University of Chicago has a course called ‘The Problem of Whiteness'

[IceJad]

Seriously at this point there is nothing much to say that hasn't been said. The western "progressive" are racists. Being a person who most align with classical liberalism (not the modern far-left liberalism), I find this raise of open hostility towards the white people sickening. The same kind of feeling I felt when the other minorities (especially the blacks) were the targets in decades past.

Imagine that the course replaces the word whiteness with blackness or yellowness or brownness? The notion that a person's ethnicity or genetic makeup is inherently negative is the thinking of a racist.

This idea you can solve racism with racism is moronic. IMHO this is not about solving racism but revenge. This movement uses guilt as a tool to oppress and be hostile toward those whom they perceived to have wronged them - the whites. The problem with this is the collectiveness of the action. Now anything white is consider detestable. I have read that even exercising is a white supremist activity. The problem is not people having the freedom to write nonsense, the problem is the proliferation of such view points in mainstream society. In schools, in workplace, in enforcement even in unfortunately places of worship.

The frequency of this is also on the rise. From fringe to forefront. And the largest group of people perpetrating this are the progressives. And this is not even a contested fact. Every single video or news article I have the misfortune to consume, displayed a left leaning ideolog. Western left leaning ideologs. The same group of people who champion inclusivity and diversity - only in name not in act. The fruits of their ideology are very apparent and not anecdotal.

Are there extremes in the western right? Yes there are. Like the mirror image to their counterpart. Difference is in the number and level of infiltration into general society. By the way it is going America will always have racial problem. No one is interested in ending the cycle of hatred. Too preoccupied in getting revenge - to ensure the other side suffer as much as possible for a collective "crime". People who rather punish than forgive. To hold on to past baggage than let go to move forward.

Evil has no preferences, it will gladly latch on to whomever are willing. Evil give joy and pleasantness to those who would nurture it so it will be harder to abandon every passing moment. Evil distains self-reflection in fear that it may be seen for what it is. Evil is self-righteousness guised as righteousness. Upon maturity evil becomes you. No longer an aspect but a total.

 

[USincognito]

And, of course, the right wing response is hardly a surprise.

‘Problem of Whiteness’ course triggers death threats against University of Chicago instructor

Teaching fellow says class isn’t about “the problem with white people,” blames criticism on its misrepresentation by student who launched “cyberbullying campaign.”

chicago.suntimes.com

 

[Pommer]

Seriously at this point there is nothing much to say that hasn't been said. The western "progressive" are racists. Being a person who most align with classical liberalism (not the modern far-left liberalism), I find this raise of open hostility towards the white people sickening. The same kind of feeling I felt when the other minorities (especially the blacks) were the targets in decades past.

Imagine that the course replaces the word whiteness with blackness or yellowness or brownness? The notion that a person's ethnicity or genetic makeup is inherently negative is the thinking of a racist.

This idea you can solve racism with racism is moronic. IMHO this is not about solving racism but revenge. This movement uses guilt as a tool to oppress and be hostile toward those whom they perceived to have wronged them - the whites. The problem with this is the collectiveness of the action. Now anything white is consider detestable. I have read that even exercising is a white supremist activity. The problem is not people having the freedom to write nonsense, the problem is the proliferation of such view points in mainstream society. In schools, in workplace, in enforcement even in unfortunately places of worship.

The frequency of this is also on the rise. From fringe to forefront. And the largest group of people perpetrating this are the progressives. And this is not even a contested fact. Every single video or news article I have the misfortune to consume, displayed a left leaning ideolog. Western left leaning ideologs. The same group of people who champion inclusivity and diversity - only in name not in act. The fruits of their ideology are very apparent and not anecdotal.

Are there extremes in the western right? Yes there are. Like the mirror image to their counterpart. Difference is in the number and level of infiltration into general society. By the way it is going America will always have racial problem. No one is interested in ending the cycle of hatred. Too preoccupied in getting revenge - to ensure the other side suffer as much as possible for a collective "crime". People who rather punish than forgive. To hold on to past baggage than let go to move forward.

Evil has no preferences, it will gladly latch on to whomever are willing. Evil give joy and pleasantness to those who would nurture it so it will be harder to abandon every passing moment. Evil distains self-reflection in fear that it may be seen for what it is. Evil is self-righteousness guised as righteousness. Upon maturity evil becomes you. No longer an aspect but a total.

