Academia

USC Department Declares the Word “Field” to be “Anti-Black”
We have long discussed the increasing speech regulations and restrictions sweeping across universities in the United States, including mandating the use of pronouns and barring the use of other terms. The latest example comes from the University of Southern California’s Suzanne Dworek-Peck School of Social Work which has declared that the term “field” is racist and “anti-Black.” Thus, you cannot say that you are going to do “field work.” “Field” will be replaced with “practicum,” according to the January 9 memo. The announcement was made by the office not of “field education” but the non-racist “Office of Practicum Education.” The School explained:

“In solidarity with universities across the nation, our goal is not just to change language but to honor and acknowledge inclusion and reject white supremacy, anti-immigrant and anti-blackness ideologies. Language can be powerful, and phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘field work’ may have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers that are not benign…This change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language that could be considered anti-Black or anti-immigrant in favor of inclusive language.”

Houman David Hemmati, a board-certified MD Ophthalmologist and PhD research scientist, was obviously perplexed to learn that he has been spewing racist speech for years in discussing field work and exercises. He tweeted: “Today, @uscsocialwork sent out this letter announcing that they will no longer use the word ‘field’ (as in ‘conducting field work’) because it’s perceived as racist. Is this with merit or empty virtue signaling?”

Interim Dean of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, Vassilios Papadopoulos, rushed to add the obvious without adding any further explanation. He told Fox News that the decision was made by the Office of Practicum Education “out of a desire to more accurately describe its work.”

Conversely, Elizabeth A. Graddy, Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, seemed eager to distance her department from this latest woke controversy: “The university does not maintain a list of banned or discouraged words. We will continue to use words – including “field” – that accurately encompass and describe our work and research.”

However, the School of Social Work continues to herald its replacement of the word “field” as another triumph in the fight for “dismantling oppressive and discriminating systems.”

Of course, here may have to be some changes, including in this soon to be renamed movie “Practicum of Dreams.”

 

118 thoughts on “USC Department Declares the Word “Field” to be “Anti-Black””

  1. In football do we now have a practicum goal? A practicum field to play soccer? Does baseball have a center practicumer?

  2. Like the farmer he was outstanding in his practicum. There are two proofs that someone is making to much money. The first is a faculty job in a California University and the second is cocaine. They both require blowing it up your nose.

    1. All you have are nasty inferences, accusations, and outright LIES.
      You fell for this silly article because it is all you have as we wait for the Trump indictments.

      1. Your Tesla might go from zero to 60 in 3.2 seconds, but you aren’t getting any mileage. Trump was thoroughly investigated and impeached but found clean, something that is not said for the Biden crew.

  3. Government, academia and the media are largely composed of stupid, dishonest, yet pretentious and parasitic people that feed off society without adding anything of value.

      1. Jonathan knows that the comment doesn’t included him because he’s a honest man. Furthermore, I stated “largely”. Obviously you’re too dumb to comprehend. Cheers!

  4. In solidarity with universities across the nation, our goal is not just to change language…

    And there you have it. These Marxists are admitting they are coordinating efforts within the university system to stoke a culture war.

  6. Seems to me that the people that wanted this change are the true racists, as they imply “fieldwork’ has some racial connotation to it. I suppose they think this is primarily a field of practice largely among the African American population when in fact all races are served in social work with large amounts of African Americans, whites, Hispanics and others. If anything anyone from rich to poor, from healthy to unhealthy, white to black to Hispanic to Asian to Pacific Islander can end up in need of social work. If anyone is focusing on a racist aspect I would think it would be the name changers who have the most narrow view and really are the most racist. Field work is the best there is and where the life is truly real. Not being an academic for most of my career, I performed field work in Doctors offices, hospitals, indigent clinics, tb clinics, patient homes, negotiated with medicaid to expand their preferred doctor lists in our part of the state. All field work and happy to call it that. Of course, as a youth, I also worked on farms (short time) like picking eggs and priming tobacco (that is first rate actually in the field “field work”)
    Such stupid, virtue signaling idiot, academics. A Pox on their house. I love that curse, it carries more reality these days.
    Has Svelaz transformed into George227, asking for a friend.

  7. The textile industry had best set about finding a new word to replace ‘cotton’. The same for spectator sports played in stadiums. This is what one can expect from individuals who have never held down a serious day-job and are intent on changing the world to suit their own vision. I’d be motivated to suggest that first we we have to shoot all the faculties, but then I’d be impugning our respected host.

  9. USC has once again shown that it may be a power on the football field but it lags far behind Stanford in the academic field of Orwellian Language Bowderlization. USC could only come up with a single word for its list. Stanford has thirteen pages bad words in the document published by the Stanford CIOC and People of Color In Technology Affinity Group. The push back generated by this document has resulting in Stanford’s taking it down from its website. However, it remains accessible on the web. Point your browser at Stanford Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative and you will find it archived in many places. Stanford issued a statement acknowledging its existence but said that it was being withdrawn for further consideration, not that it was abandoning the “initiative”.

    A reasonable person may ask why such a document was produced in the IT area. Elon Musk’s disclosures of Twitter’s censorship machine demonstrate how easy it is to pass a huge volume of communications through its filters to ferret out improper thoughts. Stanford’s IT group controls the servers through which pass all electronic communications to and from stanford dot edu. Twitter filtered a much larger volume than that which goes across Stanford’s servers. I don’t care for the term “slippery slope” but this is a well-greased slope leading to a praticum of mud.

