By Abby Haywood and Blace Carpenter
A Grand Rapids Community College professor described Native Americans as “little better than animals,” and said “we need to make sure that this country remains a Christian country, predominantly white,” during a panel discussion about the conflict in Gaza. More than a week later he said he was roleplaying during his presentation which many found offensive.
Professor Keith St. Clair spoke at the “A Century of Tension: Illuminating the Gaza Conflict” panel discussion hosted by GRCC on Oct. 23. A recording of this event was posted to YouTube On Oct. 31 with a disclaimer from the college stating that some of the views expressed “may be traumatic and conflict with GRCC’s values.”
In a phone interview with The Collegiate, St. Clair said he did not believe the perspective he presented and that he was roleplaying.
“I support diversity in this country in all aspects,” St. Clair said. “I do not think this country needs, nor should it be a predominantly white, Christian country… I was trying to make it real for people, and I thought the best way to do that was to roleplay the argument. Clearly, it was a bad choice.”
Eight minutes into the presentation St. Clair said, “I’m going to present many perspectives and these perspectives may or may not be my own, so I would ask you to hear me out and don’t think or assume that every position I’m taking here is necessarily my own.”
Two minutes later, St. Clair began making controversial statements and did not use any language to signal to the audience that he was saying something he did not endorse.
He invoked Manifest Destiny, a 19th-century philosophy that justified the displacement of Native Americans by saying that God gave the United States the right to take over the entirety of North America.
“We say God blesses America, and God does,” St. Clair said during his presentation. “You’ve heard of Manifest Destiny. Our ancestors conquered this continent as was designed by God. This was a new Eden, and we a new Israel.”
He blamed Native Americans for their own suffering under the United States government.
“We gave the people that were here every chance to assimilate to our culture, one that they resisted and didn’t take upon themselves,” St. Clair said. “…We gave them land, the fact that they couldn’t make the most of it is really on them.”
St. Clair projected a picture of Geronimo, an Apache leader known for defending his tribal lands, and avenging the murders of his wife, three kids, and his mother by Mexican soldiers, and said, “…Geronimo, a terrorist, a man who killed men, women, and children, settlers throughout the West, in cold blood, only reveals how savage these people were, little better than animals.”
St. Clair said that “people don’t want to recognize that this is a Christian country founded on Christian principles by white settlers,” and argued that the U.S. needs to maintain a white Christian majority by “approving the right immigrants as opposed to the wrong ones, the ones coming here to live on us like parasites.”
Also during his presentation, St. Clair claimed he was Christian and lamented about how he couldn’t lead prayers in school.
“I should not have to apologize because I’m white and Christian,” St. Clair said. “…We used to lead students in prayer, praying to our Lord Jesus Christ… We can’t even call it a Christmas party anymore. We have to call it a holiday party… News flash, Christmas is a national holiday in this country…”
He later told The Collegiate that he is an atheist.
“First of all, I’m not even a Christian, I’m an atheist,” St. Clair said. “I’ve been an atheist my whole life… I have really spent the last eight years fighting against the extreme far-right, nationalist, neo-fascist viewpoints that I was expressing. It’s tragic that I, myself, who have tried to fight against those viewpoints, am now apparently seen as sharing those viewpoints, which is not true.”
He also clarified his reasons for bringing up an extremist view of American history.
“I was trying to connect the rise of the far right… in the United States with the rise of far-right politics in the Israeli government,” St. Clair said. “…Since my audience was American, I thought that if I could draw parallels with American history. Maybe all those parallels were not entirely accurate, but certainly, a right-wing Christian nationalist would’ve perceived them that way. …I thought this was something that could help people relate to how some Jewish Israelis feel.”
This was not made clear during his presentation, as evidenced by the following audience questions.
“…At the start of your presentation, you presented an American history rundown… but it sounded very much like a white nationalist American history,” said one audience member to St. Clair during the Q&A session of the event. “Were you intending to bring that back at the end to Israeli culture and possibly how they’re viewing the start of this conflict?”
St. Clair did not clarify that he was roleplaying when audience members continued to raise questions about the offensive content of his presentation.
“…It’s a viewpoint that is perpetrated by white supremacists and right-wing extremists,” said Heather Richards, a fellow GRCC professor in attendance. “…I really would like to understand the parallel in portraying American history and development like that, as a viewpoint that also coincides with the development of Israel.”
While talking to Collegiate reporters after the video was released, St. Clair said the reaction to his comments was warranted.
“I wanted people to be offended,” St. Clair said. “I’m offended. That was the point. I think those ideas are outrageous. I think we all should be offended by them. I’m outraged, in our country, that some people aren’t offended by them.”
He said that he wanted anyone who took offense to become politically active.
“I want them to get involved. I want them to fight back against those right-wing viewpoints, and not to get offended, but become politically active.”
St. Clair said that no one from the administration informed him that there was a problem with his presentation, or that the video was under review and was posted more than a week after the event with a disclaimer added to the beginning of it.
“It took me several days before I knew that anything was wrong,” St. Clair said. “I reached out to the administration, but they haven’t informed me of anything other than what they’ve (already) said and done.”
After reflecting on his presentation, St. Clair said, “I should have played it better. Obviously, I’ve let people down and I’m sorry for that. I feel terrible.”
St. Clair has been a professor at GRCC since August 2002, teaching American politics and government, political science and international relations courses. He also taught at Muskegon Community College from 1997 to 2002 and has given talks about the Israel-Hamas conflict before.
The other speaker in attendance, Joel H. Westra, the department chair of politics and economics from Calvin University, stated in an email, “It was not clear to me precisely what Prof. St Clair’s own position was, though I understood that he was trying to contextualize the conflict historically. I was not asked to discuss the historical context nor to respond to Prof. St. Clair, and so I did not. Rather, I delivered the remarks that I had prepared, as I had been invited to do.”
GRCC Board of Trustees Treasurer Sheryl Siegel spoke with The Collegiate about how she felt about the discussion as a Jewish woman and how she interpreted St. Clair’s viewpoint.
“I wasn’t sure if he was being courageous talking about this country and its greatness along with its faults or he was being smug and sly about comparing the colonialism and exceptionalism and manifest destiny with Israel,” Siegel said. “I felt as though this was definitely his opinion… Why say it if it is not (his opinion,) or why hide behind someone else’s view?”
Siegel emphasized that she does not speak on behalf of the GRCC Board of Trustees but has had concerns about the discussion since the beginning of the event.
“I was very concerned and I wrote to one of the academics at the college, and I said, ‘I want you to know that I believe our students will leave the lecture more morally confused than having clarity,’” said Siegel. “…people who are in academic circles are enthralled with experts… Just because a professor has gone to the Middle East, doesn’t make them an expert.”
Several GRCC administrators, including Interim Provost Sheila Jones, who introduced the panelists, were in attendance but none of them could be reached for comment.
“Any quotes coming out would come through me,” said Vice President for College Advancement Mary Slafkosky. “The statement that the college is making concerning the video is actually presented at the beginning (of the recording.) At this time, that is the only comment the college is going to have.”
