Last week, Fox News helped my dissertation research immensely. I learned about five books that I definitely need to read based on their coverage of a course at Arizona State University titled “U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness.” The course is taught by Professor Lee Bebout who has drawn the wrath of conservatives and their media mouthpiece Fox News for the serious crime of, gasp, talking about whiteness in a college classroom.
As I mentioned in previous posts, acknowledging structural racism is essential to reforming overwhelmingly white industries like cultural resource management archaeology. Learning about whiteness is central to this process and does much to help diversify our field. This Fox News segment was a perfect case study in how whiteness is maintained through media discussions of race on television. We can also use our understanding of these arguments in our efforts to eliminate structural racism in the United States and help increase diversity in cultural resource management archaeology.
Dr. Bebout has spent his career studying the characteristics of Mexican American racialization and, recently, has focused on the interplay between Chicano/as and white people. He has emphasized the role of whiteness in race relations in the American borderlands. He also self-identifies as white.
One of the problems of racializing white people is the way it forces and enables them to stay out of conversations about race. Dr. Bebout is suffering from this aspect of racialization as it pertains to white people. In order for white privilege to work, whiteness has to be normalized into the background of racial dialogues. It must remain unnamed, unstated, and unaddressed because if we spent time thinking about how race dehumanizes white people too, we might begin thinking about how the whole racialization process is based on maintaining class differentials. Poor people might join forces and start trying to get a piece of the pie and middle-class folks may not be happy with what lives they’re given. We might start pushing for a reorganization of our society by refusing to address racial categories. This is doubtful, but the people that benefit from structural racism (i.e. the rich) have a lot to lose if we realize we’re being used.
Fox News’ coverage of this class has all the crucial elements necessary to defuse any discussion of the role of whiteness in the United States. The class was brought to the attention of Fox News by an ASU student and campusreform.org representative Lauren Clark. Clark is a young careerist and correspondent for Campus Reform who, “…exposes liberal bias and abuses at Arizona’s colleges and universities…” (http://www.campusreform.org/Author/?AuthorID=1017953). While Clark has not taken Bebout’s class or appears to have read any of the books in the course’s syllabus, she did not like the title of this class and somehow notified Fox News. Elisabeth Hasselbeck took up the story and discussed it on the Friday (1/23/2015) edition of “Fox & Friends” (FYI: I don’t know Bebout, Clark, or Hasselbeck nor do I watch Fox & Friends. I’m mainly remarking on the class’ coverage on Fox News).
An excellent rebuttal to this piece was published by Roque Planas on the Huffington Post: Scholars To Fox News: Writing About White People Doesn’t Make You Racist.
Take a few minutes and watch the Fox & Friends coverage of this class. It contains several important arguments that are used to defuse discussions of whiteness and structural racism in the U.S.:
I want to look beyond the standard techniques used in news media to essentialize very complex issues (in this case, shortening the course’s name, framing questions to get desired responses, using phrases without providing the full context of the statement). I want to examine three main elements in this video that are commonly used to refute the existence of structural racism and the role whiteness plays in maintaining it.
1) Pointing to all white people as the source of racism– Hasselbeck and Clark appear to be very offended that someone would say whiteness is a problem. To be fair, neither of these two are race theorists so they probably haven’t thought much about the ways whiteness prevents them from living to their fullest potential or how it helped create a massive white underclass. They don’t know the history of racialization in America so I expect them to be offended by the concept that their racial identity is considered a problem to other Americans.
The way they reframe the argument away from the white race and onto the individual is huge. This is a major element in the way white people refute the existence of structural racism. White folks and minorities discuss racism differently. In my experience, white people prefer redirecting the discussion of racism away from themselves by focusing on the role of the individual in the perpetuation of racism. “Not all white people are racist. I’ve got a lot of black friends. My brother-in-law is Mexican.” We’ve all heard/made those statements.
Talking about racism can be uncomfortable. It can bring up bad feelings. Most white people are ashamed of slavery, Jim Crow, and the near annihilation of Native Americans. Black people don’t want to be reminded that we used to be somebody’s property. Japanese Americans do not want to think about the fact that their grandparents were interned. These memories cause pain and suffering. Today’s Americans people had nothing to do with those past events, but our ancestors did. These facts are disconcerting and make us shy away from confronting the legacy of those times (i.e. structural racism).
This lingering discomfort is exactly why we need to talk about race, especially the role of whiteness. Citizens of the United States cannot move forward until we deal with our feelings and emotions regarding race. Classes like Dr. Bebout’s are an important step forward.
2) Conflating frank discussions of race into accusations of racism–This goes along with the first point. Nobody likes being called a racist just like nobody likes thinking about the negativity associated with talking about race. Hasselbeck and Clark agree that the class they call “Problem of Whiteness” is negative, counterproductive, and unfair. While they don’t say it out loud, both commentators make it seem like Bebout’s class is a discussion of how all white people are racist.
