I have written columns and blogs through the years about the disturbing trend on U.S. campuses toward free regulation and controls. In the name of diversities and tolerance, college administrators and professors are enforcing greater and greater controls on speech –declaring certain views or terms to be forms of racism or more commonly “microaggressions.” The latter term is gaining support to expand the range of controls over speech and conduct to include things that are indirect or minor forms of perceived intolerance. The crackdown seems most prevalent in California where lists of “micro aggressions” seems to be mounting as a macroaggression on free speech. The new list of verboten terms out of University of California (Berkeley), headed by Janet Napolitano, captures the insatiable appetite for speech regulation. The school has asked faculty to stop using terms like “melting pot” or statements like “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.” They are now all microaggressions. Not only are school buying into the concept of microaggressions and speech regulation, but they are shaping a generation of students who seem to look for any possible interpretation of terms to take offensive at.
Ironically, while using the term “melting pot” is now viewed as an unacceptable microaggression, actual aggression in the form of assault by a faculty member on people for using free speech is not considered an offense worthy of termination — indeed it was an act deemed understandable if not heroic by some students and faculty in the case of California Professor Miller-Young.
Napolitano asked UC deans and department chairs to attend seminars “to foster informed conversation about the best way to build and nurture a productive academic climate.” The seminars includes handouts with these terms as part of the program called “Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send.” The manuals were reportedly adapted from a book by Columbia University Psychology Professor Derald Wing Sue. For civil libertarians, the handouts should be entitled “Recognizing Speech Codes and The Speech They Curtail.”
Some points have been previously discussed on this blog. For example, now discouraged is the statement “There is only one race, the human race.” We saw recently how the President of Smith College was forced into a mea culpa for saying “all lives matter.” Such collective valuations of live and humanity is now considered offensive because it denies “the significance of a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience and history.” A microaggression.
Likewise, “America is the land of opportunity” somehow suggests that “People of color are lazy and/or incompetent and need to work harder” while asking an Asian, Latino, or Native American “why are you so quiet?” is trying to force him to “assimilate to dominant culture.” Finding such microaggressions has become a virtual cottage industry (if I can say that without degrading any cultures that do not use — or use — cottages). Even some of the most important social and political debates are now considered racist if one side is spoken directly. For example, the Supreme Court and the nation has continued to debate affirmative action and whether it is a form of racism. However, saying “Affirmative action is racist,” is now deemed a microaggression by default. Thus, you can have the debate — just do not state your position on the ultimate question. Academics supporting such views seem wholly unconcerned that the barring of the expression depends on your first accepting the opposing premise on the issue of affirmative action. Consider the defense of OiYan Poon, an assistant professor of higher education at Loyola University in Chicago: “The statement that ‘affirmative action is racist’ completely ignores the history and purpose of affirmative action, which is to address inequalities resulting from the many ways our government and society have prevented people of color from accessing economic, educational and political opportunities and rights.” That is of course the opposing position in favor of affirmative action. It is worth noting that the Supreme Court has declared affirmative action to be unconstitutional for universities admissions. Recent opinions explore the limited range in which race may be considered for purposes of diversity, not affirmative action. However, the main problem is that the barring of this expression as a microaggression assumes that affirmative action is not racist — the very point under debate. In this sense, one side controls the debate by declaring the opposing view as simply racist to express.
The expanding efforts to curtail speech on college campuses shows how the taste for speech controls can become insatiable for many. Ironically, liberal faculty once rallied whole campuses to fight for free speech. Now, many are leading the fight against the speech of opposing groups as essential to a “tolerant” society. It is a dangerous trend that we are seeing throughout the West. However, the campaign of faculty to deny speech on campuses presents an existential threat to the entire academic mission. We are education a new generation that free speech is a danger to rather than the definition of a free society.
Source: Daily Beast
We need to repeal the 1st and 2nd amendments and make all these idiots happy.
It is a “Brave New World” which was a warning. Obviously, it was a warning unheeded.
The TRUTH does sometimes get in the way.
The American thesis is freedom and self-reliance of the individual, as the omnipotent monarch is removed.
Freedom of speech shall not be abridged by governmental or private entities within the borders.
Freedom requires that the government be neutral and without bias.
The “blessings of liberty” are enjoyed without interference by government
which was earlier limited in the Preamble.
Affirmative action is state-sponsored bias and racism.
Slavery was eliminated and neutrality achieved.
Private (and “moveable” or personal) property rights preclude redistribution.
Private property cannot become public property.
Private property cannot be taken from one man and private property given to another.
Taxation occurs to fund operations of the limited government
defined in the Preamble, not to redistribute wealth.
Government established as Justice, Tranquility, Common Defence and the Promotion of General Welfare
is severely limited and precluded from “central planning” and “control of the means of production.”
While minorities of every sort and fashion are protected by laws against ordinary and heinous crimes or
“high crimes and misdemeanors,” citizens must adapt to and live with the consequences of freedom.
Infinite argument by silver-tongued advocates must be as limited, and common sense applied,
as government itself was limited by the Founders in the Preamble.
The Constitution provides for governance
within the parameters of the Preamble.
The Preamble is the simple and essential Context,
without which America ceases to exist.
Well, if he fires that thing he’s going to smash himself in the jewels. It already must have been very uncomfortable in that position during the photo shoot.
I think they need to write one of these to teach people to have a THICKER skin…
EVERYBODY wants to be offended. WE need to get back to a time when people
were LESS offended.
We need to teach people to be stronger, and NOT assume that everybody has ill
intentions when they say something that MIGHT seem off color.
Squeeky, Cocking your musket…. hehehehehehe… YOU are killing me… 😀
All the media and journalists need to do is to remember its definition and use it properly and with no race restrictions in their news stories to desensitize the public.
