Who Is George Ciccariello-Maher’s Wife?

In January 2018, Cicarriello-Maher announced on FB account name that he was now a visiting scholar at New York University’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

In October 2017, he became the subject of controversy after tweeting “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide and “To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian Revolution, that was a good thing indeed”. Following this, Drexel University placed Ciccariello-Maher on administrative leave. On December 28, Ciccariello-Maher announced his resignation from Drexel, effective December 31, citing “nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and Internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family.”

In March 2017, Ciccariello-Maher was again criticized for tweeting that he was “trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul” when a soldier was given a seat by a passenger in first class, on a flight he was on two days after the U.S. bombing of Mosul killed 200 civilians.

Drexel’s provost M. Brian Blake began an investigation into Ciccariello-Maher’s communication on Twitter Account name in April 2017.

Shortly after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Ciccariello-Maher posted tweets saying the mass shooting in Las Vegas, which left 59 people dead and hundreds injured, was the product of a system that favors white males. His statements, such as “It’s the white supremacist patriarchy, stupid”, resulted in a number of death threats. Subsequently, he wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which he elaborated on his tweets, stating “I tweeted before then diagnosing a sense of double entitlement—as white people and as men—that, when frustrated, can occasionally lead to violent consequences.”

On Christmas Eve 2016, Ciccariello-Maher tweeted, “All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide.” Ciccariello-Maher stated the tweet was sent in response to a racist backlash against State Farm Insurance for purportedly advancing “white genocide” by depicting an interracial couple in an advertisement.

Drexel became aware today of Associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher’s inflammatory tweet, which was posted on his personal Twitter Account name account on Dec[ember] 24, 2016. While the University recognizes the right of its faculty to freely express their thoughts and opinions in public debate, Professor Ciccariello-Maher’s comments are utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing, and do not in any way reflect the values of the University. The University is taking this situation very seriously. We contacted Ciccariello-Maher today to arrange a meeting to discuss this matter in detail.

Ciccariello-Maher has served as a media commentator on Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, the role of white supremacy in the killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Freddie Gray and Philando Castile, the Ferguson unrest and 2015 Baltimore protests, and the abolition of the police.

Ciccariello-Maher was active on social media, where his statements have created controversy, including calls for his dismissal. His writing in Salon that “Riots Work” claims that racism against white people is imaginary and that the police should be abolished. In 2015, he tweeted that a South Carolina school police officer, who lost his job after body-slamming a black female student during an arrest, should be done “like Old Yeller.”

Ciccariello-Maher supports Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. During opposition protests in early 2014, he appeared on Democracy Now to discuss his views of protesters’ support for opposition leaders like Leopoldo López. He has also been critical of those on the left and anarchists who have supported the Venezuelan opposition during those protests.

Ciccariello-Maher did his undergraduate work at St. Lawrence University and Cambridge University, where he was a Davies-Jackson Scholar. He then completed a master’s degree at University of California, Berkeley before taking a sabbatical in Mexico. After returning he finished a Ph.D in political science from Berkeley in 2010, and was then appointed as assistant professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University in Philadelphia the same year. He was promoted to associate professor in 2016.

While in England, Ciccariello-Maher was a member of the Cambridge collective Anti-Capitalist Action, and was later arrested during the 20 March 2003 anti-war protest known as “Day X” that marked the beginning of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. When four members were rusticated from King’s College, Cambridge in 2002 for their participation in a squatted social center, Ciccariello-Maher co-authored an appeal document that resulted in their reinstatement.

George Ciccariello-Maher (born March 12, 1979) is an American political scientist who was an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University. After a tweet reputedly mocking the white genocide conspiracy theory and a tweet expressing support for the 1804 Haiti Massacre, as well as other statements, Ciccariello-Maher was placed on administrative leave and later resigned from Drexel due to “death threats and threats of violence.”