Professor Says Otto Warmbier Deserved to Die
The University of Delaware said sayonara to a professor who just couldn't stop herself from trash talking the recently deceased American student Otto Warmbier on social media.
Last Tuesday, anthropology professor Kathy Dettwyler thought it would be a good idea to publish the insensitive message "Is it wrong of me to think that Otto Warmbier got exactly what he deserved?" on Facebook, adding that he had the "typical mindset of a lot of the young, white, rich, clueless males" she encountered on campus.
Warmbier, a student from Ohio who was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster, tragically died earlier this month just six days after being returned to his family in Ohio. He spent much of his 18 months of imprisonment in a coma, which the North Korean government claims was caused by a sleeping pill he took after contracting botulism.
On Sunday, the University of Delaware released a statement revealing that Dettwyler had not been employed by the university at the time she made the Facebook post and that she "will not be rehired to teach at the University in the future."
Dettwyler hasn't been alone in posting this sort of commentary. Immediately following reports of his death, the official Twitter account for the teen magazine Affinity seemed to excuse North Korea's treatment of Warmbier in a since-deleted tweet, which lead to a wide backlash across the social networking platform.
And just last week, writer Ranier Maningding wrote an article published on NextShark, which argued that Warmbier didn't deserve sympathy because White actors Seth Rogen and James Franco starred in The Interview, a comedy about two American journalists attempting to assassinate Kim Jong-un.
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StringFish
"How about a few moments of thought given to all the other people in North Korea who are suffering under the repressive government there? Just because they are North Koreans and not US citizens, we shouldn't care about them?"
Today I learned: you are only capable of caring about one individual at a time.
Brethren Toons
This statement can be used in so many situations.
You, not the nutty professor.
seki108
>Believing a North Korean report about the reasons for a captured person's arrest.
I think she played herself right there, before even making the tweet,……
spindash64
On the bright side, the college seemed to agree that the professor was just being an idiot
Someoneman
So she's saying that we should respect Kim Jong Un's right to run an oppressive dictatorship, when he himself strips its inhabitants of their basic human rights? Makes sense. /s
UnKewln00b
You know what? I think those Jews got what they deserved. Hitler just wanted a master race of blonde haired blue eyed muscle bound men. What, they think that just because they were Jewish meant that they were exempt from Hitler's final solution? Ugh, Jews, thinking they have more privilege than the rest of the world.
Man, siding with a dictator when it comes to defending why people had to die for an oppressive regime is stressing.
chancestohr
You know I do agree with these people on the fact that he should never have gone to North Korea in the first place. But then they say shit like we should respect NK laws when it doesn't respect the lives of its citizens and then they go full retard and start bringing up crap like white privilege.
Eazy123
"acted like a spoiled, naive, arrogant US college student"
Boy, for someone who wasn't there, she sure seemed to know him personally, in addition to the actual events. Gotta love when people get on Facebook and unload their ignorance for the world to see.
CHRlS
My philosophy is respect the dead/don't speak ill of the dead. Even if you hated the person, they're nothing now, move on. This goes doubly for those who paid the ultimate price for whatever they've done. (I know this can be a tough pill to swallow when it's some serial killer/rapist, but it's not worth it.)
PsyXypher
It really sucks knowing that people are okay with horrible, disproportionate shit happening to me just because of my skin color.
bizotic!
If Ms. Dettwyler and that poodle ever break up, perhaps she could hook up with George Ciccariello-Maher