What,? people are being told, outright, just how their color gives them much better access to our society than others of differing coloration?
No!
Pfft.

 

[stevil]

Oh no. Not Sky News Australia. They ain't news, they are parody and propaganda.

 

[IceJad]

And, of course, the right wing response is hardly a surprise.

‘Problem of Whiteness’ course triggers death threats against University of Chicago instructor

Teaching fellow says class isn’t about “the problem with white people,” blames criticism on its misrepresentation by student who launched “cyberbullying campaign.”

chicago.suntimes.com

Does two wrongs make a right? Is it such a hard concept to comprehend? Threatening people for their freedom to speak is morally wrong. You know what is equally morally wrong being a racist.

Does the respond make the course less racist? That is why Americans can't get over racism regardless which political ideology they side with. It is all about satisfying your personal need to see the other side defeated. And that is incentive enough to justify moral wrongs as acceptable response.

And do you think the progressive side didn't engage in such disgusting acts? No leftist ever threaten their opponents? No liberals ever physically beaten those who disagree with them? You and I know the answer to that.

 

[IceJad]

What,? people are being told, outright, just how their color gives them much better access to our society than others of differing coloration?
No!
Pfft.

Then let's start a course called the problem with Blackness & Brownness. Because those two skin colours have robbed us Asians in university acceptance. And that my friend is backed up with facts. There was a lawsuit won lately regarding how blacks and latinos are given easier scoring systems compared to others especially Asians. We Asians have to jump higher, run faster and dive lower just to make the cut.

How do you like that to be a constant talking point in mainstream? Everyday we talk about how the yellows are robbed by the blacks and browns because of representation. Asians still remember the roof top Koreans. Guess who they are wielding their guns against? You want the Asians to keep bringing up old issues? Many of those Koreans never got any reparations from the community who burnt down their shops.

If you think these kind of rhetoric can fix anything by all means.

Pffft indeed.

 

[USincognito]

Does two wrongs make a right? Is it such a hard concept to comprehend? Threatening people for their freedom to speak is morally wrong. You know what is equally morally wrong being a racist.

Does the respond make the course less racist?

What, exactly, is racist about the course. I want details. Do you have any?

And I'm sorry, but engaging in terrorism is much worse than anything negative you feel about a college course.

That is why Americans can't get over racism regardless which political ideology they side with. It is all about satisfying your personal need to see the other side defeated. And that is incentive enough to justify moral wrongs as acceptable response.

I love it when non-Americans want to lecture Americans about ourselves. It's quite entertaining.

And do you think the progressive side didn't engage in such disgusting acts? No leftist ever threaten their opponents? No liberals ever physically beaten those who disagree with them? You and I know the answer to that.

Which doesn't change the fact that in this case it was obviously right wingers who had upset feels over a college course.

 

[IceJad]

Oh no. Not Sky News Australia. They ain't news, they are parody and propaganda.

Really? Was the reporting wrong? I fact check the news on other sites as well. Looks like facts checked out. You may dislike their "commentary", your prerogative. However that doesn't hide the fact that it happened.

This is also why Americans can't get over racism. Because of politics. Your side broke the news? Must be sensationalized and fake. To me all western new medias are parody and propaganda. Including CNN, BBC, MSBC, NBC, FOX, Daily Wire, WaPo, NYT and the list goes on. However I still read them and know when to cross check.

This is an example of an old saying about politically aligned person: if your opposite side says breathing is right you'll say breathing is wrong regardless of the facts presented.

 

[USincognito]

Then let's start a course called the problem with Blackness & Brownness. Because those two skin colours have robbed us Asians in university acceptance. And that my friend is backed up with facts. There was a lawsuit won lately regarding how blacks and latinos are given easier scoring systems compared to others especially Asians. We Asians have to jump higher, run faster and dive lower just to make the cut.

Weird. I live near the University of Texas Dallas and the student body there had a large number of Indian and Asian students.

University Profile | Institutional Success and Decision Support | The University of Texas at Dallas

The University Profile provides a concise “snapshot” of The University of Texas at Dallas including enrollment numbers, demographics, and key statistics.

ospa.utdallas.edu

>> Asian-American (32%), Anglo (22%), International (22%), Hispanic (13%), African-American (5%), Two or More Races (3%), Unknown/Other (3%), Native American (0.1%), Native Hawaiian (0.1%) <<
Asian-Americans account for 5.9% of the U.S. population, but they're 32% of the student body. That's not even accounting for international students who are overwhelmingly Indian and Chinese.