We all know not every white person is racist. That is not what Bebout’s class is about. The class is called U.S. Race Theory AND the Problem of Whiteness. It sounds like the class is about the theoretical underpinnings of race, including the ways whiteness causes many of the problems we’re facing today. The commentators seem not to understand the terms postcolonial (after the end of colonial rule), deconstructionist (a tool in critical literature analysis that examines the meanings and assumptions of written texts), and/or psychoanalytic (the process psychologists have used to examine thoughts in order to find the source of malaise). I have not read the syllabus or taken the class, but it sounds like Bebout wants to break down the ways race has been constructed and conceived in the last 200 years in order to help students realize the role of race in the present.
Talking about whiteness is not racist. Being white does not mean you are a racist. It is important that white people do not stay away from addressing race because of an internalized fear of being called a racist. We need you to think about your own identity because it is the only way we are going to be able to address racism in the United States. It is definitely counterproductive for half of all Americans to abstain from the discussion on race.
3) Calling out reverse discrimination–Hasselbeck says something to the effect of; “Do you think the university would be acting the same if the class was called ‘The Problem with Blackness’ or ‘the Problem of being Female’?” Clark states that, clearly, ASU would be treating this matter completely differently if that was the case.
Reverse discrimination is a powerful concept, especially for white people who might think they are being called racist. It is also important for the maintenance of structural racism because it maintains the division between white people who do not believe they get preferential treatment because of their race and non-whites who are perceived as getting benefits. For example, the argument against minority scholarships in Arizona depends heavily on the idea that race-based scholarships give non-white students an unfair financial advantage over white students while failing to acknowledge the socioeconomic discrepancy between most white and non-white students. Reverse discrimination requires that we not acknowledge the presence of structural racism, perpetuating the false concept that a rising tide will float all boats.
You do not have to acknowledge structural racism to see its effects. Go drive through your local Native American reservation or ghetto to see what structural racism has done. How do the homes/buildings in these spaces look? Who do you see walking around on the streets? What color are they? Do they look content? Do they look happy? Do they look like they are fully participating in American society and helping make this country better? Why do you think things are the way they are in these places?
Arizona State is one of the hundreds of state universities that are doing their best to reverse the negative impacts of structural racism in this country. Universities have a legacy of discrimination that they are trying to undo (Ever heard of craniology, home economics degrees, and segregation laws anyone?). Learning about how whiteness has caused problems in American history is necessary because, if we’re ever going to dispel racism, we need to be working from a place of knowledge is much better than working from ignorance.
Also, reverse discrimination is an outgrowth of structural racism. Ending racism is the best way to eliminate reverse discrimination. Courses like Bebout’s do much to reveal racism, which empowers us to end it.
4) Crying out for an institutional response to the perceived injustice–Hasselbeck also asks, “What message is the university sending to its students?” This implies ASU needs to “do something” to stop this class and the accompanying dialogue about whiteness.
The easiest way to maintain structural racism is to prevent Americans from engaging about race. When institutions turn a blind eye to discussions of race, they perpetuate structural racism by maintaining ignorance about the topic. One of the worst things ASU could do is force Bebout to stop teaching the class. One of the best things they could do is make people like Hasselbeck and Clark take the class before they talk about it anymore.
The university will probably make Bebout change his course title, but they shouldn’t make him change the course content. He teaches a number of classes on critical race theory which is why they hired him in the English department. Those topics are why his students sign up for his classes. His experience, education, and research topics are important to ASU’s English department otherwise he wouldn’t be a professor there.
5) Keeping whiteness invisible–Finally, Hasselbeck asks something to the effect of: “I wonder what students will think when they learn about all this negative racial tension.” This implies that ASU students, 62% of whom are white, do not know that negative racial tension exists. I’m pretty sure the 20% Latino, 4% black, 7% Asian, and 1.5% Native American ASU students are vividly aware that racism exists. Many of the white students also know racial tension is real. Hell, Hasselbeck and Clark know that racial tension is negative which is why they immediately wanted everyone to know that being white is not bad (see #1 above).
The worst thing we can do is refuse to think about how whiteness is constructed, maintained, and how it effects our society. We need to think about whiteness just like we’ve been thinking about the racialization other non-white groups for decades. Read Are archaeologists racist, Part I for more details.
I’ve been doing my best to change the racial composition of archaeology practitioners. I’ve also been discussing the ways archaeology can give us information on racialization in the past for over a decade now. Engaging whiteness as a racial construct has been the missing link in research on racialization in the United States. Now, classes like Bebout’s and whiteness studies programs at universities are taking the lead in thinking about the ways whiteness influences the society in which we live. This is important work.
In 20 years, Hasselbeck, Clark, and millions of other white people will probably have a better understanding of structural racism and white racialization than ever before. This will be the result of scholars like Bebout.
What do you think. Do Hasselbeck and Clark have a point? Is it wrong to discuss whiteness in universities? How does this effect archaeology?
I would really like to hear from you. Please, write a comment below or send me an email.
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