Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge • Hacker News Board

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#481

Post by bowties2cool » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 3:22 AM UTC

echaozh wrote: post #472

craftinator wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at some level this comes down to the age old argument of Ignorance vs the Common Good. An extreme but relevant example: If a person is ignorant of the harmfulness of bleach, and injects their children with it with intent to cure an ailment, are they guilty of a crime? If so, is it the crime of being ignorant? So from that lens, can a person act aggressively without intending to? In a technical sense, I think…

I don't think emotional offence should be treated exactly like physical harm. Different people may take offence from different actions, and it's not fair to require everyone to judge accurately what is and what is not offensive to all the other people they're going to interact with, especially in a society that is aiming for diversity. In East Asia, where most people think alike, it's easier to guess people's reactio…

I don't know where you get the impression that in East Asia most people think alike, though I won't call it microaggression but rather self-centered cluelessness. Agree with your other points though.

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#482

Post by hnick » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 3:33 AM UTC

apexalpha wrote: post #188

prerok wrote: post #42

Some time ago a fellow countryman, a basketball player, made it into NBA. After a controversial ruling by a judge that one of his teammates performed a foul, he kept yelling "ni ga, ni ga, ni ga". Contextually translated, he meant "he hadn't touched him". He had to apologize profusely and explain to no end what he meant. Regardless, his career was soon over after that. We, non-native speakers, must be really careful…

>We, non-native speakers, must be really careful about using words in our own language that may sound offensive in the other language. What a world we created :( And it's in English as well. Growing up in Europe but heavily influenced by American Music, Movies, TV and Internet one grows up thinking that N----- or Nigga is fine to use. You hear it all the time, especially in music. Couple that with the fact that we do…

It is really weird that this one word can't be said, even as a quote, even when invited on stage to sing a song by the original performer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44209141

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#483

Post by baby » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 3:34 AM UTC

Kephael wrote: post #475

baby wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this "leftists are doing that" bullshit is usually an extreme right way of dismissing everything

I've just linked proof of this, what do you think the whole Latinx phenomena is? I'm not saying fluoride in the water is a Leftist conspiracy.

Where does it say leftist in your "proof"?

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#484

Post by hnick » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 3:40 AM UTC

throwaway9221 wrote: post #300

anonu wrote: post #255

The comment at the end is spot on: Please know that there are many people that support you and are sick of this hyper-sensitive, McCarthyism-like environment that is being fostered across the country." My view on this is it's the culmination of years of anti free speech trends on campus. It's a sad day when universities which should be bastions of tolerance, exploration and ideas have their culture consistently chipp…

It's not confined to universities, either. This growing list of "forbidden words" is making its way into the corporate world, too. Coupled with spineless HR who don't know how to constructively deal with people who claim to be offended. My current company is undertaking a massive, probably thousand man-year (sorry, person-year), effort to scrub all its internal and external documentation and even source code of any f…

I don't know if there is a word for it, but I see it as a type of social bikeshedding.

In regular bikeshedding we spend a lot of time arguing over minor factors because everyone feels like they can have meaningful input and contribute. Then we gloss over the complicated stuff because it's too hard to get into.

In this case, people feel like they can push hard on relatively minor issues like uses of words and phrases because they can make a noticeable impact. Precisely because they feel powerless to effect actual systemic change. Widespread protest doesn't seem to change much, but targeted complaints can sometimes get someone fired.

There may be an argument that it could work as a ground-up approach similar to NYC's broken window policing, but I personally doubt that. I think the backlash will be a net negative.

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#485

Post by cthalupa » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

pixel_fcker wrote: post #392

frereubu wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the way I understand microaggressions, which aren't to do with whether someone is offended or not. The idea is that if, for example, you're black, and day in, day out, there are lots of little things that on their own aren't worth being upset about (for example, people not holding the door for you, pushing in front of you in line, crossing the road rather than walk past you, assume you're low-level staff r…

From Wikipedia: > Microaggression is a term used for brief and commonplace daily verbal or behavioural indignities, whether intentional or unintentional It’s the unintentional part that I take issue with, which means that it’s not on you to understand the context of my statement, it’s on me to imagine the infinite variety of ways you might interpret my statement and vet them for possible insensitivity before making i…

>I agree that your definition makes perfect sense but I don’t think the sort of people who spend a lot of time worrying about micro-aggressions agree that the intention of the “aggressor” matters, as is perfectly evinced by this situation:

Let's not paint everyone with the same brush.

