ARIZONA State University in January this year introduced a new English class which has generated controversy about “the problem of whiteness”.
Officially titled “U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness” the class has five books on its required reading list — “Playing in the Dark” by Toni Morrison, an acclaimed novelist who has won a Pulitzer Prize, a Nobel Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom; “Critical Race Theory: An Introduction” by Richard Delgado; “Everyday Language of White Racism” by Jane Hill; “Alchemy of Race & Rights” by Patricia Williams, and “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness” by George Lipsitz. Assistant Professor Lee Bebout who teaches the class identifies himself as white.
According to a university statement: “This course uses literature and rhetoric to look at how stories shape people’s understandings and experiences of race. It encourages students to examine how people talk about — or avoid talking about — race in the contemporary United States.
This is an interdisciplinary course, so students will draw on history, literature, speeches and cultural changes from scholarly texts to humour.
The class is designed to empower students to confront the difficult and often thorny issues that surround us today and reach thoughtful conclusions rather than display gut reactions. A university is an academic environment where we discuss and debate a wide array of viewpoints.”
One would think such a subject matter would generate interest and positive debate around the subject of race in America in light of the recent and continued killing of black men by law enforcement agents on America’s streets.
Fox News correspondent, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, called the course “quite unfair, and wrong and pointed.
An ASU student who is not in the class, and appeared on the network earlier this year said that she is disappointed that the university is offering the course.
Lauren Clark said that “clearly we have a lot of work to do as a society in terms of racial tensions, but having a class that suggests an entire race is the problem is inappropriate, wrong and quite frankly, counterproductive.”
One would have thought that by now the entire ratchet would have died down; however, the course has landed the university and the course’s professor in the middle of a debate about race, political correctness and academic freedom.
Fox News commentators have made it their mission to attack the course and the university. It has been targeted online by white-supremacist groups and spurred small protests and counter protests in the community, with one white supremacist group distributing fliers with Professor Bebout’s picture and the words “anti-white”.
Of late Professor Bebout has been receiving hate mail and threats from those who are trying to stifle debate on race in America.
Cultural Diversity Week is held annually to coincide with the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March, and is an opportunity for all to come together to share their culture, faith and language. However, last week in Fort Collins, Colorado, diversity week, proved to be a minefield for school officials.
As part of the commemoration, a student came to school flying a Confederate flag off the back of his truck. A school official removed the flag from the student’s car.
A group of students took issue with the decision and responded by showing up to school the following day flying a variety of different flags, including American flags, a Confederate flag, a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag and a Georgia state flag, from their vehicles.
The Confederate flag first became used as a symbol of resistance to the civil rights movement in the late 1940s when it was used as a symbol for the short-lived Dixiecrat Party, which broke away from the Democratic Party over segregation and a national effort to repeal Jim Crow laws.
It was after that it began to be used by segregationist groups and as a symbol against the civil rights movement.
James McPherson, a historian and author, who covers the creation of what we call the Confederate flag has stated that “in the minds of many it continues to be associated with Confederate heritage but as Confederate heritage itself has become increasingly associated with slavery the Confederate flag is now symbolic of both slavery and white supremacy and of the relationship between the two of them”.
Presently, The Supreme Court is currently considering a case that at least in part hinges on if the Confederate flag is offensive. Whatever the Court decides, the flag remains a controversial symbol.
From all this one can tell that despite claiming to be a colour blind society, America remains racially divided and whites who are in the position of power continue to deny and resist any measures to bring racial equality in our society.
What is disheartening is that young Americans are also latching onto their parents and grandparents discriminatory and racist attitudes.