Watch These Two White Ladies Freak Out About ASU's Whiteness Course

By Julianne Escobedo Shepherd | January 23, 2015 | 5:10pm

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Guys…. guys. Arizona State University is home to a class called “U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness.” The PROBLEM with WHITENESS? You think you have heard it all… but you have not.

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This video, featuring Fox Anchor/Resident Genius Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Lauren Clark, a “correspondent” for something called Campus Reform dot org and an ASU student who will not be taking the class, will show you why the class is so appalling, as well as plenty of the bald, abject fear disguised as deep disdain for the dark, evil path down which our country is headed, in which white people are totally DEMONIZED and seen as the ENEMY by dirty LIBERALS who probably don’t even BATHE. Hasselbeck is verklempt all over the place, but her impeccable helmet hair keeps that shit in check. Clark, who is also wearing red and has almost the exact same hair (insert “I can’t tell you white people apart” joke here because, um…), is soooooooooooooo over the textbooks required in the course, which are things like Critical Race Theory and The Everyday Language of White Racism, and Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by one of America’s greatest writers in history, Toni Morrison.

Ugh god sooooo utterly INAPPROPRIATE texts for a course entitled “U.S. RACE THEORY!” Clark is quick to point out that “all of these books have a disturbing trend” and that trend is “pointing to all white people as the root cause of social injustices for this country,” which, yeah, someone give her an A on that paper, she totally gets it.

Hasselbeck digs deep into that wig and whips out her best logic-zinger, which is the brilliantly predictable, “If the course were called ‘The Problem With Blackness’ or ‘The Problem With Being Female,’ would that fly at the university?” BOO-YAH! Y’ALL KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS! She was, of course, pointing out the CLEAR double standard that all these liberal institutions are dropping and totally bringing the white man DOWN.

Arizona is, of course, the same state that outlawed ethnic studies in their public school system, so it does make sense that in this context Clark and Hasselbeck would not know their history regarding centuries-old systemic racism in our country, dating back to the time when white people were simultaneously kidnapping black people from Africa and thereabouts while also massacring the natives indigenous to this great land they decided they wanted. So I really get and truly feel their sense of persecution. Arizona used to be México, you dorks. “I wonder what students like myself are taking out of this class when they learn about this negative racial tension in society! There’s a lot of implications here!” grouses Lauren Clark, so basic that I actually appreciate the vehemence from whence her basicness comes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, amirite Lauren? Did we mention the professor teaching this course is ALSO WHITE! O lo, the shaaaaaade of it all.

Over at hot new website Campus Reform dot org, Lauren Clark has penned a blog post about this important issue, quoting the Hot Take of a deeply sensitive, presumably white ASU student:

“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.”

Just gonna let that stew for a second. While that’s happening, I would like to posit that I found Lauren Clark’s blog post incredibly useful because it names the ASU professor—Lee Babout, assistant professor of English—and offers a list of the course’s reading material, with links. I will be picking some of that shit up! According to Clark, Babout also teaches classes entitled Transborder Chicano Literature, Adv Studies Theory/Criticism, and American Ethnic Literature, which makes me think he is a righteous dude. Lee Babout, if you’re reading this, can I come audit your class? Transborder Chicano Literature sounds like my shit.

But anyway, not to DERAIL this important topic and DECENTER the conversation from Hasselbeck and Clark. The former is like, hey have you reached out to Babout, and Clark is like nah, he’s not answering his calls, and the former’s like:

GIRL, HE STOOD ME UP AGAIN.

AGAIN?

MMM-HMMM

WELL WHAT’S UP WITH THIS GUY DO YOU REALLY LIKE HIM THAT MUCH?

YES HONEY I LOVE HIM HE IS FINE AND HE DOES A LOT OF NICE THINGS FOR ME

I KNOW HE *USED* TO DO NICE STUFF FOR YOU… BUT WHAT HAS HE DONE FOR YOU… LATELY???

And Clark is like, “I’d love to hear his opinions on this course, because I’d love to have someone explain it to me!” Which is funny because wouldn’t that just be… taking the class?

But whatever, college is expensive and Clark is probably too busy becoming the person who will morph into and take over Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s job once Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s operating system becomes outdated and Fox needs a reboot. Clark is doing a great job already, and also has a potential backup career as a wordsmith because she’s slinging new slanguage out here like her name is Nasir Jones, dropping ill verbiage bombs like “begroaned” and “overarcing.” Who got da props? It’s ya GIRL, Lauren Clark, out here in these skreets battling overarcing problems at college universities! HOLLA!