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Here is the course description:
http://african.wisc.edu/content/problem-whiteness
An intrusion of conservative lawmakers on academic freedom?
Rep. Dave Murphy of Greenville was bothered that the course premise was that white people are racist. Damon Burchell Sajnani (the professor who proclaims self on Facebook as Professor D dot US) made some Twitter posts after 5 Dallas police officres were gunned down by sniper on July 7. He posted a link to a song called “Officer Down,” and wrote, “Watching CNN, this is the song I am currently enjoying in my head.” Later, he posted: “Is the uprising finally starting? Is this style of protest gonna go viral?"
Maybe just another tweeter being thoughtless and impulsive. Facebook is maybe equally banal, but Prof D dot US has invested a lot of time on his profile, showing interests in Fidel and hiphop and weed and especially Kneeling Kaepernick. And his sadness that Brittney (sic) Spears was making a comeback on the MTV Awards, with Vanilla Ice. (C’mon, Prof, her name is spelled Britney, not Brittney or Britni or Brittany or Britnee, or any others of them hillbilly variations. You know how white folks are with alternative spelings! And the word vanilla is synonymous with plain white dull, yet some find the vanilla bean tasty and not oppressive in the least).
The course description is interesting…
Lol. If this course is “problematic” then my entire department would be shut down if this GOP had their way.
ETA: I just got done writing my semester term papers. Three papers about eugenics. I cannot tell you the number of times that I’ve read “the Negro/Black problem” or “the Mexican problem.”
Whiteness should be studied. I study the construction of whiteness as it was constructed in the late-19th, early 20th centuries when “White” became constructed first in opposition to the non-“American stock” (England and closely related countries) and then in opposition to Black/Mexican/Asian Americans. It still is a construct and should be critically studied instead of having it be the default, silent, “normal” race that others are studied in comparison to.
The professor glorifies cop killers and promotes hate speech. While students should largely be given free speech rights within a campus, faculty members who write this nonsense deserve to be fired.
What is your take on this situation at UNC Wilmington?
http://www.theseahawk.org/news/mike-adams-controversy-puts-uncw-in-national-news/article_2eee936c-b991-11e6-9742-afc1e2151cd0.html
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/free-speech-or-hate-speech-controversial-professor-tests-limits-n689841
http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20161202/mike-adams-department-at-uncw-releases-statement-on-column
The course description sounds fine, but “The Problem of Whiteness” is about the most negative, polarizing title they could have chosen for it.
^ I agree. It just encourages possibly joking, but perhaps bullying remarks. “The problem is your whiteness,” “your whiteness is my problem,” “Try being a little less white and the world will thank you.”
The title of the course is obviously inflammatory but the class is very important. If the views of @roethlisburger is anything to go by, the people that most need to learn from this course will be the least likely to take it. The course really just reinforces what is already known in most circles (that America is based on whiteness). Whiteness is not the same thing as “being white”. I’m also not sure what this has to do with “free speech”, take the class or don’t.
I think it is a good thing Mike Adams has tenure. I also think that most rational people are not concerned with a plague of conservative looneys on campuses across the country.
No matter anyone’s personal politics, it is impossible to avoid the fact that much of academia (and the media for that matter) is populated by individuals who think very differently than a majority of the citizenry. For the most part, people haven’t cared. But now, whether because of Trump, the ever increasing intellectual and cultural divide between our political parties, the sluggish economic recovery, the internet or the moons of Jupiter, normal people are beginning to pay attention to what the fringes are doing. I think we are at one of those times where the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way. Who knows, in twenty years we may be in a position to worry that a loon like Mike Adams is representative rather than an outlier.
He is intentionally provocative. Anything that is intentionally trying to provoke that expressed shock or outrage at the result is being disingenuous at best, (and baiting at worst).
I would point out that while historically “the negro problem” was montioned and studied a lot, we have learned from these mistakes…or maybe we have not if we still have to address it as “the white problem”. Fighting racism with racism never works…we have enough problems without intentionally creating new ones.
Censorship at its finest. A taste to come in a new era?
It looks like an interesting course that probably won’t be taken by the students who could benefit most from it.
The best way to eliminate courses that promote racism is for students to not sign up for them. Then the course would be dropped. Courses that promote separation of the races are a big step backward. Is the course racist? Just remove the word “whiteness” and substitute any other race. Would a course on the problem with blackness be approved by the university? I highly doubt it.
Reading over the course description I get the feeling that (like 2 or 3 dreary courses I took) total agreement with the prof’s ideological views is critical in getting a good grade.
Yes, the course title is provocative. Luckily, college (well, hopefully more like 3rd grade) teaches you how to read beyond the first line of something. 
I like provocative course titles. Makes me want to click to read more. I do that even if the title doesn’t sound even the least bit interesting but I’m intrigued by the title.
To be fair, I feel like the phrase “problem of [whatever]” has a different meaning in academia than it does to the general public. The phrase “problem of blackness” shows up in an anti-racist [url=<a href=“https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/the-problem-of-blackness%5Darticle%5B/url”>https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/the-problem-of-blackness]article[/url] by a black writer. Even “the problem of evil” refers not to the pathology of evil but to a logical difficulty arising from the existence of evil.
@snarlatron That is what I am afraid of reading the course description. If the course is open to debate within the fact and as long as you can back up your viewpoint with good evidence and facts then you will get a good grade then I am fine with it, but if the class has to deal with the professor telling you this is how things are and you must agree with this viewpoint because all others are wrong, then thats a terrible and close-minded class.
Saying he glorified cop killers seems like a sensationalist statement to make.
Also, money talks, so if people don’t take the class it won’t be offered. Supply & Demand.
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