https://www.thisamericanlife.org/645/my-effing-first-amendment
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Saturday, 12 May 2018 19:00 (six years ago) link
Bari Weiss just won a 0,000 prize for good writing https://t.co/Q3rCrMpwA8 pic.twitter.com/nWPQXSmQZM— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) July 18, 2018
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 21:51 (five years ago) link
Remembering this classic from the @CillizzaCNN AMA pic.twitter.com/9XXCyAGIIU— noah ☭ (@voidsrus) July 18, 2018
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 22:18 (five years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/26/the-free-speech-panic-censorship-how-the-right-concocted-a-crisis
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Thursday, 26 July 2018 05:53 (five years ago) link
https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/trigger-warnings-research-shows-they-dont-work-might-hurt.html
― DJI, Friday, 12 July 2019 19:25 (four years ago) link
Feeling very triggered by those findings tbrr.
― Logy Psycho (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:30 (four years ago) link
The methods are the same as the 2018 paper, but with a pool of 451 participants who had experienced trauma. (A consent form required for ethical purposes did require that participants acknowledge that they would be reading emotional material, Jones told me, which is sort of a trigger warning all on its own but a required step of the process).
hmmm, seems like that might potentially stack the pool of people involved.
― Good morning, how are you, I'm (Doctor Casino), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:35 (four years ago) link
Sarah Silverman aka the cancelled:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/12/sarah-silverman-fired-from-film-blackface-photo
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 August 2019 13:34 (four years ago) link
https://gen.medium.com/my-semester-with-the-snowflakes-888285f0e662
― subway Stalinist (sleeve), Monday, 30 December 2019 22:40 (four years ago) link
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-suspended-saying-chinese-word-sounds-english-slur
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 14:24 (three years ago) link
Here's the issue:
The students said some of them had voiced their concern to Patton during his lecture, but that he’d used the word in following class sections anyway.
He wasn't fired, he was just taken off this class. Which seems entirely sensible if he's going to be so insensitive to the concerns of his students.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 12 October 2020 14:29 (three years ago) link
k
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 14:30 (three years ago) link
“There are over 10,000 characters in the Chinese written language and to use this phrase, a clear synonym with this derogatory N-Word term, is hurtful and unacceptable to our USC Marshall community.
what exactly is "that that that" a synonym for?
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, 12 October 2020 14:55 (three years ago) link
Yeah I’m kinda bothered by the fact that master’s candidates don’t understand the definition of synonym
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:00 (three years ago) link
presumably they meant "homophone"? but yeah
― rob, Monday, 12 October 2020 15:01 (three years ago) link
But to the admin this is certainly a clear case of “you know what we mean” with a fairly straightforward exit strategy
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:01 (three years ago) link
Wait till they find out the Spanish word for 'black'.
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 15:03 (three years ago) link
uggggggghhh when my office was also the parent center, I sat in on a lot of conversations in Chinese and that word showed up all the time, extremely repetitively, like regularly used 5 or 6 times in succession. The professor is under pressure to dance the correct steps around his students' concerns, but if they were studying or speaking Chinese they would definitely be exposed to it regularly. And then what are you going to do, tell a language speaker that their language is wrong and offensive to you? It's nonsensical.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:12 (three years ago) link
It’s like the “like” of Chinese.
― DJI, Monday, 12 October 2020 15:15 (three years ago) link
They also said they’d reached out to fellow Chinese students, who “confirmed that the pronunciation of this word is much different than what Professor Patton described in class. The word is most commonly used with a pause in between both syllables.”
Maybe to Chinese speakers the pause is more present, but I couldn't hear it.
Anyway. The fact that this was one lesson in a Communications class means he probably could have chosen other examples.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:17 (three years ago) link
Russell Peters on the matter: https://youtu.be/BrsWp07BwVk
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:24 (three years ago) link
Anyway, just to be 100% clear: policing other languages over a coincidence is anglo-imperialist navel-gazing.
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 15:41 (three years ago) link
Idk this story seems like bullshit tbh.
― seumas milm (gyac), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:45 (three years ago) link
As in it never happened or…?
