Arizona State University [ASU] has become the center of controversy after one of its new English courses for spring semester was featured on Fox News Network’s “Fox and Friends” show.
I believe, however, that the controversy is undeserving in that the problem is not the course’s controversial topics, but
rather the inability or unwillingness to speak about race in an objective manner. Race is a part of society no matter who you are or where you go.
It is an unavoidable topic, so it is important that people become more familiar and comfortable talking about it.
As part of the segment, “Trouble with Schools,” co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck critiqued the university’s course, “ENG 401 Studies in American Literature and Culture: U.S. Race Theory & the Problem of Whiteness.”
The course is a three credit interdisciplinary English course taught by Professor Lee Bebout with twenty students enrolled, according to the Washington Times’ Jessica Chasmar.
Hasselbeck started the nationwide outrage toward the course for allegedly being “quite unfair, and wrong and pointed” for blaming whites in America for the country’s social issues.
Fox News was unable to get a comment from Bebout. Despite this, Hasselbeck and interviewee Lauren Clark, a student of ASU and campus correspondent for CampusReform.org who is not enrolled in the course, continued to present their opinions about the course which they knew very little about.
The only information given about the course at the time of the Fox News segment were the five textbooks required, the title, the professor and the course description.
Both Clark and Hasselbeck portrayed the course as an attack on whites without even speaking with Professor Bebout about the course’s objectives and, assumably, without reading the textbooks listed for the course.
Clark and Hasselbeck presented whites as victims of Bebout’s course without the knowledge of what the course would actually be addressing. Jumping to conclusions the way that they did is a bold move that is hard to back up when they really made no effort to understand the course material.
In the segment, Clark stated, “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.”
I agree with Clark in that there is a lot of work to be done in our society in regard to racial tensions, but I do not agree that the course is counterproductive.
Actually, I believe the opposite. If anything, the course is educating people about a topic that is oftentimes difficult to discuss.
Although I may not know the substance of the course, just like Clark and Hasselbeck, I believe that just the outrage the course has brought in America over this past week has done enough and proven a point for Bebout. It has proven that racial issues in our country are present and are still difficult for some to talk about.
Clark had also written an article about the course for CampusReform.org. In it Clark interviewed James Malone, a junior economics major at ASU who is also not enrolled in the course.
He said, “I think it shows the significant double standard of higher education institutions . . . They would never allow a class talking about the problem of ‘blackness.’ And if they did, there would be an uproar about it. But you can certainly harass people for their apparent whiteness.”
The course’s title, specifically the “problem with whiteness,” seems to be bringing up topics of inferiority and
inequality for those criticizing it. According to Arizona Central’s Kaila White, “The idea of ‘Whiteness’ as a concept, rather than just skin color, has been a popular topic for research and academic classes since the late nineties.”
The concept is not simply about race but the deeper meaning of what it means to be white. The topic is complex and cannot simply be tackled in one class sitting. It requires a semesters worth of time, if not more, just to understand the gist of the topic.
Even I as a Keene State College student, have taken courses in both the psychology and
elementary education departments that address concepts such as whiteness, white privilege and racial bias, although they may not be titled as such. It is also certainly discussed in many women and gender studies courses. In fact, at KSC, you can even take a class titled “Women of Color Feminisms.”
After the segment aired on Fox News, Bebout told The Arizona Republic that he had been stressing out about receiving an abundance of hate-mail as a result of the segment. Bebout did not comment further to any source.
ASU released a statement, however. In it they explain, “This course . . . encourages students to examine how people talk about — or avoid talking about — race in the contemporary United States . . . 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.”
It appears the course is meant to teach students how to thoughtfully discuss racial issues in modern American society without making a “gut reaction.”
However, a gut reaction seems to be exactly what America was making. People are speaking about the issue without giving it some true thought and reasoning.
ASU has proven that race is still a “thorny issue” in modern day America, as a result of their choice to offer the course in question.
It seems that the people of America are only proving to ASU that the course is necessary after all.
Taylor Howe can be contacted at thowe@keene-equinox.com