American Professor Robert Jensen is not afraid of holding strong — and often unpopular — opinions. Nor is he afraid of voicing these opinions loudly — from his stance against white supremacy, to his support of radical feminism and his critiques of racism in the pornography industry.

His critics in America have labelled him as an extremist zealot, unpatriotic, a "critic of the American empire" and, according to US conservative activist David Horowitz, as a man "who rabidly hates the United States".

If you haven't already noticed, Dr. Jensen, 49, is white. He first visited Bermuda in February of this year, coming to the Island as the co-facilitator of the Bermuda Race Relations Initiative (BRRI), along with American Dr. Bernestine Singley, a black lawyer, educator and popular author in her own right.

The series of summits started in March and will run until November, with the next one planned for September 15-16.

Some in the BRRI have found his lecturing methods to be rather "aggressive" and "impolite". But, according to his enthusiasts, they merely represent his trademark style of passionate edification — to the ninth degree.

"Am I harsh?" he said. "Sure, I think sometimes speaking about injustice should be harsh and I don't mean abusive, but I mean honest and blunt. This is largely a matter of perception. I would say that Bernestine and I are aggressive in the sense that we would like to address the problems aggressively.

"But I don't think we do it with aggression in the sense that we are abusive. Our strategy and belief is that racial dialogue has to go to the core and that is often perceived as harsh and aggressive."

Premier Ewart Brown's motivation for the BRRI has drawn scepticism from critics, who allege it's is nothing more than a political smokescreen and is only designed to stir-up racial tension with an election pending.

Dr. Jensen strongly disagrees. "In his interaction with me, he has never once mentioned a political agenda for our work," he said. "I think Bernestine has had the same experience. When Dr. Brown first contacted me, he expressed his concern that there were unresolved racial tensions on the Island that he hoped I could help address.

"Since the formal initiation of the BRRI, he has never raised any political concerns.

"I'm not naïve. Politicians are political, of course. But my sense is that Dr. Brown sees an opportunity to advance the discussion about race. He realises the BRRI can't contribute to that if it is seen as merely a front for the PLP or his agenda. Bernestine and I have no stake in Bermudian politics and we've worked hard to make it clear that the BRRI is not a place for party politics."

Dr. Jensen responded to the reaction of some whites in Bermuda that have retorted his brand of perpetual invoking of feelings of guilt, by posing, "what are white people supposed to do?".

"The first thing that white people have to do is recognise that the 'race problem' is essentially a white problem," he countered. "In a white supremacist society, white people are the problem — we are the ones who created and maintained the system of white supremacy.

"The goals of my book ('The Heart of Whiteness') are to recognise that people and white supremacy are the source of the problem and that requires a different perspective.

"It means we have to rethink our history. We have to rethink contemporary society and our own role in that. One of the main messages of the book is to change the way that we think. But changing our thinking is not enough. There's many ways that white people can contribute to this. Such as, in progressive politics, more generally by making sure that a racial analysis is a part of the progressive strategies."

However, as in the United States, in Bermuda one cannot bring up the issue of contemporary racism without asking that age-old question: Can blacks be racist too?

The short form answer to that, according to Dr. Jensen, is no. "People of all races and ethnicities can harbour prejudice," he said. "And you see that often. But 'racism' as we've come to use the term is connected to power — to an ability to affect people's lives. In that sense, racism is a feature of white society. When we talk about 'can black people be racist?', I think it's a diversionary question.

"We're trying to create a more just world and that means focusing on the nature of institutions and the nature of systems. And so it's white supremacy that's the problem and that's where our focus should remain.

"It doesn't mean that people who are prejudiced or act inappropriately shouldn't be critiqued. For white people, I think it's too easy to say 'look at those black people, they hate us just as much as we hate them, therefore everything's equal and nothing can be done'. It's diversionary in the sense that it takes people away from the struggles to change the system."

Dr. Jensen — or 'Bob' as he prefers to be called — joined the University of Texas at Austin, faculty, in 1992.

Prior to that he completed his PhD in Media Law and Ethics at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota.

He was born and raised in the "mostly white state of North Dakota", as he puts it, and prior to his academic career, he worked as a professional journalist for a decade.

At the University of Texas, he teaches courses in Media Law, Ethics and Politics. He is also director of the Senior Fellows Programme, the honours syllabus of the College of Communication.

In his research, he draws on a variety of critical approaches to media and power. Much of his work has focused on pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality and men's violence.

