University Claims Not Using The Word “American” Will Move Us Closer To A Full Democracy
[guest post by Dana]
Yet another institution of higher education seeks to strangle free speech in the name of unbiased and “inclusive excellence”:
“American,” “illegal alien,” “foreigners,” “mothering,” and “fathering” are just a handful of words deemed “problematic” by the University of New Hampshire’s Bias-Free Language Guide.
According to the university’s website, the guide “is meant to invite inclusive excellence in [the] campus community.”
Terms also considered problematic include: “elders,” “senior citizen,” “overweight,” “speech impediment,” “dumb,” “sexual preference,” “manpower,” “freshmen,” “mailman,” and “chairman,” in addition to many others. Tweet This
The guide defines words such as “homosexual” as “problematic,” offering “Same Gender Loving” as a more inclusive substitute. Similarly, a lack of gender-neutral bathrooms is, according to the university, “ciscentrism.”
The university defines “ciscentrism” as “[a] pervasive and institutionalized system that places transgender people in the ‘other’ category and treats their needs and identities as less important than those of cisgender people.”
“Ciscentrism,” according to the university, “includes the lack of gender-neutral restrooms, locker rooms, and residences.”
Saying “American” to reference Americans is also problematic. The guide encourages the use of the more inclusive substitutes “U.S. citizen” or “Resident of the U.S.”
The guide clarifies that saying “illegal alien” is also problematic. While “undocumented immigrant” is acceptable, the guide recommends saying “person seeking asylum,” or “refugee,” instead. Even saying “foreigners” is problematic; the preferred term is “international people.”
Using the word “Caucasian” is considered problematic as well, and should be discontinued in favor of “European-American individuals.” The guide also states that the notion of race is “a social construct…that was designed to maintain slavery.”
The guide also discourages the use of “mothering” or “fathering,” so as to “avoid gendering a non-gendered activity.”
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 7/29/2015 @ 6:26 amWhat gets me is, why do none of these Universities that go bugfuck nuts this way get into trouble with their alumni organizations?
C. S. P. Schofield (bd324f) — 7/29/2015 @ 6:34 amIt will just get crazier as time marches on until we hit MC (Maximum Chaos). Humanity can not exist untethered from God and his commandments (and I’m not referring to the famous Ten). As our cultural betters scurry around in an ever growing attempt to replace God with their own understanding, they will come to ever more resemble a berserk tiger mauling and tearing at everything in its path.
Mark Johnson (25b4ed) — 7/29/2015 @ 6:35 amSurreal
JD (e9d375) — 7/29/2015 @ 6:40 amWell, besides being more unconstitutional than slavery, it also sounds very (ahem) same gender loving.
nk (dbc370) — 7/29/2015 @ 6:45 amno one would believe this idiocy if they read it in a book. They would even congratulate the authors imagination if it was fiction.
Jim (defd88) — 7/29/2015 @ 7:02 amThey did Jim, it was called 1984.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/29/2015 @ 7:08 amHow can you comment on the University of New Hampshire’s Bias-Free Language Guide without linking Everything is Problematic?
CayleyGraph (dfcefe) — 7/29/2015 @ 7:20 amThis is a parody, right?
The kooks behind such deranged political correctness are the same ones making us most vulnerable to Islamo-fascism.
Okay, Nidals, out there. If you’re going to have aim your ruthless deeds against we in the Western World, at least try to single out the people responsible for such nonsense. They’re such fools, they won’t know (or care) what hits them.
Mark (e9ce45) — 7/29/2015 @ 7:22 amRemarkable that the Left end of the political keeps fulfilling the wildest, most unbelievable
Bar Sinister (b48c12) — 7/29/2015 @ 7:28 ampredictions of such works as “Brave New World”, Fahrenheit 451″, and “1984”.
Franklin Pierce Law Center ~~ Always the best schools named after the worst Presidents.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/29/2015 @ 7:39 amSlim pickens when they only consider candidates from that party. The fall off is huge from Andrew Jackson. FDR> then the rest of the crooks.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/29/2015 @ 7:42 amPure lunacy issued as pablum on behalf of the perpetually offended.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/29/2015 @ 8:00 amExcuse me for a moment. I have to go to the gender-neutral unmen’s room. I seem to have an international object in my eye.
RNB (6a1e7d) — 7/29/2015 @ 8:25 am“Ciscentrism” has to be today’s word. I love it!