Lots of people are going to be upset by a lifetime of daily microaggressions - and rightfully so! - that are not going to be upset that a different language that has a word that sounds vaguely like a slur.

Some people will. I won't say they're wrong to have a gut reaction to hearing a word and misunderstanding it as something else. But I do think that they do need to understand that the word they heard isn't the word they thought they heard, and work from there.

But I don't think it's fair to say that everyone concerned with microaggressions in general will also fail to understand that 那个 is not the slur that it somewhat sounds like.

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#486

Post by samus » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:53 AM UTC

crc32 wrote: post #249

ascar wrote: post #40

> "Professor Greg Patton repeated several times a Chinese word that sounds very similar to a vile racial slur in English. Understandably, this caused great pain and upset among students, and for that I am deeply sorry. It is simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students. We must and we will do better." It's unbelievable that this "un…

> Not only does this barely resemble the racial slur, it is indistinguishably used in a context where it's implicitly clear and even explicitly stated that it's a term from another language. In the linked video it sounds exactly like the slur, To a surprising extent. It was introduced with no warning and I’m not surprised people were shocked if this was the same context as the class - although we don’t know the full…

In the video it was clearly preceded by "in Chinese". And he was talking the whole time about filler worlds. Clearly, context has been established. And the audience of a communications class at university level can be expected to understand that other languages contain words that might sound offensive to English native speakers. Do people really think Prof. Patton intended to insult people of color, in an online class? Are people really getting offended when Chinese use 那个, or when they overhear Russians discuss кни́ги? Will I get censored for merely mentioning these words and not child-proofing my post with "warning: words in this post might be considered offensive"?

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#487

Post by samus » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 4:58 AM UTC

csomar wrote: post #335

gatvol wrote: post #28

Again, context is everything. What an utterly spineless, pathetic response from a risk averse management type - to throw their colleague under the bus.

I did some Chinese courses last year and "na ge" is something that will get repeated frequently because of how Chinese make their sentences. There is another one "nei ge". They are an important part of the Chinese language. Edit: just watched the video. He was not teaching a chinese course. A bit of a suspicious example he picked if you ask me.

He was teaching a communications class and was currently discussing filler worlds in various languages. Sounds completely on-topic to me.

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#488

Post by gvjddbnvdrbv » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 6:05 AM UTC

ploopop wrote: post #386

vianneychevalie wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my personal case it would be using the words « master » and « slave » when talking about interfacing databases

I'm surprised master/slave's the hill you want to die on - it's the one instance where the old terminology really is just bizarre jargon that's being replaced with words that are a direct, common-language description of what they do.

What is the replacement word for master/slave?

I genuinely don't know because this aspect of English newspeak hasn't made it to my country yet.

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#489

Post by Symbiote » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 6:40 AM UTC

jnurmine wrote: post #323

DC-3 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently studying Danish and can't help but be amused when every 'lyt og gentag' exercise ends with 'slut'. But just as in the OP, it's not even the same vowel as the English word, so the resemblance is only passing. How absurd that careers may be ruined by using the wrong two consonants next to each other. How absurd that we call it progress.

In Swedish, the last station of e.g. a subway line (the terminus) is a "slutstation". (slut=end, station=station) It should be the same word in Danish, too. I've seen native English speakers giggle at that word, for obvious reasons -- when this word pops up all of a sudden while in a mass transit, and one interprets it as an English word, the association is truly bizarre. But of course the word obviously does not mea…

It's "endestation" in Danish, unfortunately.

The town of Middelfart is reasonable compensation.

Re: Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

#490

Post by starky » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 6:40 AM UTC

spaniard89277 wrote: post #95

Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities. Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read about events similar to this one.

The thing that gets me is that a university is a place for learning and exploration of the world. If everyone at a university is afraid of getting reprimanded for what at most was a misunderstanding, then where exactly can we expect to tackle the hard challenges of racism and sexism? Obviously we shouldn't accept people being racist or sexist at these places, but we need to provide the space to allow for the difficult conversations without the risk of being "cancelled" for making a mistake. If you cannot, then the concept of academia is pretty much dead.