next »

[joeroberts]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081119.wlanguage19/BNStory/National/home

Does any one else know of such a policy at other campuses? What has been the reaction?

[european]

They can't even call things retarded anymore? Honestly, what kind of expressions of annoyance or disapproval are still allowed? It's not as if anybody using the expressions "that's retarded" or "that's gay" are hostile towards people with mental disabilities or homosexuals.


And: " If a student avoids a classmate's birthday party for faith-based reasons."? Excuse me? A Jehovah's Witness isn't allowed to avoid a birthday party anymore, even though they find such parties to be disapproved of by God, without some know-it-all coming in to intervene? What kind of infringement on individual choice is this?

[samspade]

This strikes me as something out of a Kafka novel, with monitors in public places eavesdropping in on private conversations. While I despise racism and homophobia, I also believe that racist and homophobic speech is protected (I realize that the 1st amendment doesn't apply in Canada).  You can't outlaw words just because they hurt people's feelings.

[neutralname]

Are they going to also step in when students call each other 'nigga' ?

It's another example of universities becoming more like high schools, and it may not be unreasonable since college students are becoming more like high school students.  Except that college students do have more rights than high school students, even in Canada.

Kingston's a small city and Queens University has about 13,000 undergrads, which is quite large.  I could imagine that it might work as a strategy in a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere, but in that context, I doubt that the initiative will have its intended effect.

I'm loving all these threads about language.

[scotia]

One problem is that people hear 'offensive' language when the usage is anything but offensive. Two instances:

1. About five years ago my grandmother was severely told off by an uppity young man from the local council because she told him that things were "not at all gay at the moment". She handed him the battered dictionary she continued to peruse most days and challenged him to find why her usage was in any way pejorative (my aunt, who was with her at the time, reported that he had to look up 'pejorative' too). The dictionary had been a wedding present and my grandmother was 101 at the time: to her 'gay' to meant good or happy. Even now I have students who speak English as a 2nd/3rd/4th language to whom we have to explain that some usages of what they regard as innocuous words are no longer widely acceptable.

2. People overhear things and do not fully understand the context. I was once severely castigated and threatened with violence by someone who overheard me say 'homo' on a number of occasions and assumed I was being offensive. In fact I was in the midst of a technical discussion about HOMO orbitals with a chemistry graduate student.

[locutus]

Language police? Bad idea.

Didn't they do something like this in the UK a few years back?

[prytania3]

This strikes me as something out of a Kafka novel, with monitors in public places eavesdropping in on private conversations. While I despise racism and homophobia, I also believe that racist and homophobic speech is protected (I realize that the 1st amendment doesn't apply in Canada).  You can't outlaw words just because they hurt people's feelings.

Actually, in some states using certain words is a felony. Personally, I think that's way over the top.

[jackalope]

It's not as if anybody using the expressions "that's retarded" or "that's gay" are hostile towards people with mental disabilities or homosexuals.

Yes they are. Using those terms as a put down necessarily implies that people with mental disabilities and homosexuals have less human worth than the rest of us.

Don't be such a cracker.

[pyshnov]

Provocation is the method of choice in Canada's push for "progress".

One man, a member of Human Rights Commission, was anonymously posting for a long time terribly racist messages on a web site concerned with immigration etc.; the site did not use such language as he did. The man had close ties with Bnay Brit also. He was planted to flash out people who would respond to the provocations.

Police is using provocation as a method of choice also; they actually delivered explosives to some Muslims and then locked them in jail. They plant provocators in jail cells routinely and then use their "evidence" in court; this was a subject of a scandal when they did this in Australia (I don't remember the details).

When Canadian academia robbed prof. Fabrikant of his research and he complained to the court, they threatened him with imprisonment on charges of contempt of court. The evidence of "contempt" was found in his university emails, not in court. Then, they said: In jail, you know, anything can happen to you. You better withdraw your complaint from the court.
Fabrikant got desperate and shot four people. After that, the scum who robbed him got away with the robbery, embezzlement of money. The administration got away with concealment of fraud, nobody even asked if they were receiving bribes.

[scheherazade]

It's not as if anybody using the expressions "that's retarded" or "that's gay" are hostile towards people with mental disabilities or homosexuals.

Yes they are. Using those terms as a put down necessarily implies that people with mental disabilities and homosexuals have less human worth than the rest of us.

Don't be such a cracker.