——-
Karen, I agree whole heartedly. That NEEDS to be said, over and over… The Media are the ones who hold the greater responsibility,
and they are dropping the ball.
Mike, I agree 100% with what you said.
Hell, If I limit my speech to what is only acceptable to the listener… OK, I have to ask, HOW The
hell do I achieve that?
I have NO IDEA what somebody else may find offensive.
as can be heard by the fact that I say half the things on that list,
and by NO MEANS am I a racist, or have ill feelings of other races.
BY the way, people have been asking me what nationality I am, for most of my life.
People used to assume I was some sort of Asian.. some thought Mexican…
some thought mixed race.
I NEVER felt that people asked me this due to not liking different races,
BUT, more because they just wanted something to say where we might connect
as both being a little different.
It was always asked in kindness, NOT out of hate.
“WHY is the Far Left, trying so hard to become as crazy as the Far Right?”
Because extremist fanatics all act the same, whether they’re political, religious, or atheist.
Extremists + Power = greater scope for damage, such as ISIS or Stalin.
justagurl – the word has been appropriated by rap and R&B songwriters, and then academia noted its use as black culture admiring violent criminals, then the media got involved . . . it’s spreading.
I get what you’re saying. The word “bitch” originally had only one meaning, female dog. But then the word for female dog became applied to women as an insult. In the proper context, it is still use. When a dog breeder is interviewed, she will refer to her show bitch, for example. Now the meaning is more often an insult than an actual reference to a female dog.
But I am drawing a line in the sand at “thug.” I refuse to let proper English be dictated by rap song writers. If they dictated grammar, too, we’d all be screwed. (Oh, look, there’s another triple entendre word.) All the media and journalists need to do is to remember its definition and use it properly and with no race restrictions in their news stories to desensitize the public.
Karen, it is funny what you said about I am a Liberal, like you are a feminist…
WHY is the Far Left, trying so hard to become as crazy as the Far Right?
I find it embarrassing….
IN Sweden, they have taken the left of politics and made it into just crazy crap.
There is NO such thing as moderate in Sweden. Hell, I am considered a
Conservative here. It is just crazy.
The Liberals and Feminists are just screwing it up, BIG TIME.
YOU hit the nail on the head on that one Karen…
I agree. (Yeah!) Ebonics would be interesting for linguists to study, along with the Appalachians and other dialects. But that’s as far as it should have gone.
Karen,
I do see what you mean, but, I do seem to sort of see it lately as the new “N” word…
It is the MEDIA who is doing it, and it is catching on to others.
Mind you, in general, I am NOT one to be too PC in the way I talk to people,
so, for me to see it, it really has to stand out.
and fact is… when I talk to my girl friends, I say things like us Bitches..
HOWEVER, if the media started addressing women as bitches, I would be livid.
(OK, I would giggle a little bit, but, it would still not be appropriate. )
and that is how I sort of view how they are only tagging black male criminals
as thugs. It may seem ok to the media, but it is really not appropriate.
Like I said, I am not at all the PC word police… BUT< that word is
sort of getting to me. BUT, again, it is the media who is pushing that.
Isaac:
“The idea that ignorance of a language can then be accepted to be a language unique unto itself is not that hard to argue against; the argument that ebonics should be recognized and absorbed is ludicrous. There are enough people in the US who don’t speak English properly without adding another hybrid. Young Blacks will not be helped by being encouraged to ‘axe’ questions.”
I agree. (Yeah!) Ebonics would be interesting for linguists to study, along with the Appalachians and other dialects. But that’s as far as it should have gone.
hehehehhehehhe, Karen… You should hear what I say about Feminists… 😀
@karenS
Oh, I know! For a while that was all you saw on the Kindle book ads! I blame this whole thing on that French guy, Cocktoe or something like that:
http://film110.pbworks.com/f/1254885140/B%26B2.jpg
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Then there was Tupac’s “Thug Life” tattoo:
http://www.stereogum.com/1801799/thug-life-rap-music-and-the-word-thug/franchises/essay/
So it sounds like rap artists appropriated the word “thug”, and then the PC police tried to excise it from the English language. And the songwriters were using the correct meaning, “violent criminal”, but in an admiring way.
I refuse to let a word be stolen by rap artists and prohibited from polite use. Thug has been used in the English language for a very long time, and is part of the body of literature.
This one just kills me…
To a woman of color:
“I would have never guessed that you were a scientist.”
OK, that is just RUDE to say to anybody.
“
Where are you fromor where were you born?”
We were in Amsterdam a few years back, in the Zeedijk District, this is a very touristy area.
NOBODY we met was from Holland that day. So, we are in this bar, talking to this
couple, the man is white and the woman is black… They speak really good English.
I ask her, where are you from?
Ohhhhh my GOD…. she went OFF on me for a good half hour..
I did not mean anything by it… it is just that EVERYBODY we met that day was
on holiday…. and of course, I was on holiday, so I just assumed that everybody
in that area was on holiday.
I had to explain, OVER and over again, that I did not mean that she did not
belong there, it was just that everybody who I had met that day was
from out of town.
Ohhh I was horrified.
@Justagirl
Yes, that picture does kind of lend a new meaning to “cocking your musket”. .
🙄
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I believe this belief that thug refers to black people can be traced to the LL Cool J song, “Phenomenon” where he says:
“I was looking at her in the limelight, pearly whites
Said her man get paper but he don’t live right
All these emotions flowing inside the club
Do you really wanna thug or do ya want love?”
“Thug” started to become used in songs to describe the emulation of criminal culture.
The literal definition is a violent criminal. I think people over 40 use it correctly, but those younger than that might refer to its use in contemporary music.
justagurl – you’re a Liberal like I’m a feminist. The positive movement we joined went in a different direction.