Such a combination of modern subjects will most certainly raise eyebrows at first glance — racism and pornography, feminism, sexuality and violence by men.

His rationale for the context of such historically taboo topics is: "When you study contemporary pornography, you see that there is a whole of sub genre of overtly racist pornography, which uses very conventional racist stereotypes."

"For example; we see the image of a black male as a sexual predator," he added. "And the image of black women as sexually animalistic, the image of Latina women as hot-blooded and horny. All of these vary. I hate to even speak of it because it's so crude. But all of the racists stereotypes that exist in culture are used by the pornography industry.

"White men largely control the pornography industry and the consumer base is largely white male."

His opinions on race and pornography are far from his only controversial ones.

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US, in an article appearing in the Houston Chronicle newspaper, in Texas, Dr. Jensen declared that the United States was "just as guilty" as the hijackers in committing acts of violence.

Dr. Jensen wrote that the attack, orchestrated by terrorist Osama bin Laden on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in Washington DC, "was no more despicable than the massive acts of terrorism... that the US government has committed during my lifetime".

The editor of that paper received more than 4,000 outraged letters, plus a heap of condemnation for even deciding to publish the op-ed piece.

Dr. Jensen himself was denounced as insensitive and an extremist, especially as his piece came just three days after the attack. His boss, University of Texas President Larry Faulkner, also disavowed the article, saying Dr. Jensen is "a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy".

In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Jensen writes for popular US media, both alternative and mainstream.

He is divorced and has a 15-year-old son who lives most of the year with his mother. "I'm very happy at the moment because he's coming for a visit soon," Dr. Jensen told The Royal Gazette.

He spends a lot of time in his office working on his duties for the university and on his piles of research and writing.

In addition, he travels extensively and does lots of organisational work in his community, mostly through a US-based group called 'Third Coast Activist Resource Center'. "When I have down time, I tend to spend it either alone, almost always reading or with friends, doing a lot of cooking for them," he said. "I relax by cooking."

His opinion and analysis pieces on such subjects as foreign policy, politics and race have appeared in papers across the United States and around the world. And, he's also involved in a number of activist groups working against the perceived US military and economic domination of the rest of the world.

In a highly controversial opinion piece published in 2002, he wrote: "I helped kill a Palestinian today. If you pay taxes to the US Government, so did you. And unless the policies of the US government change, tomorrow will be no different. It is easy for Americans to decry the 'cycle of violence' in Palestine, but until we acknowledge our own part in that violence, there is little hope for a just peace in Palestine or the Middle East."

In his opinions on the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and US president George Bush, he also pulls no punches.

"We were originally told that the invasion of Iraq was for two reasons: one because they had weapons of mass destruction, and two, that they were linked to terrorists," he said.

"We now know that both reasons were lies. Right now in Iraq, there's a lot of terrorism going on, but it's a product of the invasion not the reason for the invasion. In other words, the terrorism was produced by the invasion. So the Bush administration's reasons for invading Iraq were all fraudulent and all based on lies.

"The invasion itself was illegal and the occupation is illegal, the US owes the people of Iraq massive reparations. If we were going to apply international law honestly, President Bush would be called before an international tribunal for crimes against peace and war crimes."

With Bermuda watching closely, with our own pending election, the notion of race and US politics inevitably floats to the surface.

US Senator Barack Obama is currently a front-runner for President of the United States and America is asking itself whether a black man can ever be elected President in a 21st century America. Dr. Jensen sees Sen. Obama as a strong candidate — but as one who will not challenge white supremacy.

"Barack Obama is seen as a viable Presidential candidate," Dr. Jensen said. "He plays a different profile, he's a Harvard-trained lawyer with some experience in community organising. But the way you rise in electoral politics in the US, is to align yourself with that concentrated power and not by challenging it.

"Barack Obama does not offer a critique of white supremacy — you won't hear him talking about it. If there were a black Presidential candidate that were to call out the American public on white supremacy — that person would never be elected."

Dr. Jensen's catalogue of books include: 'Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity' (2007); 'The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege' (2005); 'Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity' (2004) and 'Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream' (Peter Lang, 2001).

He also co-authored, with Gail Dines and Ann Russo, 'Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality' (Routledge, 1998) and co-edited with David S. Allen, 'Freeing the First Amendment: Critical Perspectives on Freedom of Expression' (New York University Press, 1995).