I think this whole “cis” thing is pretty weird anyway. “Cis-male” means “someone who looks like a man and thinks of himself as a man.” When I was younger the term for this was “normal”, but of course the word “normal” is micro-abusive, too.
Steven Den Beste (99cfa1) — 7/29/2015 @ 8:26 amwhere do caitlin go when she needs to poop at the university of new hampshire
pls advice
happyfeet (a037ad) — 7/29/2015 @ 8:31 amIf you scroll to the bottom of the UNH page you discover that this started in the 1990s when a group of feminists from Women’s (excuse me, Womyn’s) Studies started creating the guide for gender bias-free speech. Naturally, every other grievance studies department piled on and we ended up with this Orwellian document. But the takeaway lesson for me is the slow creep of this stuff. The initiative started 20 or more years ago, probably not long after I was an undergrad, and it has slowly and steadily built until we reached the point where they felt they could release this stupid set of guidelines and not be roundly criticized and mocked. Just another indication of how stupid and feeble our culture has become.
JVW (ba78f9) — 7/29/2015 @ 8:37 amHow many countries do you think the USA will split into?
I’m thinking that NorthEast and WestCoast will be separate as the physical divide is just too much.
and also that western PA & NY would split from their east part.
So , roughly Main through VA with east NY and PA,
North Carolina to Florida , across through Texas.
West NY and PA , KY, TN, Ohio through Oklahoma the Dakotas , Wyoming and Montana.
Colorado , Idaho, NM, AZ and West Coast.
leaves me with 4 countries. and very similar to the college football setup, no?
seeRpea (65ab7f) — 7/29/2015 @ 8:51 amseeRpea (65ab7f) — 7/29/2015 @ 8:51 am
That’s a lot of fence. Do we even have that much barb wire? Have to put in a special order to Mexico. Get the volume discount.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:05 amHow do these university administrators get this stupid?
Jimpithecus (a3c1bc) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:17 am19– they practice.
htom (340271) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:23 amSimple, a college education. An actual working person couldn’t afford to be that stupid, they’d starve.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:39 amBerkeley, happyfeet.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:42 amWhat does perverting the language get a university? What possible benefit to they accrue?
One of the open questions about trafficking in baby parts is who is buying? My oily eye is looking at the UNH College of Health and Human Services (CHHS).
Bet you.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:45 amThat’s my alma mater, which will never get a penny from me.
Roger Bournival (f3a8d4) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:55 ameasier to see
Colonel Haiku (d14968) — 7/29/2015 @ 10:55 amwhy chairman mao lined ’em up
against nearest wall
The Medium is the Message:
It isn’t the preferred substitution of one useful word for another more ambiguous polysyllabic word or phrase (obviously a silly business) it’s the coercive program of controlling individual expression with threats from social elites that begin with calls for sensitivity, quickly leading to published Guides to Bias-Free Language, then escalates to demands for Respect and Inclusion, followed by shaming, ostracism, and finally criminal penalties.
Shortly after WW-I two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and George Lukacs in Hungary, concluded that a collectivist revolution would not be possible in Western capitalist countries until the bedrock institutions – Western culture and the Christian faith – were thoroughly undermined and widely discredited to the point of ridicule and rejection.
Gramsci’s strategy involved encouraging dedicated Marxists to infiltrate the national media, government bureaucracies, higher educational institutions, the churches, elementary schools, labor unions, political parties, the arts, social organizations, tax-free associations – any and every institution that played a role in shaping Western culture. Gramsci called it a long march through the institutions to surreptitiously gain control of the culture in order to subvert it, sabotage it from within, replace traditional values with Marxist values, and prepare a demoralized population to abandon the foundations of individual freedom for the promise of future equality in a worker’s paradise.
Political Correctness is the mask concealing naked Marxist cultural hegemony.
ropelight (8d78c6) — 7/29/2015 @ 11:16 amIt may have been noticed, but I refuse to use the term “gay” as a synonym for homosexual. The word “gay” means happy and carefree, exactly the opposite of homosexual.
Further, I admit to being not only completely “ciscentric,” but I do not accept the notion of transsexualism as anything other than a serious mental derangement, nor will I accept even those who have gone through the complete “sexual reassignment” process, including surgery, as anything other than the sex into which they were born. Bruce Jenner has plenty of money, and maybe he’ll be able to find some quack to castrate him and build him a faux vagina, but it won’t make him a woman; it will make him nothing but a eunuch.
