Who is Russell Rickford? Cornell University Professor under fire over 'exhilarating' description of Hamas attacks 

A professor at Cornell University named Russell Rickford recently made headlines after he was caught on camera telling his students that the Hamas attack on Israel was “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

According to the New York Post, Russell Rickford made the comments at a pro-Palestine protest he organized and led from the front on the university campus. However, his remarks went viral when a student with the X handle @samaberman posted the video online and tagged them “shameful.” Since then, the professor has faced significant backlash.

For those uninitiated, Russell Rickford is an associate professor in the Department of History at Cornell University. He is also a scholar, biographer, and activist.

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Russell Rickford is currently working on a book about Guyana

According to the official website of Cornell University’s Department of History, Dr. Russell Rickford is an associate professor of history specializing in African-American political culture in the post-World War II era, the Black Radical Tradition, and Transnational Social Movements. His tenure at the university has lasted since 2014. Prior to that, he taught at Dartmouth, right after his doctorate in 2009.

Russell Rickford has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Howard University, followed by a master’s degree in African-American Studies from Columbia University. Later, he also earned his M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University in History.

He has authored several books, including the biography of educator and civil rights advocate Betty Shabazz and his award-winning piece We Are An African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination, which received the 2016 Hooks Institute National Book Award and the 2017 OAH Liberty Legacy Foundation Award.

At present, Russell Rickford is working on a book about African-American radical politics in 1970s Guyana.

The Guyana-born, California-based professor belongs to a family of scholars. In fact, both his parents were professors, his father at Stanford University’s linguistics department and his mother at the special education department of San Jose State University. They, too, have penned many books during their careers.

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Russell Rickford earns severe online backlash for his pro-Palestine remarks

Professor Russell Rickford of New York’s Ivy League Cornell University was part of a pro-Palestine protest that happened over the weekend. In a video that has now gone viral, he was heard saying how the Hamas attack on Israel was “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

In addition, he also mentioned that the Hamas attack “shifted the balance of politics and punctured the illusion of invincibility” of Israel. Furthermore, he also condemned Israel for its “monopoly of violence” and for imposing a blockage on Gaza despite it being a Hamas-owned zone since 2007.

“That’s what they’ve done. You don’t have to be a Hamas supporter to recognize it.”

Rickford further continued by saying how Palestinians who were “born into violence and oppression were able to breathe for the first time in years” following the Hamas attack on Israel. While students applauded him, he also stated:

“It was exhilarating, it was energizing. And if they weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, the shifting of the violence of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated.”

Since the footage of Rickford making pro-Hamas stands went viral, it has earned massive outrage. Here are some of the reactions from the comment section of @samaberman’s tweet.

Apart from Dr. Rickford, his crowd of students also chanted pro-Palestine slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

So far, the Cornell University professor has not issued any statement on the backlash. Interestingly, his speech came right after the Diversity and Inclusion Director of Cornell University was condemned for calling the Hamas attack on Israel a form of “resistance.”