- Mar 11, 2015
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How is it that members here on the right only think things are about race when blacks talk about it?
When they complained about CRT wasn't that whites making an issue of race? Wasn't that white racist demagoguery? And what about Trumps rise? He rose using white grievance that started during Reagan. White grievance is all about race. How many untalented, uneducated whites have become wealthy and famous by pushing white grievance? Why isn't that considered a race hustle? Why isn't white grievance called an industry? Why aren't the whites whining about how hard it is to be white dissed as having a victim mentality? Why aren't whites in this grievance industry told how they are using race as a crutch to cover for their personal failings? Why didn't whites on the right consider Trump picking 3 white justices as picking justices only because of race? There were black conservative justices with better qualifications than Gorsuch, Kavanaugh or Coney -Barrett. And why wasn't Coney Barrett considerd a DEI choice because Trump was told he had to pick a woman?
But the class had met exactly once in the beginning of the 2015 spring semester, when news of it — or its title, at least — spread past campus. Bebout was at lunch with his wife in January when a producer for a conservative radio show reached out to book an interview about the course. Next, Fox News wanted to talk.
"I thought, ‘Oh god, this might not be a good thing,'" Bebout, who tends to talk about the controversy in bemused understatements, remembers.
Then came the hate mail. Lots of it. More than one message commanded the 38-year-old professor, who is white, to "go live in Africa." The outrage reached a fever pitch that transcended the everyday internet trolling that goes hand in hand with just about any news that relates to race.
"Things got obviously weird," he says, "when white supremacist groups came to my neighborhood."
It was more than weird — it was scary. He received death threats. All for daring to talk about whiteness.
The people campaigning against the course were incensed at what they understood to be an entire semester dedicated to slamming white people. But the Problem of Whiteness wasn't designed to convince students that white people are a problem. The negative language in the course's title was simply a nod to how tough it can be to talk (or even think) about what it means to be white, when white is so deeply etched in the minds of many Americans as a synonym for "raceless" or "neutral." The reaction to the course seemed to prove this thesis.
Bebout, then an assistant professor of English (the school stood behind him, and he's since received tenure and is a full professor) had previously taught courses like Transborder Chicano Literature and American Ethnic Literature. He says he created the Problem of Whiteness for practical reasons: "I can study Chicano studies, I can do critical race theory to some degree, but without understanding whiteness, it felt like there was this big gap that I wasn't able to understand in the field."
In other words, you really have to understand the idea of whiteness to even begin to talk about race in America. As Columbia University historian Barbara J. Fields told the producers of PBS's series Race: The Power of An Illusion, it was self-identified white Americans of European descent who "invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery." Slavery is over, but whiteness remains the identity against which ethnic groups are compared and the identity that racism protects.
"You really have to understand the idea of whiteness to even begin to talk about race in America"
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"it was self-identified white Americans of European descent who invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery."
Whites invented race in this country. Therefore whites are responsible for the problems caused by what they created. This means that riht wing whites need to stop asking everybody else how they can fix the problem. All whites must take steps to eliminate the problem they created. Not just some while others sit on their asses criticizing those who try making an effort to end racism. This is not about who owed slaves during the Jurassic era or what Africans did; and don't try that tired lie about Anthony Johnson or how some blacks owned slaves too. Stop lying about how it's all in the past, because this forum shows that it is not. Take some of that responsibiity you tell everybody else to take and do your part.
When they complained about CRT wasn't that whites making an issue of race? Wasn't that white racist demagoguery? And what about Trumps rise? He rose using white grievance that started during Reagan. White grievance is all about race. How many untalented, uneducated whites have become wealthy and famous by pushing white grievance? Why isn't that considered a race hustle? Why isn't white grievance called an industry? Why aren't the whites whining about how hard it is to be white dissed as having a victim mentality? Why aren't whites in this grievance industry told how they are using race as a crutch to cover for their personal failings? Why didn't whites on the right consider Trump picking 3 white justices as picking justices only because of race? There were black conservative justices with better qualifications than Gorsuch, Kavanaugh or Coney -Barrett. And why wasn't Coney Barrett considerd a DEI choice because Trump was told he had to pick a woman?
White people have a race — but everyone flips out when we talk about it
As far as Lee Bebout was concerned, his Arizona State University course, US Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness, was off to a good start. A multiracial, politically diverse group of undergraduates was enrolled. He’d prepared a syllabus and was ready to lead them in seminar-style discussions, assigning basic readings and weekly papers on the history of race in America and other topics.But the class had met exactly once in the beginning of the 2015 spring semester, when news of it — or its title, at least — spread past campus. Bebout was at lunch with his wife in January when a producer for a conservative radio show reached out to book an interview about the course. Next, Fox News wanted to talk.
"I thought, ‘Oh god, this might not be a good thing,'" Bebout, who tends to talk about the controversy in bemused understatements, remembers.
Then came the hate mail. Lots of it. More than one message commanded the 38-year-old professor, who is white, to "go live in Africa." The outrage reached a fever pitch that transcended the everyday internet trolling that goes hand in hand with just about any news that relates to race.
"Things got obviously weird," he says, "when white supremacist groups came to my neighborhood."
It was more than weird — it was scary. He received death threats. All for daring to talk about whiteness.
The people campaigning against the course were incensed at what they understood to be an entire semester dedicated to slamming white people. But the Problem of Whiteness wasn't designed to convince students that white people are a problem. The negative language in the course's title was simply a nod to how tough it can be to talk (or even think) about what it means to be white, when white is so deeply etched in the minds of many Americans as a synonym for "raceless" or "neutral." The reaction to the course seemed to prove this thesis.
Bebout, then an assistant professor of English (the school stood behind him, and he's since received tenure and is a full professor) had previously taught courses like Transborder Chicano Literature and American Ethnic Literature. He says he created the Problem of Whiteness for practical reasons: "I can study Chicano studies, I can do critical race theory to some degree, but without understanding whiteness, it felt like there was this big gap that I wasn't able to understand in the field."
In other words, you really have to understand the idea of whiteness to even begin to talk about race in America. As Columbia University historian Barbara J. Fields told the producers of PBS's series Race: The Power of An Illusion, it was self-identified white Americans of European descent who "invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery." Slavery is over, but whiteness remains the identity against which ethnic groups are compared and the identity that racism protects.
"You really have to understand the idea of whiteness to even begin to talk about race in America"
White people have a race — but everyone flips out when we talk about it
Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters explain politics, policy, world affairs, technology, culture, science, the climate crisis, money...
www.vox.com
"it was self-identified white Americans of European descent who invented race during the era of the American Revolution as a way of resolving the contradiction between a natural right to freedom and the fact of slavery."
Whites invented race in this country. Therefore whites are responsible for the problems caused by what they created. This means that riht wing whites need to stop asking everybody else how they can fix the problem. All whites must take steps to eliminate the problem they created. Not just some while others sit on their asses criticizing those who try making an effort to end racism. This is not about who owed slaves during the Jurassic era or what Africans did; and don't try that tired lie about Anthony Johnson or how some blacks owned slaves too. Stop lying about how it's all in the past, because this forum shows that it is not. Take some of that responsibiity you tell everybody else to take and do your part.