The cisheteronormative patriarchist Dana (f6a568) — 7/29/2015 @ 11:18 amIt used to be that you could go to college and get a real education. Nowadays it seems as though the goal is to educate the common sense right out of a person.
The University of Kentucky alumnus Dana (f6a568) — 7/29/2015 @ 11:23 amWhere, other than here, is there any broadcast of this complete crap? Where are the parents’ outrage? I think that parents are are completely subdued and intimidated by these Marxist morons. This is ridiculous! If I were a parent of a student here I would take matters into my own hands after withdrawing my student from this putrid institution. These people are not just crazy, they are evil to an extent that means that they should be dealt with in a very offensive manner. Stocks would be a start but too good.
OneForJustice (ed10c5) — 7/29/2015 @ 11:50 amDemocracy is over rated but mostly misunderstood by the mob.
Rodney King's Spirit (9225a4) — 7/29/2015 @ 12:51 pmThe complete University of New Hampshire dictionary:
” ”
Caution! Use this [word] responsibly.
in_awe (a4f8b5) — 7/29/2015 @ 1:11 pmI think not using the word “American” is a good idea, too. For instance, let’s not use it any reference to ANYTHING that has to do with politics, or inventions, or videos, or people, or landmass, or satellites, or Indians, or laws, or Constitutions, women, or men, or actors, or movies, schools, or universities, or places where immigrants want to go, or slaves, or Civil Wars, or Freedom, or Liberty, or Declarations of Independence, or capitalism, or the greatest system for raising men out of the dung heap of their previous existence.
Let’s use the words “Marxist, Democrat, Socialist, Dictator, Emperor, Moron” instead.
We are becoming the herd
OneForJustice (ed10c5) — 7/29/2015 @ 1:21 pmHe was sworn in by Roger B. Taney, and recited the oath with his hand above a law book instead of the Bible. He was the original open borders democrat. He signed the Fugitive Slave Act, making it a federal crime for Northeners to harbor escapees. Then he went ahead and started the Civil War by signing the Kansas Nebraska Act.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/29/2015 @ 1:25 pmDemocracy IS the mob.
Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/29/2015 @ 1:36 pmThe Medium is the Message:
.
.
ropelight (8d78c6) — 7/29/2015 @ 11:16 am
You are so correct and right on. I tip whatever is left on my brain cap. to you.
You nailed these people. Thank you and I hope they read comment #26.
OneForJustice (ed10c5) — 7/29/2015 @ 1:59 pmThe word is “Metastasize”. Stage 4 Leftist Drivel.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 7/29/2015 @ 2:03 pmI’m sure they’ll be happy, since they’re no longer an ‘American’ university, that they can be removed from federal funds designated for American universities.
Another Anon (f43943) — 7/29/2015 @ 2:39 pmHey, UNH, bite this. I am the father of my two daughters, and have been married to my very female wife for over 30 years. Both of us had parents (mom and dad, 1 each) who were married 50+ years. All of us were born in the US and are proud, traditional Americans. Between the parents 3 of 4 are veterans, as am I. We don’t give a rip about catering or kow-towing the microscopic group of people to whom your style guide may seem important.
I believe that the Constitution plays an important role in protecting the rights of minority populations, but we seemed to have crossed the line such that a tyranny of minorities now get to dictate to the majority. What the hell, over..?
NeoCon_1 (0a7469) — 7/29/2015 @ 3:09 pm#36, OFJ, thanks for the kind words but others have been making the same points since PC first appeared on college campuses 20 years ago.
ropelight (8d78c6) — 7/29/2015 @ 3:16 pmNeoCon_1 wrote:
This junk isn’t a problem with the Constitution; this problem is that too many normal Americans are acting like pussies — I refuse to use “wussies,” the derivation we all know anyway — and won’t risk offending anyone.
I tolerate weirdos and whackos, as long as they aren’t actually committing crimes, and wouldn’t throw people in jail for being weird, but that doesn’t mean that I would say that they are somehow normal and good.
The politically incorrect Dana (f6a568) — 7/29/2015 @ 3:16 pmIt will be a cold day in hell during the month of Pluviôse when I pay attention to such nonsense.
Beldar (fa637a) — 7/29/2015 @ 3:45 pmCloser to Idiocracy is more like it.
