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Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

itcommunity.stanford.edu

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Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#211

Post by gallopingcomp »

pannSun wrote: post #6

> Instead of "blind review", consider using "anonymous review". Context: Unintentionally perpetuates that disability is somehow abnormal or negative, furthering an ableist culture. But.. disability is abnormal and negative? How tortured of a definition of 'normal' must one use to make blindness normal? And I suspect if the author of that sentence were offered, say, $100,000 to undergo a painless but irreversible blin…

One thing of note: there is likely no unified “they”, given that a document seems to be a mixed bag of elementary clarity-of-language items (“this is wild” vs. “this is insane”) and obsessive pedantic nonsense (about distinctions that do not exist to either the general population or most of the affected communities, eg. “committed suicide” [1]), and the forcibly mild language in the introduction.

If I could hazard a guess, this document was probably the result of an uncomfortable compromise between some folks of varying levels of assertiveness, obsessiveness, and linguistic myopia[2]. Likely not intended to be a minefield by some/most of its authors, but would be treated as one by small but frustratingly vocal segments of both its staunchest defenders and most enraged critics.

It would be really nice if both all of us could maybe just (figuratively) go out and touch some grass, instead of letting isolated personal frustrations turn into pet peeves and then into poorly-justified prescriptivism.

[1] This also reminds me of the alleged distinction between “transwoman” and “trans woman”. (German speakers and the like might find it particularly superfluous.)

[2] Speaking as a person with severe near-sightedness. (Edit: typo)

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#213

Post by JetAlone »

superb-owl wrote: post #63

I'm going to take the minority position here (no pun intended), and say that I think these initiatives are in fact helpful and important. I recently joined an engineering team where there's a cultural norm of not using the word "guys" to address a group. When I first heard this, I kinda rolled my eyes but got on board. It took a tremendous amount of mental effort to weed that word out of my vocabulary, but it's had a…

No post body was provided.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#214

Post by shitlord »

illuminerdy wrote: post #80

I will make it a point to use all of the "harmful language" in that article as much as possible from now on. I will not blindly follow these nonsensical rules. They're so lame. I may start a fatwa against them. I will only bury the hatchet if they agree to scrap these rules and never speak of them again. Also, I'd like to visit the Philippine Islands someday soon.

One way to put an end to language policing is to do the opposite. This stuff is used for virtue signaling, so you can just ruin the SNR.

Share these sorts of guides with the worst people around - ethnic supremacists, fascists, etc. They're not allowed to use certain words/phrases in polite society, such as "retard". Thankfully academia has come to their aid, and now they can just call that person "neurodivergent" instead. We all know what they really mean.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#215

Post by TMWNN »

oehtXRwMkIs wrote: post #129

Some are obvious and others surprising to me, but I'm very glad they mention the way "American" is used in the US. It always ticked me off but I never felt like I could mention it due to how widespread it is. Now I have somewhere to point to if I want to bring it up, kind of like how French people can point to the DGLFLF if someone uses the term nègre nowadays.

>Some are obvious and others surprising to me, but I'm very glad they mention the way "American" is used in the US.

The United States of America is the only country in the world with the word "America" in its name.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#216

Post by FrontierPsych »

I hate it when people use the word "slave." It comes from the people in Eastern European countries, the Slavs, or Slavic people.

It was used because other people thought Slavic people were the ideal slaves and Europeans enslaved the Slavs.

So because everyone thought Slavs were the best slaves, they just morphed to slave.

It is highly offensive to me that people use the word "slave" because this means that they are automatically saying that I am naturally fit to be a slave and not a human being.

"The oldest written history of the Slavs can be shortly summarised -- myriads of slave hunts and the enthralment of entire peoples. The Slav was the most prized of human goods. With increased strength outside his marshy land of origin, hardened to the utmost against all privation, industrious, content with little, good-humoured, and cheerful, he filled the slave markets of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It must be remembered that for every Slavonic slave who reached his destination, at least ten succumbed to inhuman treatment during transport and to the heat of the climate."

https://www.etymonline.com/word/slave

Because of this, Slavs are still seen as inferior throughout the Middle Ages, and even now, as seen by dumb Polack jokes. By the 1800s, Slavs were subjected to expulsions and massacres by Germanic groups. This anti-Slavic sentiment followed the predictable trajectory of Germanic racism and, a century later, reached its natural conclusion: almost 11 million Slavs were murdered in Hitler’s long list of murdered “subhumans.”

Why were Slavs targeted by the Nazis? They were seen as intellectually inferior and invaders who were living on stolen Germanic land. The German's plan was to eliminate 30 million (!!) Slavs, create room for the expanding Aryan race in the Eastern territories, and enslave the remaining Slavic population

So.....is everyone here, and especially the wokish people, going to immediately and forever stop using the world "slave?" So, that's right...you cannot describe black people brought to the USA as "slaves." Never use the world "slave" as it is known by me as the s-word, and makes me exceptionally angry, just like the n-word for black people. Use another word for the s-word, I don't care what it is, and it's not my job to find one.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#218

Post by baandang »

yarg wrote: post #107
concinds wrote: post #66

All this stuff comes from "critical discourse analysis", a pseudointellectual and almost cult-like movement within academic research, which is receiving no pushback because no one knows about it. People are too busy focusing on the end-product (this Stanford webpage, or some politicians' tweets, or a Smithsonian exhibit) rather than the root cause. Ridding academia of pseudoscience goes beyond fixing p-hacking. These…

There's no pushback because it's career suicide.

I will not be surprised at all if many of these words are simply not used in 10 years.

Stanford is about as influential an institution as we have. When tarball and gray hat are seen as racist there are no bounds.

The bold black aggressive lettering on a white background on that Stanford page is next. I am surprised no one noticed that actually.

Re: Stanford's “Elimination of Harmful Language” Initiative

#219

Post by [deleted] »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #127
tbrownaw wrote: post #113

> to call a spade a spade/ calling a spade a spade > to call something what it is / calling something what it is > Although the term has its origins in Greek literature, the subsequent negative connotations with the word "spade" means that the phrase should be used with caution or not at all. I have no idea what this is referring to. . > white paper > position paper > Assigns value connotations based on color (white…

"Spade" has been used as a derogatory term for blacks. "White space" is treating white as good ? You're replacing white with "empty", no content, meaningless, and you think white is being used to indicate good? Nope. You (Stanford, not the parent) just took a list of phrases and grepped for "white", but didn't actually think .

[deleted]
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