A course originally called ‘The Problem of Whiteness’ returns to Arizona State

The Washington Post ^ | 12 Nov 2015 | Yanan Wang

[Theoria]

Freedom of speech. Racial inequality. Student activism. Safe spaces.

These are the phrases that have been lobbied about over the past week, in tones both fervent and contemptuous, as University of Missouri students successfully campaigned for the resignation of their system president.

Mizzou is, of course, just the most prominent example. As The Washington Post’s Michael Miller pointed out Tuesday, similar debates are being had and protests held across the country, for instance at Yale University and Ithaca College.

At the center of all these debates is another word: whiteness.

At some universities, there are classes dedicated to understanding the notions of whiteness, white supremacy and what the field’s proponents see as the quiet racism of white people. The professor of one such “whiteness studies” course, Lee Bebout of Arizona State University, announced recently that he would be teaching for the second time a course originally called U.S. Race Theory & the Problem of Whiteness.

The syllabus described Critical Whiteness Studies as a field “concerned with dismantling white supremacy in part by understanding how whiteness is socially constructed and experienced.” Readings included works by Toni Morrison, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (“Racism without Racists”) and Jane H. Hill (“The Everyday Language of White Racism”).

For the coming semester, Bebout will add Ta-Nehisi Coates’s recent book “Between the World and Me.”

[Paladin2]

How did you know that The Savage was going to read this today on his show?

[Travis McGee]

I searched for it and posted it after I heard it on the radio.

[Paladin2]

I get Saveage delayed on some stations and missed that timeline detail.