In the upcoming winter quarter, Dr. Rebecca Journey planned to teach a course called “The Problem of Whiteness.” Unfortunately for her, undergraduate sophomore Daniel Schmidt posted about the class on Twitter, contending that it is racist against whites.
In his post, Schmidt included a snapshot of the course description, which blames whites for “the consolidation of wealth and property and the distribution of environmental health hazards.” His post went viral and made national news, catching the attention of the National Review, Inside Higher Education, and the Chicago Tribune.
Schmidt also added Dr. Journey’s public email to his post, leading to her receiving over eighty hostile messages (including threats). True to form, UChicago administrators released a statement highlighting their commitment to academic freedom and their willingness to let her teach freely.
Dr. Journey chose to postpone the course to spring quarter anyway, allegedly to give the University time to develop a “safety plan.” She also criticized Schmidt for his “malicious attack not just on my as a teacher but on anti-racist pedagogy writ large,” adding that she would “not let the cyberterrorists win.”
Fair enough. Nobody should be doxxed out of teaching a class. However, “The Problem of Whiteness” is still racist and nonsensical.
Its course description reads like a progressive fever dream. It details the mystical power of whiteness: a “pigment of the imagination with worldmaking (and razing) effects.” Whiteness is a stealth monster, the only “‘unmarked’ racial category.” Yet it still touches everything as the “default surround against which non-white or ‘not quite’ others appear as aberrant.”
It’s as if whiteness is the original sin. The pale are guilty, if not by transgression than by association, by the sins of their ancestors. We are fallen because we are white.
Part and Parcel of a Bigger Problem
“The Problem of Whiteness” is one instance of a general trend: college humanities departments becoming religiously woke. Fifty years ago, history departments did history and English departments did English; today, both disciplines muddle their missions by indulging in half-baked progressive politics.
In 2020, the UChicago English Department only accepted graduate students interested in black studies, supposedly to aid “the struggle of Black and Indigenous people”—as if aiding the black struggle were somehow key to teaching and researching English. In the one history class that I took as an undergraduate, race and gender filled more than fifty percent of class time.
Modern society needs the humanities. Humanities scholars focus on humans in a chaotic, technological, science-obsessed world.
That said, humanities departments would do well to remember their worth and stop diluting their core focus with woke distractions.
* The views expressed in this article solely represent the views of the author, not the views of the Chicago Thinker.
I think it is interesting that you are criticizing a course at the University of Chicago for being interdisciplinary, when this institution is known for its devotion to a core that prioritizes interdisciplinary studies and a diverse intellectual development. I particularly think you are showing your ignorance and your academic limitations by critiquing humanities departments for expanding their knowledge and allowing their students to explore their academic interests. What do you think academia is about? What do you think is the purpose of creating knowledge? I see you are a law student, but even law in its rigidity is only beholden to the way it is interpreted. I am curious as to why you think allowing academia to expand upon itself is a weakness, and not a natural consequence of intellectual discovery.
These departments seem to not be your forte, so I wonder why you are speaking on them when you have no experience. Perhaps if you extended your discipline, you would be more familiar. I think you are blinded by your obsession with this definition of “woke”, and would do well to understand the difference between what you perceive as a “woke agenda” and the purpose of humanities in exploring the issues most pertaining to our current society. Perhaps the problem for you is not that these English and History departments are becoming more thorough and intersectional in their approaches, but rather, that you are uncomfortable with those changes. Why? I am fascinated by the different experiences and perspectives that humanities are highlighting in their development, whether I agree or not, and whether it is relevant to me or not. I think it is always disappointing when people are too scared by their own knowledge to even consider other perspectives.
So I will consider yours:
I was interested by this section:
“Its course description reads like a progressive fever dream. It details the mystical power of whiteness: a “pigment of the imagination with worldmaking (and razing) effects.” Whiteness is a stealth monster, the only “‘unmarked’ racial category.” Yet it still touches everything as the “default surround against which non-white or ‘not quite’ others appear as aberrant.”
It’s as if whiteness is the original sin. The pale are guilty, if not by transgression than by association, by the sins of their ancestors. We are fallen because we are white”
I think you are misunderstanding the first part, and that you have something worth exploring in the second part, although you are letting your own emotions and dramatization keep you from making a coherent point about the demonization of whiteness.
With regard to the first part, I would recommend you read up on the creation of race. You are clearly focused on “pigment” and how this “Problem of Whiteness” reflects on your own “pale” skin. While very brave of you to pit yourself against all criticism against whiteness and white supremacy, your whiteness is not the problem with which Dr. Journey, I assume, will grapple in her course. Instead, I would recommend you look at the biological, medical, social, and cultural ways that we have historically created an idea of “race”. After all, as you imply, pale pigment cannot be the “original sin”. I think this is actually a great point that you make in your critique. Nevertheless, the importance of interdisciplinary History, and even English becomes clear here. The way that we write about race in stories, in medical books, in blog posts, in political speeches, are all a representation of what we understand as “race”.
But the problem is not whiteness in the way you have conceived here, but rather, “Whiteness”, as Dr. Journey wants to explore in “worldmaking” and as an “‘unmarked’ racial category”. When we describe whiteness, we describe what it is not: it is Not blackenss, it is not foreign, it is not “different”. Whiteness used to not include European immigrants until immigration influxes, particularly from Asia, caused a re-definition of Whiteness. When we think about segregation, zoning, gerrymandering, what do we think about as “Whiteness”? These are the definitions that get to the real problem of whiteness, and a class that grapples with them is not a threat to white pale skin and those who have it, but rather, a way to better understand how those understandings of one another interact in the public sphere.
I would love to take Dr. Journey’s class, or at least read her syllabus. Even if I have issues with her premise or her syllabus choices, the purpose of a seminar class in the humanities is to explore our own reactions to these concepts, and to add what we learn, agree and disagree with, to our own knowledge. If learning is a life-long journey, I want to challenge myself, and I disagree with your claim that the humanities “muddle their missions” by allowing students to do so. In fact, this expansion of knowledge allows students who might be on either side of this academic line to learn about new things, whether it be race within history, history within literature, the role of literature within social issues. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on Dr. Journey’s syllabus and her choices of reading, when she is able to teach her course.