't put an end to this now, say goodbye to your kids! Your choice!" Others dubbed Richards racist, tweeting: "Any one who teaches that someone is some way, based on the color of their skin is racist. This unfortunately includes racist professors at @penn_state"