students told to disavow ‘american-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality’

SilverPaladin · 2012-11-28T19:10:27+00:00

“Our language doesn’t make it easy to write in ways that are inclusive,” Howard said. “We don’t have a generic singular, I mean we have he and she. There is no pronoun that is gender-neutral there.”

Am I the only person that uses the singular they? That seems like the perfect answer for a generic singular pronoun.

radrler · 2012-11-28T21:46:30+00:00

You gotta make people uncomfortable... unless they're black people. Or women. Or gay. Really, you can't just go around, making people uncomfortable!

2012-11-28T17:32:35+00:00

Meanwhile, in paralleloverse, students told to disavow femaleness, blackness, and homosexuality.

No idea why we freak out about that here, they're just looking at it without prejudices, right?

These people.....

2012-11-28T22:55:39+00:00

Intellectually stunted comes to mind when reading the political correct dogma spewing from college humanities.

Hessmix · 2012-11-28T18:24:27+00:00

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Whisper · 2012-11-29T01:42:58+00:00

r/TeachMeToBeOffended is looking less like satire every day.

2012-11-28T16:23:06+00:00

I would be more comfortable with language if people like this just stopped talking altogether. That would be wonderful.

Ma99ie · 2012-11-28T21:36:41+00:00

Are we allowed to name the professor, or is that doxxing?

digison · 2012-11-29T01:56:09+00:00

"There is no pronoun that is gender-neutral there"

They?

mrmta · 2012-11-29T00:20:56+00:00

This teacher just insulted Americans, non-Americans, men, non-men, whites, non-whites, heterosexuals, and non-heterosexuals all in one sentence. Think of it this way, this is like saying being a patriotic white cis male is something you shouldn't be proud of, and that being anything else is seen as a disadvantage. Why cut yourself down and try to bring everyone else with you?

2012-11-29T10:40:17+00:00

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

I see where they went wrong.

Just kidding. I can understand where the university is coming from, and the general idea is good. It's just so very, terribly, poorly implemented. It's always good to be able to step out of your identity and assume that of the other, especially when trying to grasp concepts such as how language use defines who we are. But that should be applied to all aspects of the students lives. Singling out "Whit, American, Male, Heterosexuals" is completely the opposite, and invalidates one very specific set of viewpoints, when really all viewpoints should be suspect and avoided/challenged where possible.

Edit: Wow, there are some seriously ignorant comments on this site. It's pretty radical right wing paper, hey? I'm starting to suspect it of bias, especially after reading some other articles on it. Oh, wait, it's a college newspaper. Never mind, no one cares.

carbonnanotube · 2012-11-28T23:02:59+00:00

Devil's Advocate here, if the person was talking about cultural relativism I could see their point to an extent however the wording does not suggest this at all so I doubt that was the intention.

As an aside cultural relativism is pretty important when dealing with political situations as different cultures really do see some things differently. For example you would be taken to a hospital if you spoke often about your speech with dead relatives, but in some cultures ancestor worship is an accepted thing.

Anyways, if someone it talking about cultural relativism fine, this seemed different.

2012-11-29T00:44:44+00:00

[permanently deleted]

TheGDBatman · 2012-11-29T15:24:52+00:00

This is an interesting article, but the comments kind of make me want to slam my head against the nearest wall. I'd be able to take this more seriously if it weren't published in a conservative fundamentalist Christian rag.

r_rships_account · 2012-11-30T16:24:27+00:00

This politically correct garbage is nauseating. It cast a pall over my undergraduate degree.

2012-11-28T23:33:51+00:00

Whoa, that's a sensationalist title. Disavowing something is very different from disregarding it. It's as far away from disregarding something as disregarding something is from, er, avowing it.

rbcrusaders · 2012-11-29T03:58:49+00:00

“Sometimes in order to broaden the conversation and broaden the understandings you’ve got to risk making people uncomfortable,”

But wait, isn't the whole reason she doesn't want us being sexist to not offend women? Why doesn't she just shut up, stop trying to change peoples opinions and teach?

mean0dean0 · 2012-11-29T02:45:38+00:00

Eh--the student doesn't look like he's learned anything from the exercise, and we don't get the teacher's perspective. But more troubling is the fact that he might have hit upon just the very reason such an exercise could be useful:

The liberal arts college seeks to include people, but someone will always be excluded, as it is impossible to always include everyone. Furthermore, I’m not sure how to write assuming any other persona but my own. Any attempts to do so would only be offensive to people different from myself.

Really? It's less offensive to try and understand others from within their own perspectives than to simply write them off as "different"? I don't think so. That's the whole purpose of "walking a mile in someone else's shoes," so the proverb goes. If you don't know how to do it, and you don't want to learn how to do it, you're making yourself part of the problem.

The teacher might have been insensitive to kids who have never been challenged on their upbringing before (especially religious kids); but since we don't have her views, we have to go off of his; and it seems like this kid could have benefitted from doing that exercise after all, if for no other reason than he would understand why his teacher set up the assignment that way.

OedipusSchmoedipus · 2012-11-28T19:56:09+00:00

A political science professor at Butler University asks students to disregard their “American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status” when writing and speaking in the classroom – a practice the school’s arts and sciences dean defended as a way to negate students’ inherent prejudices.

Sensational headline taken out of context. I don't see the problem when a professor ask students to write from a different pov. He did not say “American-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality, middle-class status are bad and students should change themselves”.

ThePigman · 2012-11-29T01:20:17+00:00

Why would anyone not want to disavow American-ness?

Title	students told to disavow ‘american-ness, maleness, whiteness, heterosexuality’
Author	toptrool
Upvotes	25
Comments	48
Date	November 28, 2012 4:12 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/13xsmu/students_told_to_disavow_americanness_maleness/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/students-told-to-disavow-american-ness-maleness.1008099 https://theredarchive.com/post/1008099

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