Colonel Haiku (d14968) — 7/29/2015 @ 4:16 pmI would have sooooo much fun if I was in college today.
jack burton (ac6627) — 7/29/2015 @ 4:30 pmYa know Politically incorrect Dana, it starts out with guys like us being tolerant and we’ve seen where it’s gone and where it’s gotten us. Screwed! I’ve given up on tolerance. I begin with phukewe and go down hill from there. I’ve grown intolerant of being the only one tolerant.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/29/2015 @ 4:33 pmThe latest from UNH.
http://www.wmur.com/news/unh-president-offended-by-biasfree-language-guide/34421812
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 7/29/2015 @ 4:57 pmThe guide also discourages the use of “mothering” or “fathering,” so as to “avoid gendering a non-gendered activity.”
Fathering a child is a “non-gendered activity”?
malclave (4f3ec1) — 7/29/2015 @ 5:05 pm#33
Let’s use the words “Marxist, Democrat, Socialist, Dictator, Emperor, Moron” instead.
I agree with your choice of words in this sentence, but would suggest adding hyphens, followed by the epithet “Obama”.
PPs43 (6fdef4) — 7/29/2015 @ 5:16 pmThing I learned today: The word “moron” was coined around 1910. (Or imported — “moros” meaning “foolish” is in Homer’s Odyssey.)
nk (dbc370) — 7/29/2015 @ 5:22 pm– UNH President Mark Huddleston
papertiger (c2d6da) — 7/29/2015 @ 5:31 pm#46 Simon Jester-
Oh, dear Lord, he’s —- “offended” ? Doesn’t he know what a powerful talisman that is (especially if it’s used by a certified Wymyn’s Studies major)?
We’ll be able to tell by how quickly the little Proglets rush to change the “offending / offensive” document precisely where Mr. UNH President Mark Huddleston ranks on the Left’s “All-Powerful Victim List”.
My bet is: he doesn’t rank high enough to change one semicolon.
Dearie Me, Dearie (2eb5e8) — 7/29/2015 @ 5:55 pmMelittha Harrith-Perry ith all over thith…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 7/29/2015 @ 6:19 pmDon’t know about y’all, but I think at least one thing in that guide is pure common sense and y’all will be wise to adopt it
The fact the I have lived in former Confederate territory since the age of 10 has of course no bearing on my opinion, but of course y’all would know that without me telling y’all.
kishnevi (91d5c6) — 7/29/2015 @ 6:57 pmCan a ship be referred to as “she” at this grand place of higher education?
seeRpea (65ab7f) — 7/29/2015 @ 9:04 pmI’ll worry about this about the time that the Japs (yes, I DID use that horrific contraction) stop using the term “gaigin”, which, in addition to “foreigner” means “barbarian”.
… to say nothing of the Chinese, whose word for foreigner is also “devil”.
At that, we’re better off than the Japanese word for the Chinese, which also translates to “rapist”.
I’ll now use the obligatory offensive terms “retards” and “idiots” to refer to the “morons” who came up with this “imbecility”.
IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d) — 7/29/2015 @ 10:09 pmThe Colonel micro-assailed:
You have inthulted everyone with a thpeech impediment, and I denounce you!
The politically correct Dana (f6a568) — 7/30/2015 @ 4:08 amBless their hearts, kishnevi.
nk (dbc370) — 7/30/2015 @ 4:29 amMr Nevi wrote:
The proper form when addressing everybody in a group is “all y’all.”
The Dana who grew up in Kentucky (f6a568) — 7/30/2015 @ 4:56 amUniversity President Mark Huddleston said:
Really? Sounds great, but one wonders what the esteemed Dr Huddleston’s reaction would be when one of the university’s students started calling some other students niggers. If there was no actual physical threat posed, and the only discernible use of the word was to be insulting, would UNH’s “policy on speech is that it is free and unfettered on our campuses” protect the offending student from academic discipline or expulsion?
The Dana who asks the obvious questions (f6a568) — 7/30/2015 @ 5:03 amThe “fighting words” exception to the First Amendment has not been repealed*. If you say something to somebody that a reasonable person would say you’re truing to provoke a fight, you’re subject to government punishment as well as the deserved punch on the nose.
*I know the difference between repealed, reversed and overruled.
nk (dbc370) — 7/30/2015 @ 5:14 amThen Dana’s safe. Since they call each other nigger it can’t be assumed any reasonable person could consider the use of the word to be provoking a fight. So “All y’all niggers get off my lawn” is perfectly acceptable. Bad English, but acceptable.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/30/2015 @ 5:58 amOur Windy City barrister wrote:
It has been held that “fighting words” aren’t covered by the First Amendment, but tell me: if the words do not actually provoke a fight, what laws have been broken? The government could not punish you if you broke no actual laws.
