University students in Arizona allegedly drugging Johnny Knoxville with ecstasy? Just college bros being college bros, bro! Giving undergraduate students the option (that word is important) to take an advanced seminar titled “Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness“? Hell no, says Fox News and a bunch of hopeful conservative media pledges.
The course, taught by Assistant Professor Lee Bebout in the Department of English, boasts many big words and ideas in its brief title description. So big, in fact, that Fox New anchor Elisabeth Hasselbeck has trouble pronouncing them:
“The description of ‘The Problem of Whiteness’ course, I want to let everybody know, it says this. It’s a little wordy here, but it’s ‘The postcolonialist, psychoanalytic, deconstructionist, feminist, new historicist.’ I mean, once you get through that, maybe that will tell you what the class is about.” (Via Fox New)
True, those are a lot of big words and phrases, but this is an advanced seminar in critical theory for senior English majors at ASU. Anyone who’s enrolled in the course is there because they want to. (Remember the word “option”?)
Even so, Hasselbeck and her guest Lauren Clark rant against the course’s very existence. They complain about everything from Bebout’s apparent whiteness (assumed from a single photo grabbed from elsewhere online), to the suggestion that such a class disallows others they deem similar:
“I think it shows the significant double standard of higher education institutions,” James Malone, a junior economics major, told Campus Reform. “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.” (Via Campus Reform)
No, my dear sweet Hasselbeck, Clark, and Malone. An advanced college course is an optional opportunity for students – you know, people who learn ‘n’ stuff – to grow as mature, educated adults. Granted, advanced mathematics seminars in differential equations and calculus must surely constitute harassment. NUMBERS AND LETTERS MUST ALWAYS BE SEPARATE.
(Via Fox News and Campus Reform)
