A new research article has been heavily criticised for calling whiteness a "malignant, parasitic-like condition" which is "nearly impossible to eliminate".
The controversial article, titled On Having Whiteness, was written by Dr Donald Moss, a white researcher from the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.
In the article he wrote that "whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has - a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which 'white' people have a particular susceptibility," Newsweek reports.
"Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts' appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate."
Dr Moss said the only effective treatments for whiteness are a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions, but "there is not yet a permanent cure".
The paper was published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association in May, however it has recently been widely shared on social media with many commenters condemning the paper.
Clinical psychologist Dr Philip Pellegrino questioned how it was considered scholarship research.
"Anyone actually take this seriously?" he tweeted.
Others called the paper "crazy" and bullshit".
"I was sceptical so I looked it up, and yeah this is real and now I want to throw my psychology degree in the garbage," one person wrote.
"This racist vomit should be called out for what it is," another said.
