Discussion:

I guess Poe is fucking pissed that they didn’t fucking catch the fucking NUANCE in his fucking choice of fucking words.

I wonder how much less this would have been an initial issue if the course had been titled “The Politics of Demographic Change.”

BTW, contrast and compare:

1. “I advocate violence against minorities who choose to politically mobilize.”

2. “I advocate violence against racists who choose to politically mobilize.”

The supreme irony is that Pro. Poe sounds like a member of the KKK, which used violence against blacks when they tried to politically mobilize.

Same here.

This should be tattooed on the inside of every administrator’s brain.

aren’t zombies already dead?

At my university we called them Teaching Associates. I guess that ASU liked FA better than TA. It is just a grad student who is teaching a class instead of a faculty member. One more fraud the university likes to pull on unsuspecting undergraduates.

You do know that Poe isn’t the one teaching the class, right? He isn’t even in the same department. He just happens to be a supporter of the classes existance. For some reason, no one is interviewing the professor who actually is teaching the class, or any of the students taking it, even though it is now halfway over and there has been plenty of time to assess its content. No, the media wants to focus on the ravings of one guy who has nothing to do with the course in question. I would bet he has never even met Lee Bebout, the professor teaching the class.

Since you know nothing about the content of the class, maybe you should withhold judgement on the course. It is distinctly possible the title is very appropriate for the class. Although I guess it is easier to pass judgement and be upset about it.

If Mr. Poe’s goal was to educate people about the “Problem of Whiteness,” I’d say it’s mission accomplished.

Exactly. Instructors shouldn’t be performance artists, either.

It’s called “the problem of whiteness” because “Cracker, please!” was already taken by the culinary school.

When I hear people whine about winter and talk about dry heat, i think about cowardly institutions like this and a state that recently defunded much of its community college system. A freind of mine, Southerner by birth, once came to the unhappy conclusion that much as he hated winter, there really was no real culture in most of the sunbelt.

Well, double-meh. The higher horror of whiteness is not some transformative idea causing controversy because of its power and truth. It’s one of many ideas so weak it could only survive in an academic environment.

Um, yeah, standing in the quad with a bullhorn and a tiny sandwich board isn’t a teach-in. Teach-ins involve the presence of other engaged participants. One person with a cellphone camera and a stream of confused runners and bikers does not a teach-in make.

The only lesson to take away from this teach-in is that feeding the trolls - especially these vile, repugnant National Youth Front assholes - gives them a platform which they would otherwise not have and diverts attention from the valid arguments you’re trying to advance.

Channeling our inner Margaret Dumont are we?

Thanks for that. I hadn’t been following this story so I totally missed that he wasn’t the person teaching the course.

Prof. Poe needs to be completely defended against this repression by ASU. Hands off and renew all course instructor listings.

At the same time, someone needs to have a serious talk with him about how one can convey the same views with more politically astute and legally defensible formulations.

True, it’s a poorly written article. But this guy is still an attention craving asshole creating controversy. And the title of the class was DEFINITELY created to make controversy. It’s just plain dumb to stereotype any race, religion, etc. If you disagree, that’s your prerogative.

yep arizona living up to it’s potential…of being as backasswards as it can be …take the side of a bunch of inbred racist bigots over a professor in your university…way to go ASU way to go!!!

I see it exactly the opposite.  There’s nothing wrong with using provocative class titles. Poe, on the other hand, is a prick who is looking to use this incident for self-promotion and to make himself the victim (note that he’s not the one teaching the class, he just did a teach-in about the controversy).

I agree. He is an idiot. Any university teacher who advocates violence should be fired.