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 15:48 (three years ago) link
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Monday, October 12, 2020 10:00 AM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Seriously. Maybe learn how your own language works before you start throwing shade on other tongues, my friends.
― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:52 (three years ago) link
I don’t think the students are “policing other languages,” they’re policing the professor’s choice of an example.
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:52 (three years ago) link
Same thing as far as I'm concerned. If it's not an English word, you don't treat it like English, period. Why should you leave out one of the most spoken languages in the world from the pool of relevant examples in the context of a Communications class?
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 15:56 (three years ago) link
It has been reported by BBC and CNN.
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Monday, 12 October 2020 15:57 (three years ago) link
"There are over 10,000 characters in the Chinese written language"
Is the suggestion here that any other Chinese word would have been an equally suitable example?
― jmm, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:07 (three years ago) link
Yes, just like you can readily replace 'like' with 'sesquipedalian'.
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:08 (three years ago) link
It's reasonable to think, based on this report, that the black students were kind of silly for taking offence - while at the same time thinking that this white "communications expert" was a dickhead for ignoring them, and that the students of that class deserve to have someone else teach them who isn't going to minimize, belittle, or ignore them, or even indeed call them navel-gazing anglo-imperialists.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Monday, 12 October 2020 16:16 (three years ago) link
No, it isn't reasonable, it's racist towards Chinese people.
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:20 (three years ago) link
still mostly bothered that students at one of the top 20 business schools in the world are taking a graduate level communications course and can’t use “synonym” correctly in a letter that apparently several of them all read and agreed on
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Monday, 12 October 2020 16:21 (three years ago) link
Where are you getting the idea he minimized or belittled the students? The timeline is very unclear from the article, but given how short the course was, it seems like they went this route pretty quickly:
"So they wrote a letter to the dean of the Marshall School of Business, Geoffrey Garrett, among others, describing Patton as insensitive and incapable of teaching the three-week intensive communications course."
I expect we'll see more of this kind of miscommunication/misunderstanding escalating rapidly up the upper admin with universities being online. Or at least I'd like to think this wouldn't have happened in the exact same way if the students were with in the classroom with the professor. It feels like some of the paranoia and distrust of being online leaking into new formats (e.g., the "edited lectures" speculation).
― rob, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:21 (three years ago) link
Patton said he emailed the entire program to apologize and apologized again the next morning.
― Number None, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:27 (three years ago) link
Too many (Western) native English speakers don't quite understand how overbearing their linguistic and cultural domination can be sometimes, which I suppose is normal. I'm just gonna bail out of this conversation.
― pomenitul, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:28 (three years ago) link
Pom, to be fair, the homophone in question has an incredibly awful history, especially in the US, where the class was being taught.
― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Monday, 12 October 2020 16:37 (three years ago) link
― seumas milm (gyac), Monday, 12 October 2020 16:37 (three years ago) link
Have you ever been to China? It is startling how much they say ne ga all the time in conversation.
― DJI, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:48 (three years ago) link
please pretend they don't
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Monday, 12 October 2020 16:52 (three years ago) link
From the CNN report fwiw:
"All I can say is, the professor's pronunciation of the Chinese phrase "neige" was accurate, and his use of it as an example of filler language was linguistically appropriate. It's a *very* common phrase," tweeted Yale law professor Taisu Zhang, who has previously taught in Hong Kong and China.The Black China Caucus, an American organization that describes itself as "amplifying Black voices in the China space," also defended Patton on Twitter."The BCC is shocked by how USC mishandled this situation," the organization posted. "Not only would a quick Mandarin lesson reveal that "nèi ge" is a common pronoun, but USC's reaction cheapens and degrades substantive conversations surrounding real (diversity, equity and inclusion) challenges on college campuses!"A petition sent to Dean Garrett and other USC leadership, which was shared with CNN, was signed by nearly 100 alumni of USC Marshall expressing support for Patton -- the majority of whom are from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Chinese-speaking regions."We represent more than a dozen nationalities and ethnicities and support the global inclusiveness Professor Patton brings to the classroom," said the alumni petition."Most of us are Chinese, some ethnically, some by nationality, and many others have spent extensive time in China. Most of us live in China. We unanimously recognize Prof Patton's use of 'na ge' as an accurate rendition of common Chinese use, and an entirely appropriate and quite effective illustration of the use of pauses."