 

[stevil]

Really? Was the reporting wrong? I fact check the news on other sites as well. Looks like facts checked out. You may dislike their "commentary", your prerogative. However that doesn't hide the fact that it happened.

This is also why Americans can't get over racism. Because of politics. Your side broke the news? Must be sensationalized and fake. To me all western new medias are parody and propaganda. Including CNN, BBC, MSBC, NBC, FOX, Daily Wire, WaPo, NYT and the list goes on. However I still read them and know when to cross check.

This is an example of an old saying about politically aligned person: if your opposite side says breathing is right you'll say breathing is wrong regardless of the facts presented.

I don't have political sides. I'm pretty centre.

 

[durangodawood]

Seriously at this point there is nothing much to say that hasn't been said. The western "progressive" are racists. Being a person who most align with classical liberalism (not the modern far-left liberalism), I find this raise of open hostility towards the white people sickening. The same kind of feeling I felt when the other minorities (especially the blacks) were the targets in decades past.

Imagine that the course replaces the word whiteness with blackness or yellowness or brownness? The notion that a person's ethnicity or genetic makeup is inherently negative is the thinking of a racist.

This idea you can solve racism with racism is moronic. IMHO this is not about solving racism but revenge. This movement uses guilt as a tool to oppress and be hostile toward those whom they perceived to have wronged them - the whites. The problem with this is the collectiveness of the action. Now anything white is consider detestable. I have read that even exercising is a white supremist activity. The problem is not people having the freedom to write nonsense, the problem is the proliferation of such view points in mainstream society. In schools, in workplace, in enforcement even in unfortunately places of worship.

The frequency of this is also on the rise. From fringe to forefront. And the largest group of people perpetrating this are the progressives. And this is not even a contested fact. Every single video or news article I have the misfortune to consume, displayed a left leaning ideolog. Western left leaning ideologs. The same group of people who champion inclusivity and diversity - only in name not in act. The fruits of their ideology are very apparent and not anecdotal.

Are there extremes in the western right? Yes there are. Like the mirror image to their counterpart. Difference is in the number and level of infiltration into general society. By the way it is going America will always have racial problem. No one is interested in ending the cycle of hatred. Too preoccupied in getting revenge - to ensure the other side suffer as much as possible for a collective "crime". People who rather punish than forgive. To hold on to past baggage than let go to move forward.

Evil has no preferences, it will gladly latch on to whomever are willing. Evil give joy and pleasantness to those who would nurture it so it will be harder to abandon every passing moment. Evil distains self-reflection in fear that it may be seen for what it is. Evil is self-righteousness guised as righteousness. Upon maturity evil becomes you. No longer an aspect but a total.

What actual stuff in the course is so bad?

 

[IceJad]

Weird. I live near the University of Texas Dallas and the student body there had a large number of Indian and Asian students.

University Profile | Institutional Success and Decision Support | The University of Texas at Dallas

The University Profile provides a concise “snapshot” of The University of Texas at Dallas including enrollment numbers, demographics, and key statistics.

ospa.utdallas.edu

>> Asian-American (32%), Anglo (22%), International (22%), Hispanic (13%), African-American (5%), Two or More Races (3%), Unknown/Other (3%), Native American (0.1%), Native Hawaiian (0.1%) <<
Asian-Americans account for 5.9% of the U.S. population, but they're 32% of the student body. That's not even accounting for international students who are overwhelmingly Indian and Chinese.

Large doesn't mean fair. If it was fair there will be a higher disproportionate ratio because of actual academic results. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not Asians are generally academically better than most due to the culture that emphasize on education achievements.

Just like how Blacks dominate sports in the US. It is just facts. What is also fact is that Ivy league implemented a system that benefits and privileges the blacks, latinos and other minorities besides asians (even though we are the smallest of the groups). It is an open secret within the Asian community that reaches to even non-US Asians. As far flunk as my country, we know about it.

That is why when an Asian graduate from the discriminatory Ivy league, we know for sure he/she is of greatness. He/She is the elite of elites.

Even Harvard themselves said it in court:

'If Harvard were to abandon race-conscious admissions, African-American and Hispanic representation would decline by nearly half,' the school told the court in urging it to stay out of the case.