It has always seemed to me that the fighting words and “shouting ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater” exception was really about consequences of speech, not speech itself; if you yelled “Fire!” in a crowded theater, but everyone knew that there was no fire, and no panic ensued, then there were no punishable consequences.
The Dana who isn't an attorney (f6a568) — 7/30/2015 @ 6:10 amNot so. The crime is complete when the words are spoken. Most states have repealed criminal defamation but it’s covered by disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace statutes.
Anyway, to slightly modify an old saying: Before you call a person a n***er, you should walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you’re a mile away, and you have his shoes.
nk (dbc370) — 7/30/2015 @ 6:17 amI don’t use the word nigger. I find it disrespectful and boorish. I prefer “colored people” like the NAACP and yet I’m berated for using that term. So I’m forbidden the use of colored people which is used in the name of one of their main organizations and I’m verboten the use of nigger which I hear in movies, music and on the street mostly coming from colored people. Seems these folks have a very limited tolerance for us, as they say “crackers”. Rather thin skin. So I have to call people who are not black per se, “blacks”. I personally refuse to call them African-Americans because I don’t believe in hyphenated heritage. So many rules in leftist wonderland. I wonder what leftist eunuch has all the time on his/her/its hands to come up with all this sh!t?
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie (f4eb27) — 7/30/2015 @ 7:00 amOur garrulous Greek wrote:
So, we have actual statutes criminalizing words? How the heck can those stand?
If the statement does not actually disturb the peace, how can it be disturbing the peace? If the conduct is offensive but still orderly, how can it be disorderly conduct?
The Dana who surely isn't an attorney (f6a568) — 7/30/2015 @ 7:03 amThe Reverend Hoagie wrote:
No, no, no, you’ve misunderstood: it’s not “colored people,” but “people of color.”
Of course, I am a person of color as well, a rather golden brown in the middle of summer, and a much lighter hue during the winter, and varying shades in between during the spring and fall. Perhaps that makes me a person of many colors?
The Dana of many colors (f6a568) — 7/30/2015 @ 7:07 amThere is no heuristic for the First Amendment. The Supreme Court just makes it up as it goes along. Just like it does with the Eighth. As far as I know, Beauharnais v. Illinois, where a guy went around with a sign calling his ex-wife(?) a whore (Attn: happyfeet) is still good law.
nk (dbc370) — 7/30/2015 @ 7:09 amOf course, no one posting here will DO a thing except post. They will not go to a board of regents meeting, or even write the regents of the UC to protest similar nonsense. They will not check into the books used by their local high school, or embarrass themselves by complaining when Howard Zinn’s slander of the US is used as a history text.
But I suppose it would do little good if they did. Control of the schools was shifted to Sacramento anyway, decades ago when funds were bundled up by court order and then disbursed from Sac. The ability to really control the schools was taken from the people by the courts, and the unions, and its gone downhill since.
Harcourt Fenton Mudd (5e0a82) — 7/30/2015 @ 4:09 pmIwouldnever
happyfeet (a81faa) — 7/30/2015 @ 4:23 pmBased on such a whiny list of first world problems, it’s no wonder today’s college kids are such hapless thin-skinned brats. They’re gonna get eaten alive in the real world.
“Saying “American” to reference Americans is also problematic. The guide encourages the use of the more inclusive substitutes “U.S. citizen” or “Resident of the U.S.””
I take it the college-educated morons who came up with that piece of tripe aren’t aware that the country is known as “United States of America.” Ah, tuition money at work. But hey, maybe I missed the news that there’s another country known as America on the North and South continents.
tops116 (d094f8) — 7/31/2015 @ 3:35 amI wonder how many of the students who think it’s somehow a problem if Americans are referred to as Americans realize just how many people who aren’t Americans wish that they were Americans.
The curious Dana (f6a568) — 7/31/2015 @ 4:26 amI’d like everything to be neutral and boring please. Including my food.
steveg (fed1c9) — 8/2/2015 @ 9:06 pmNo butter, no salt no pepper, no gluten, no meat, no gmo’s no dairy no eggs everything picked by amiable aliens working for $15HR or more, no high fructose, certified organic and cold pressed only, no cooking because it heats the planet.
Because I refuse to offend