Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

the same thing happens with the corona responses of universities. colleges could open with distancing rules, sensible mask usage (inside, not outside), testing, and swift quarantine. that would basically eliminate spread in the learning environment.

the problem, of course, is outside the learning environment, where students will inevitably let their guards down and mix unsafely, but that's not the purview of the university. these are (young) adults, and the university's responsibilities end at the campus edge. what the university can do is refuse access to the infected on campus (in conjunction with plentiful testing), and provide swift and compassionate support for students who do get infected (and can't come on campus), without overstepping into paternalism.

then the responsible students will have access to the education they desire (and paid for), while the irresponsible will be denied (temporarily, likely having to repeat a semester or even a year). this will incentivize good behavior without resorting to autocratic mismanagement like this.

The decision of the dean chooses to protect an environment of low-risk social-compliant low-EQ classroom, which will act as a deterrent on the university's prestige moving forward (e.g. you don't see those traits associated with MIT or Harvard).

At the end of the day the dean might get fired for his actions. To use an analogy, "nobody gets fired for choosing IBM, but if for years you're left beyond Amazon"... one might need to eventually take a hard look at the university leadership and make the needed changes.

Truth is, if this was the case, then we deserved it. It seems sometimes like America has split into the two races in "The Dark Crystal", and we very badly need a reunification. We need the reason and open-mindedness of the left, and the practicality (and romanticism) of the right. We need to accept the truth that there are real differences between people (even groups of people) and celebrate those differences and not pretend they don't exist. We need to accept the truth that racial/ethnic/religious bigotry is essentially a human universal, which doesn't justify it but it also means you can't stop it with law or strongly worded emails to university authorities.

So yeah, if the CCP is behind this one, I say: thanks. Hope we can learn from it.

P.S. The culprit is the dean of the USC Marshall School of Business, Geoff Garrett, not UPenn. Also, according to the LA Times it was a group of black students, not the CCP. Feel free to call or write (213) 740-6422 ggarrett@marshall.usc.edu or tweet https://twitter.com/USCMarshall/ https://twitter.com/garrett_geoff

E.g., I personally believe there is ample room for criticism on the way the Israeli government treats Palestinians (to put it mildly). There are some attempts to define any and all criticism on the Israeli government by non-jews as anti-semitism, which frankly seems ridiculous to me.

Nevertheless, it's also true that "solidarity for Palestine" and "criticism on the Israeli government" are frequently used as covers and dog-whistles by actual antisemites. Marches in solidarity of Palestine can be easily be co-opted by Nazis if the organizers don't work too actively prevent it, even if the original intention was genuine.

In a similar way, white supremacists, racists, etc, might start to use "nà ge" as a substitute for the slur and attempt to back down with some bullshit excuse like "I was just speaking Chinese" when called out.

This is not advocating banning words preemptively because they could be used as slurs (nor banning pro-palestine demonstrations) but to stay vigilant. Context matters, but this goes both ways.