SCOTUS will take up affirmative action cases against top universities

The conservative-dominated Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the consideration of race in college admissions, adding affirmative action...

www.dailymail.co.uk

So if I want to nasty about it, I can be like the professor of "The problem with Whiteness" and say the "The Asian problem with Blackness and Brownness". You know how well the respond will be if we were to do that. So if my course title is unacceptable what makes the one about Whiteness acceptable? Racists ironically is colourblind. It comes in all sorts of people.

So Americans must decide. You either satisfy your own prejudice or let go of the past and move on. From the way things are going mainstream there, I have little need to gander.

 

[USincognito]

So if I want to nasty about it,

For all your handwaving, the fact remains, South and East Asian students are not having a tougher time gaining admission to some schools like the University of Texas at Dallas.

I'm still waiting for you to tell us about the content of the course and why it's racist.

 

[Landon Caeli]

What actual stuff in the course is so bad?

Daniel Schmidt mentions in the OP that white students are prohibited from taking part in classroom debate tournaments.

 

[durangodawood]

Daniel Schmidt mentions in the OP that white students are prohibited from taking part in classroom debate tournaments.

If so (and "if" is justified with skyfox "news") thats pretty bad. Heck just the course title seems unnecessarily provocative. But still, no one seems to be able to point to actual problems with the course material.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Daniel Schmidt mentions in the OP that white students are prohibited from taking part in classroom debate tournaments.

Where did he get that information? He certainly didn't take the course since it hadn't been taught yet and he never talked to the instructor nor showed in the syllabus where that was a contingent. All he knows of the course is the ~5 sentence blurp about the course in the schools course catalog.

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Heck just the course title seems unnecessarily provocative.

I took about 20 minutes to trace this word in the context of this OP. It comes from one of the authors the instructor cites as the inspiration for the course title James Baldwin. If you take the time (and it isn't much as I've said, about 20 minutes) you come to find what the word actually refers to and how much sense it all makes. Baldwin's point in the documentary from which it is derived is that "whiteness" is a construct that didn't really exist until America became a thing. Before, "white people" as a group didn't really apply to groups of people who were, physically, light skinned. They were Germans, French, Jews, Norwegians, Irish, Scotts, Danes, English, etc. It wasn't until the founding of America when "white people" became this homogenous group that seemed to ignore their own people group origins, much the same way "blacks" refer to people of varying African origins whose diverse and specific origins in culturally different people groups and tribes on the continent of Africa were erased by slavery.

This is why CRT is studied in colleges. This is deep stuff and it really all makes sense when you set aside your visceral response to the connotation of a word that you think you identify with or that identifies you and determine it to be "negative." It's way more complicated than that and it isn't what you think.

 

[durangodawood]

I took about 20 minutes to trace this word in the context of this OP. It comes from one of the authors the instructor cites as the inspiration for the course title James Baldwin. If you take the time (and it isn't much as I've said, about 20 minutes) you come to find what the word actually refers to and how much sense it all makes. Baldwin's point in the documentary from which it is derived is that "whiteness" is a construct that didn't really exist until America became a thing. Before, "white people" as a group didn't really apply to groups of people who were, physically, light skinned. They were Germans, French, Jews, Norwegians, Irish, Scotts, Danes, English, etc. It wasn't until the founding of America when "white people" became this homogenous group that seemed to ignore their own people group origins, much the same way "blacks" refer to people of varying African origins whose diverse and specific origins in culturally different people groups and tribes on the continent of Africa were erased by slavery.

This is why CRT is studied in colleges. This is deep stuff and it really all makes sense when you set aside your visceral response to the connotation of a word that you think you identify with or that identifies you and determine it to be "negative." It's way more complicated than that and it isn't what you think.

Thanks for bringing that to the discussion. I did watch the James Baldwin doc "I Am Not Your Negro" a year or so ago. The concept of "whiteness" as an artificial distinction set up in opposition to dark ("inferior") people was explored there. And like you I found it fairly sensible.

But unfortunately we live in a world of knee jerk reaction and easily offended people as demonstrated by the OP. Sometimes I think its just best to cater to them if theres a good alternative word.

 

[Pommer]

Daniel Schmidt mentions in the OP that white students are prohibited from taking part in classroom debate tournaments.

One might think that showing students how their input is not desired would cause them to think “why not”?, and other uncomfortable questions.

 

[Landon Caeli]

One might think that showing students how their input is not desired would cause them to think “why not”?, and other uncomfortable questions.

Like an opportunity for white students to experience racism first-hand in a classroom setting. For educational purposes.

...Am I understanding this correctly?