College course focuses on the wealthy minority

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Sunday, September 29, 2002 | Bill Schackner

[Willie Green]

They sign your paycheck, hold the mortgage on your house and drive a much better car than you do. Everywhere you turn, they're running things -- from Congress to Wall Street to the war on terrorism.

But wealthy white males also are a minority group, and one that's largely escaped study on college campuses, argues Channa Newman, a professor at Point Park College.

[goodieD]

About damn time.

[terilyn]

WIPE THE SMILE OFF OF THIS MAN'S FACE.
VOTE THE RATS
OUT!! DONATE TODAY
SUPPORT FREE REPUBLIC

Donate here by secure server

Or mail checks to
FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794

[The FRugitive]

They should start the NAAWWM.

[timm22]

Every other Tuesday night, two dozen students -- eight of them male --

Sounds like my kind of class :)

assemble in a classroom equipped with an overhead projector for a three-hour class that Newman, 59, said was grounded in sociology, psychology, history and linguistics.

...and no economics? I would think you have to include economics when discussing wealth, and its relationship to power...

Some students familiar with Newman's teaching said they were drawn to the class partly because they view her as liberal and opinionated.

Ah, that explains it. It's much easier to convince students that the wealthy are evil (and also to justify wealth redistribution) when their success is explained in terms of "privilege" or "luck".

But to be fair, I should point out that an opinionated liberal such as Ms. Newman probably has only a faint, distorted understanding of the simplest economic precepts.

[SBeck]

There's a very easy explanation for why the vast majority of wealthy, influential individuals (we're talking super elite here, echelons above the Internet millionaires and other riff-raff) are white males: it's because they were here first and firstest always gets the mostest.

(Note: I apologize in advance to members of the lucky sperm club, but I am neither envious or jealous, just amused).

[Thud]

Nothing new here. Bill Domhoff wrote similar books, and taught a similar class, at UC Santa Cruz 35 years ago.

[ChiMark]

Wanna really be contoversial? Let's focus on how a strong work ethic leads to success. Better,design a course on how the protestant work ethic revolutionized the world!
I wonder how many universities use "The constitution of liberty" by F.A. Hayek.

[schmelvin]

It sounds like this professor intends to teach this course objectively, but I can easily see it mutating into a class on: "How wealthy white males achieve and maintain their status through oppression, unscrupulous activities, or just plain dumb luck."

I'm not so sure about the "white male" aspect of the course, (I'm getting so tired of academia's obsession with race and gender) but I think offering students an economics class, studying the behavior of the self-made wealthy, would be an excellent idea.

Art students study the styles and techniques of the Great Masters, so why shouldn't economics students study the methods and philosophies of the Great Achievers?

[Hila]

And will they be studying the fact that through Jewish people the most incredible discoveries and contributions have come to humanity? Maybe, it has to do mostly with a divine connection for all peoples, not how smart and coniving they can become.

[MonroeDNA]

Durn. They found us out.