The Black China Caucus, an American organization that describes itself as "amplifying Black voices in the China space," also defended Patton on Twitter."The BCC is shocked by how USC mishandled this situation," the organization posted. "Not only would a quick Mandarin lesson reveal that "nèi ge" is a common pronoun, but USC's reaction cheapens and degrades substantive conversations surrounding real (diversity, equity and inclusion) challenges on college campuses!"
A petition sent to Dean Garrett and other USC leadership, which was shared with CNN, was signed by nearly 100 alumni of USC Marshall expressing support for Patton -- the majority of whom are from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Chinese-speaking regions."We represent more than a dozen nationalities and ethnicities and support the global inclusiveness Professor Patton brings to the classroom," said the alumni petition."Most of us are Chinese, some ethnically, some by nationality, and many others have spent extensive time in China. Most of us live in China. We unanimously recognize Prof Patton's use of 'na ge' as an accurate rendition of common Chinese use, and an entirely appropriate and quite effective illustration of the use of pauses."
― I guess I'd be lonesome (Sund4r), Monday, 12 October 2020 16:52 (three years ago) link
tbh I think my main issue here is tactical as this story is what the wet dreams of extremely selective right-wing free speech warriors are made of, while in the meantime this pitched effort to protect and encourage racism moves forward: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/07/colleges-cancel-diversity-programs-response-trump-order
― rob, Monday, 12 October 2020 16:57 (three years ago) link
Everyone giggling about this and showing themselves really didn’t read the original piece now did they?
― seumas milm (gyac), Monday, 12 October 2020 16:57 (three years ago) link
The Yale law professor in article Sund4r shared disputes that it was pronounced wrong, though I don't know if he or the others cited actually heard him speak or is basing it on how it was written in the article.
― LaRusso Auto (Neanderthal), Monday, 12 October 2020 17:01 (three years ago) link
a professor has shot them down condescendingly in front of their peers
this isn't in the article either...
― Number None, Monday, 12 October 2020 17:02 (three years ago) link
I did read that piece, but I've seen some inconsistent reporting, because other sources seem to be saying that his pronunciation was not incorrect.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, 12 October 2020 17:02 (three years ago) link
also it doesn't seem like the professor is trying to make himself a martyr over this? He's apologised repeatedly
― Number None, Monday, 12 October 2020 17:04 (three years ago) link
_a professor has shot them down condescendingly in front of their peers_this isn't in the article either...
― seumas milm (gyac), Monday, 12 October 2020 17:06 (three years ago) link
Multiple things can be true at the same time: the Black-identifying students who wrote the letter had a repugnant shock or whatever they felt at hearing a homonym for a slur--and their feelings are valid. The whole thing probably also moved incredibly quickly, being (it seems?) one single lesson during a 3-week intensive class, which seems like an impossibly brief time to teach complex things. If they're ever going into international environments where Chinese is spoken, they will surely hear "neige" and have to find their own footing with hearing a near-slur, and how that feels, and some level of acceptance of a culture & language that's completely independent and owes them nothing in that sense.
Otoh it wouldn't take a lot of foresight on the professor's part to introduce the term with a warning/explanation, not because academia is being WOKE POLICED, but out of concern for students who experience that racial slur as violence, to protect them from that.
On the third hand, maybe he DID, or tried to, and it wasn't accepted? Idk, do we really need to parse the transcript to say that things are complicated and trauma is real?
xxxp again, as I said before, if there's a different pronunciation that's recognizable to Chinese speakers, it wasn't apparent to me as a non-Chinese speaker.
― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Monday, 12 October 2020 17:11 (three years ago) link
But also, my main suspicion of this story is it’s not, how shall I say, congruent with the world that exists, like since when have universities given a shit about black students in such disputes, especially over something as debatable as this? If he apologised then why fire him? That’s why I’m kind of like, there’s more to this than what out there.
― seumas milm (gyac), Monday, 12 October 2020 17:14 (three years ago) link