A peace and conflict studies professor at a $51,760 private liberal arts college in Pennsylvania has used his Twitter account to call Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson a “handkerchief head” and former Secretary of State Colin Powell a “house ni***.”
The professor is David Ragland of Juniata College. The website SoCawledge.com unearthed the tweets this week.
Here is a screenshot of Ragland’s August 2015 tweet insulting Carson as a “handkerchief head”:
According to Urban Dictionary, a “handkerchief head” is “an African-American or black person who does not identify with black people and identifies with white people for their own personal gain or because they are afraid of them.” Suggested synonyms include “head negro,” “Uncle Tom” and “Aunt Jemima.”
Slightly more recently, in September 2015, Ragland attacked Powell, a retired four-star general, as a “house ni***”:
From the context of his tweet, the uncensored version of Ragland’s description of Powell is obviously “house nigger.”
Urban Dictionary defines the term basically the same as “handkerchief head.” It means “a black person that does their best to please white people even if it means disowning their own racial identity,” according to the crowdsourced website.
Ragland also wants to take away guns from everyone — including police and the military because gun make us “less secure.” And amid November’s surgelet of race-related campus protests, he suggested that “many students don’t want to be challenged or learn reality.” (RELATED: College Presidents Grovel To Pampered Radicals At Mediocre, Absurdly Costly Private Schools)
On his Twitter account page, Ragland describes himself as a faculty member, “peace & justice educator,” activist and advocate. He is from four places, he claims: St. Louis, New York City, Pennsylvania and Ferguson, Mo.
According to his LinkedIn profile, the well-traveled Ragland has previously taught courses at Bucknell University, Eastern Michigan University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Marist College. He has also been an administrator at Vassar College.
He gathers no moss in his teaching brief teaching stints. Ragland’s longest stretch on any campus as a teacher appears to have been just two years at Bucknell.
Ragland holds a Ph.D. in “social and philosophical foundations of education” from the University of Toledo. There, he was affiliated with Toledo’s Center for Nonviolence & Democratic Education.
Because he has moved around so much, Ragland hasn’t generated many ratings at Rate My Professors. The few on file range from average to terrible.
“Class discussions are extremely controversial and uncomfortable, often racially driven,” advises a Bucknell student.
“He is a horrible teacher,” warns an SIU-Edwardsville student. “Pretty ironic as an education professor.”
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