Indeed.  Words mean things, and commonly used phrases like this reflect deep-seated societal prejudices.  While I don't agree with laws banning such language, there's nothing wrong with having a policy stating such.  I had the same policy in all my classes.

Of course, if you're fined for it, I suppose you could always jew them down.  Right?

[european]

It's not as if anybody using the expressions "that's retarded" or "that's gay" are hostile towards people with mental disabilities or homosexuals.

Yes they are. Using those terms as a put down necessarily implies that people with mental disabilities and homosexuals have less human worth than the rest of us.

Don't be such a cracker.

Indeed.  Words mean things, and commonly used phrases like this reflect deep-seated societal prejudices.  While I don't agree with laws banning such language, there's nothing wrong with having a policy stating such.  I had the same policy in all my classes.

I thought I'd not reply, since I wasn't certain if the comment was in jest or sincere, but given that it's been agreed with I'll give my view on this.

The word "retarded" literally means "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress". It is hence a perfectly acceptable metaphor to apply to claims or policies that go in against common sense or facts. Naturally, there is a time and a place for using such a word, and the classroom definitely isn't a place where this word is to be accepted. In an utterly informal context, among friends? I genuinely don't see the harm. Does using such a word in this context imply that you necessarily consider mentally handicapped people subhuman? I don't see how that follows at all.

[scheherazade]

It's not as if anybody using the expressions "that's retarded" or "that's gay" are hostile towards people with mental disabilities or homosexuals.

Yes they are. Using those terms as a put down necessarily implies that people with mental disabilities and homosexuals have less human worth than the rest of us.

Don't be such a cracker.

Indeed.  Words mean things, and commonly used phrases like this reflect deep-seated societal prejudices.  While I don't agree with laws banning such language, there's nothing wrong with having a policy stating such.  I had the same policy in all my classes.

I thought I'd not reply, since I wasn't certain if the comment was in jest or sincere, but given that it's been agreed with I'll give my view on this.

The word "retarded" literally means "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress". It is hence a perfectly acceptable metaphor to apply to claims or policies that go in against common sense or facts. Naturally, there is a time and a place for using such a word, and the classroom definitely isn't a place where this word is to be accepted. In an utterly informal context, among friends? I genuinely don't see the harm. Does using such a word in this context imply that you necessarily consider mentally handicapped people subhuman? I don't see how that follows at all.

That's neither here nor there.  You need to look at what people think it means when they use it, because that's the colloquial definition.  Ask just about anyone what they mean when they say something is "retarded", and they will say that it's stupid or bad.  Extrapolate from that societal views toward mentally retarded people (which shouldn't be difficult, given those attitudes are right out in the open).

Addressing prejudicial colloquialisms is central to making people aware of the presence of such attitudes around them and, perhaps, subconsciously within them.

[ideagirl]

Are they going to also step in when students call each other 'nigga' ?

How about "cracka"? I say "Cracka, please!" all the time, to express my dismissive disbelief in what caucasian friends of mine have just said.

[ideagirl]

The word "retarded" literally means "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress". It is hence a perfectly acceptable metaphor to apply to claims or policies that go in against common sense or facts.

You're absolutely right. The word "retarded" IS a negative word, in and of itself. It's insulting (though in some cases accurate) to use it to describe people, and extremely offensive to use it to describe people whose mental abilities are limited by some physical or genetic problem over which they have no control, but those who oppose all use of the word have it backwards: the word alone does not mean "a mentally handicapped person," so using the word does not in and of itself insult or even refer to such people. The word alone is fine. The only problem with the word is when people use it to describe mentally handicapped people--THAT is when it becomes offensive.

[european]

The word "retarded" literally means "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or academic progress". It is hence a perfectly acceptable metaphor to apply to claims or policies that go in against common sense or facts.

You're absolutely right. The word "retarded" IS a negative word, in and of itself. It's insulting (though in some cases accurate) to use it to describe people, and extremely offensive to use it to describe people whose mental abilities are limited by some physical or genetic problem over which they have no control, but those who oppose all use of the word have it backwards: the word alone does not mean "a mentally handicapped person," so using the word does not in and of itself insult or even refer to such people. The word alone is fine. The only problem with the word is when people use it to describe mentally handicapped people--THAT is when it becomes offensive.

I do agree with this. However, I also think we should be careful where to draw the line with this kind of thing. Before you know it, you're confronted with descriptions like "intellectually challenged people".