  10. I notice that in my previous post even my spell check didn’t like Practicum.

  11. I didn’t realize when I was a kid that I was out hoeing weeds in the practical. Now I feel better.

  12. The more of this insidious “takeover” of American idealism that I witness, the more I am reminded of:
    “We will take America without firing a single shot…we will destroy you from within.” (Former first Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Nikita Khruschev.)

    I am only quoting his words, NOT blaming or attributing communism for what is pulling at America’s threads.

      1. -just scanned over the article you linked. Excellent and thank you. I will download and look at it more carefully later.

  14. There. Fixed it. Now, no one need be reminded of cotton fields anymore, except for when they see one or don cotton clothing and use cotton balls and cotton swabs.

  15. Confucius said: “When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom”.

    Two and a half millennia ago, Tsze-lu asked Confucius what would be the first thing he would do if put in charge of government. He replied that it would be to rectify names. Why, asked Tsze-lu? Because, said Confucius:
    If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.

      1. You keep saying that but you can’t mention 10 significant lies when Trump was President. What does that say about you?

        1. Here are eleven
          Jan 20: “I know more about viruses than anyone.”
          Jan 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
          Feb 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
          Feb 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
          Feb 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.”
          Feb 25: “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
          Feb 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”
          Feb 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
          Feb 28: “We’re ordering a lot of supplies. We’re ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn’t be ordering unless it was something like this. But we’re ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
          Mar 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!”
          Mar 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it … Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”

          1. Your response demonstrates a lack of cognitive ability. You copy and paste from a source lacking proof the President said them in that way while being ignorant of the meaning of the word lie.

            I’ll take the first two.

            Jan 20: “I know more about viruses than anyone.”

            That statement, attributed to a Lindsay Graham statement about Trump, was debunked. Provide proof Trump made the statement and its context if such a statement appears to exist.

            “Jan 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

            He said something like that, though I cannot attest to its accurate wording. The Pandemic Guidebook advised Presidents to make such statements in such situations. Causing panic when it changes nothing is something best avoided. Additionally, if Trump believed it, there is no lie.

            George, you are digging a hole you will never be able to climb out of. I understand that there are things you might not like, and I might agree with, but using force-fed slogans makes you look unwise.

              1. I Googled the first and failed to find proof Trump made that statement, though Lindsay Graham supposedly said it with slightly different words. Newsweek called that false.

                The second statement fails to meet the criteria of a lie, assuming the words are accurate.

                Right or wrong, I learn. Do you? It doesn’t seem so. Did you see the Newsweek article in your search? Do you know how to differentiate a mistake from a lie? Did you bother to provide a link showing the primary source of the quotes? No. Unless done, everyone will think you are winging it. How come you failed to check out what I said? It was in Newsweek. I guess you accept what agrees with your fantasies.

                There was so much you could have done to prove your case or disprove mine, but you chose to make silly accusations, something ignorant people do. Are you saying you are ignorant?

  16. St. Thomas More wrote that the devil…that proud spirit…cannot endure to be mocked. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis wrote that the best way to drive out the devil . . . is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.

    We need to mock and scorn these lunatic academicians. A relative of mine told me a woman once scolded him for using the word “girlfriend” for an adult. When she referred to her boyfriend, he told her she must say “gentleman caller.” In the same way:

    If someone references a chain of events, tell them academicians now think “chain” is racist and they have to say a series of interlocking events. If someone mentions a cruise ship, tell them “ship” is racist and they have to refer to a cruise entertainment center that floats on water. If they talk about whipped cream, point out that the PC word for that is confused cream. And you definitely can’t ask someone if they’re out of their cotton-pickin’ mind. You can probably think of many more examples.

  17. field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field field

    1. She does not rule anything. You silly folk have riled yourselves up over nothing.
      Intentionally. You resent that Trump and his Putin are now in trouble.

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  18. Having to dig so deep to find evidence of racism is actually a tribute to the great job America has done over the past decades to eliminate racism and become race neutral. I know the race hustlers hate the term race neutral, but that’s just because they’d be out of a job if the country actually acknowledged the strides it has made rather than dwell on its distant past sins. Note that all the race hustling is coming from the elites. One has to ask who is pulling the strings here, and why — cui bono from a divided country? Or, what are they trying to distract us from?

    2. Elites? Like the kid raised in gold crib, a millionaire at age eight, coddled his entire life by Daddy’s money, brags about going to the finest schools, and lies about the money he got from Daddy and the Russians?
      THAT elite?

      1. george227, why did you bring up Hunter Biden you silly fellow? george227 hates rich people but he uses the phone produced by a rich guy. If george227 really stood by his principles he would immediately become a recluse. Guilt by richness is not a compelling argument. It is only a compelling argument by those who are aggrieved to the point of phobia. A good example from history would be Stalin. goerge227, an understanding of history would be a worthwhile endeavor in your search for properly expressing your opinion. Check it out sometime.

          1. The Bidens “were poor”.not now. 50 years in Washington has been good to the big guy and his family.

  19. When a University of California administrator wants to stamp out such familiar phrases as “a chink in his armor” or “a nip in the air” (get it? “chink” and “nip” can be offensive in other contexts) he is concocting an “injury” to justify wielding power over others.

    George will wrote about this trend 32 years ago:

    https://www.newsweek.com/curdled-politics-campus-203938

    One of my favorite lines: . . . liberals do not care what anyone does, so long as it is compulsory.

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