Nobody Can Take a Joke Anymore

[Undertoad]

University campuses were once not safe spaces for african americans

This is not what they mean. It actually means infantilist avoidance of any ideas or words or concepts or presentations they feel "scared" by. Here's what it actually is, via a NYT OpEd:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/op...ary-ideas.html

KATHERINE BYRON, a senior at Brown University and a member of its Sexual Assault Task Force, considers it her duty to make Brown a safe place for rape victims, free from anything that might prompt memories of trauma.

So when she heard last fall that a student group had organized a debate about campus sexual assault between Jessica Valenti, the founder of feministing.com, and Wendy McElroy*, a libertarian, and that Ms. McElroy was likely to criticize the term “rape culture,” Ms. Byron was alarmed. “Bringing in a speaker like that could serve to invalidate people’s experiences,” she told me. It could be “damaging.”

Ms. Byron and some fellow task force members secured a meeting with administrators. Not long after, Brown’s president, Christina H. Paxson, announced that the university would hold a simultaneous, competing talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault.” Meanwhile, student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.
...
Now students worry whether acts of speech or pieces of writing may put them in emotional peril.
...
At Oxford University’s Christ Church college in November, the college censors (a “censor” being more or less the Oxford equivalent of an undergraduate dean) canceled a debate on abortion after campus feminists threatened to disrupt it because both would-be debaters were men. “I’m relieved the censors have made this decision,” said the treasurer of Christ Church’s student union, who had pressed for the cancellation. “It clearly makes the most sense for the safety — both physical and mental — of the students who live and work in Christ Church.”

A year and a half ago, a Hampshire College student group disinvited an Afrofunk band that had been attacked on social media for having too many white musicians; the vitriolic discussion had made students feel “unsafe.”

Last fall, the president of Smith College, Kathleen McCartney, apologized for causing students and faculty to be “hurt” when she failed to object to a racial epithet uttered by a fellow panel member at an alumnae event in New York. The offender was the free-speech advocate Wendy Kaminer, who had been arguing against the use of the euphemism “the n-word” when teaching American history or “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In the uproar that followed, the Student Government Association wrote a letter declaring that “if Smith is unsafe for one student, it is unsafe for all students.”

“It’s amazing to me that they can’t distinguish between racist speech and speech about racist speech, between racism and discussions of racism,” Ms. Kaminer said in an email.

*I actually organized a dinner once where McElroy spoke about some of the strange turns of feminism. She's a marvelous intellectual and none of the women in my audience felt threatened.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

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Ah. Yeah, no, that's bullshit. If you have a problem with the word rape - or are likely to be traumatised by someone arguing against the term 'rape culture' then that is a lecture or debate you should avoid.

There is a point at which attempts to validate experience and outweigh the social and legal paradigm of victim-blaming becomes in itself victim-making. Noone who has been raped should be made to feel like they are to blame, and anybody who has been raped has the right to feel about that however the fuck they do feel about that - but this kind of stuff encourages someone in that position to take it deep and make it a part of themselves at an identity level. If anything this kind of approach, to me, seems potentially damaging to people who are vulnerable and young.

I also have a real problem with the way people get offended or hurt by the use of a particular word, regardless of the context in which it is used. It's a bit like that whole furore with Benedict Cumberbatch when he refered to 'coloured' actors. The comment he was making was a progressive and inclusive one - but he thoughtlessly used a word which is outdated and to many people offensive. Everyone focused on his use of that word, instead of what he was saying. Similarly, the word nigger was once in common currency and is naturally present in the literature from that time. If you're going to study that literature, you're going to encounter it. I hate the use of 'the n word'.

I have a similar issue with feminists who get really upset if a guy refers to women as 'birds' or calls them 'love'. If the content of what someone is saying is inoffensive then why take deliberate offence at a clumsy or unconscious use of a particular word? Why get offended if someone is a little behind the times - or just didn't get that memo. I routinely have to think about what is the currently acceptable term for people with disabilities, for example. And I'm conscious about this stuff and take a reasonably high degree of responsibility for my use of terminology and the impact it could have on others. The reality is that on this the goal posts are ever-changing. Each generation reinvents the lexicon. That's ok - but we shouldn't be crucifying people for just for employing the wrong word, nor should we be cultivating a sense that we are all just bouncing around from one PTSD inducing trauma to the next in which a word alone can trigger a psychological breakdown.

Words can be weapons. I do believe that. They can cause great harm. They are the foundation of some of the worst acts of cruelty we as humans engage in. They shore up hatred and inequality and they sow the seeds of violence against those who are different from us. But only if that's what they are used for. The people who fought against racism and oppression in America's civil rights movement used language and terminology that would make us deeply uncomfortable today.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I routinely have to think about what is the currently acceptable term for people with disabilities, for example.

I habitually use the word retarded, not as a factual description but in the same way that Sarah Silverman used the word "gay." I don't actually feel bad about it, but I know I have to stop, so I've been trying. It's the only other word that has been elevated to "R-word" levels of anagrammatical euphemism. But I haven't figured out what to replace it with.

[it]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I habitually use the word retarded, not as a factual description but in the same way that Sarah Silverman used the word "gay." I don't actually feel bad about it, but I know I have to stop, so I've been trying. It's the only other word that has been elevated to "R-word" levels of anagrammatical euphemism. But I haven't figured out what to replace it with.

You have many options - idiot and moron are probably the most common, dumb & dummy are better for a softer more joking blow.

Personally my favorite is "batshit crazy", I adopted it off of pen & teller. When something seems so delusional it seems insane, and you don't have to feel bad for making fun of someone or something for been stupid without their control, since batshit crazy kind of suggests more of willful ignorance IMO.

Also it's really fun to say when you are pissed off. Try calling someone or something batshit crazy without wanting to throw your hands at the air dramatically, I dare yea.

I.E. The PC censorship in colleges has gone batshit crazy

(It might be offensive to batman, IDK).