It is a question posed by a tenured Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) professor, who has not only been maligned and dissociated by the Academic Senate and the university itself, but continues to ruffle feathers: why would any group, particularly whites, want to give up their political power?

The immediate cringe from most is understandable. Whites, after all, have in essence created the minority through the subjugation and oppression of multiple groups across the globe. India by Britain. Africans, first by the French and Spanish and later by American slave owners. Native Northern and Southern Americans by a multitude of European cultures.

And Dr. Kevin MacDonald, a professor of developmental and evolutionary psychology at CSULB, does not dispute these points—even while throwing around the phrase “the displacement of whites” multiple times. He is vehemently anti-imperialist and anti-violent, having been—and remaining—an outspoken opponent of slavery and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since their inceptions.

Nor does MacDonald believe that his personal political and philosophical beliefs belong in the classroom–an accusation he just as vehemently defends. He not only invites anyone to sit in one of his courses to prove that this interference is nonexistent, but also cites his insistance that the Psychology Department remind professors during the 2012 presidential election to avoid endorsing candidates in the classroom setting.

For many though, including students who confronted and eventually boycotted his classroom, feel that such beliefs are impossible to untangle from educational endeavors. Take, for example, his acting as director of the American Third Position, whose website explictly states the party exists to “represent the political interests of White Americans.”

Though MacDonald welcomes the conversation with students and outsiders alike, despite students walking out of his classes, despite a scathing piece by the O.C. Weekly, he ultimately believes that his personal political life bears no effect on his ability to teach developmental psychology. He even acknowledges, albeit questionably given his support of separatism, that whites have downsized other groups.

“Go to any country and you will see that the ethnic minority, no matter who they are, are getting run over. White people have completely victimized blacks—I accept that,” he said. “But why would whites want to become to a minority so they can be victimized by people who [have become the new intellectual elite of the world order]? The idea that there is this natural harmony amongst ethnic groups is silly.”

In fact, MacDonald finds many of the ideals that Western civilization has taken on following the backlash of imperialism and racial segregation to be dystopian, mainly multiculturalism and living cohesively amongst different groups with different goals.

Our attempt at integrating minorities and welcoming immigrants, mainly originating from the left according to MacDonald, has created a competition which is not only endless, but ultimately detrimental for all parties involved. Ethnicity in and of itself divides, goes his logic, and the attempt integrate them leads to disasters such as Rwanda, the clash of Muslim and European cultures, and Israel and Palestine.

Of course, MacDonald’s claims could very well be shown to be, at least within the larger scientific community, devoid of any validity. Scientists—almost universally—have construed race as a biologically defunct concept, particularly given the evidence provided by evolutionary and genetic thought: we have had too few generations that have passed since our founder species, Homo sapiens, originated in Africa, making us 99.9% genetically the same.

MacDonald, however, finds it “laughable” to think that one can’t distinguish between races; he simply says to look around.

“Ultimately, we all come back to a common ancestor,” he said, “but those groups have been separated for a long enough time that there are real differences between them—genetically and culturally.”

That word “cultural” is key to MacDonald’s viewpoint—and one of the many reasons that evolutionary psychology is, in and of itself, a controversial subject matter.

For years, evolutionists were unable to explain altruism against the concept of natural selection. How do we as humans make choices for ourselves that inherently go against our own individual good or survival? In short, this has been answered by the concepts of reciprocal altruism and kin selection.

And these two concepts—at base, that species choose to be altruistic towards those that look like them—have been, according to some scientists, massively misused to explain cultural phenomena via evolutionary psychology.

One of the largest criticisms against evolutionary psychology is that it cannot distinguish between environmental and cultural explanations, leaving evolution to be this thing which has been reached—”Look at how these people behave: we have genetic proof!”—instead of relegating the concept to an ever-changing phenomenon that should include the influence of genes within individual cases.

Within the so-called genetic vein he speaks of—one that is, according to most evolutionary biologists, unable to have altered significantly since the conception of the modern human occurred too recently to show major shift—the desired genes which are propagated within one group only and not in another, such as intelligence, brings forth a situation that he says is nothing short of “losing the game.”

Citing the work of Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending—who contend in The 10,000 Year Explosion that contrary to common belief, evolution has sped up and China has “weeded” out genes that produce qualities it doesn’t like, such as rebelliousness and impulsivity, which have grown their political power—MacDonald uses this as jumping point to base his theory. For example,  he claims that Jews have cultivated—via eugenics—certain characteristics genetically, including ethnocentrism and intelligence that have caused them to become the “intellectual elite” of our country.

“As part of their evolutionary strategy, [Jewish groups] are inherently ethnocentric and intelligent—and it has helped them rise in power,” MacDonald said. “Eugenics used to be this common practice and [following the use of it by Nazism] is now frowned upon. But Jews now have a higher intelligence than whites.”

He goes on to explain that this “evolutionary strategy”—along with various other characteristics amongst ethnic minorities throughout the country—will eventually cause whites to become, politically and socially, a minority.

The discomforting statements and perturbing theory proposed by MacDonald—whether it is due to the ability to easily argue for its racist perspective or the fact that it addresses race in ways which are not common—has certainly brought his detractors and supporters. The Anti-Defamation League has him blacklisted while conservative groups praise his work.

“What it comes down to is this,” MacDonald explained. “Despite whether you naively believe in multiculturalism or whether you don’t… Why would you ever—ever—want to give up your political power?”