Anderson said "n-word" when posing his question, but elsewhere in the article The New York Times spells it out.
Here's the statement from the school board president, Gloria Reyes: "We’ve taken a tough stance on racial slurs, and we believe that language has no place in schools. We have also heard from the community about the complexity involved — and our duty to examine it. As a board, we plan to review our approach, the underlying policies, and examine them with a racial equity lens understanding that universal policies can often deepen inequities. We will ask the community for help in that process. I have requested that this item be placed on our board agenda as soon as possible."
The NYT doesn't print the whole text of Reyes's statement, so I was surprised when I saw this additional material at the University of Wisconsin student newspaper (The Cardinal):
Although Reyes agrees with the district’s decision to follow protocol and use “best-practices” to remove Anderson, she sees this incident as an opportunity for the board to look more closely at the implications of existing policies, especially regarding cultural context.How can you have a policy that varies according to the race of the speaker?! It may be well understood in American society that black people have a special privilege to use this particular word, but the school is a government workplace. Picture the lawsuit from the white teacher who gets fired for reading that "To Kill a Mockingbird" passage out loud.
“It is different when a white person says this term than an African American,” Reyes said. “This is an opportunity to move forward aggressively on what's the best way to deal with this.”
Also from The Cardinal:
Students who protested explained they did not necessarily want to abolish the zero-tolerance policy regarding the use of racial slurs on campus, but rather add steps to it, allowing the administration to look at all parts of a situation before making a final decision.It's not zero tolerance if you add steps to it!
Elsewhere — "Wisconsin students walk out to protest racial slur firing" (WaPo) — I'm seeing that the high school students who protested were chanting "Hey-hey, hey-ho, zero tolerance has got to go!"
Here's an idea: Teach everyone, including the students, about the "use/mention distinction" and have the consequence for violating the zero tolerance policy depend on whether it was a use or a mention. You could still outlaw the word in the workplace, but make the penalty for mentioning it minimal.
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87 comments:
> How can you have a policy that varies according to the race of the speaker
Color coded badges, that way everyone knows what they are allowed to say and to who. It would be like getting a security clearance. The guard would request clearance to use the word as part of his job and, after investigation into his genetics and ethnicity, be issued a badge that permits him to use the word when speaking with those who need to learn something.
If that all sounds complicated, it is. But such procedures are needed in a society where equality reigns.
Thou shall not say the n-word in vain.
Zero tolerance giving a perfect example of racial bias. How poetic.
Zero tolerance policies are incompatible with a culture founded upon Liberty and the Enlightenment.
Right?!
The whole concept needs to go into the ashcan of history. A horrible idea that fixed nothing and diminishes us as thinking, mature, reasonable people.
This is PC run amok.
Or you could fire every person supporting a zero tolerance policy on the grounds that they are mentally unfit to be an educator. That’s a zero tolerance policy I could get behind.
My daughter just read Mockingbird for school last year. And they did read some of it in class.
They skipped over the n-words.
More deplorable racist comfort food served up on a silver platter. It costs a lot of gas to drive to the hipster Airbnb in Austin
How to perpetuate racism? Treat black people and white people differently.
Would this be called institutionalized racism?
They need a zero tolerance policy for zero tolerance policies.
All of this is one hundred percent stupid. We've turned black people into whining crying sniveling crying titty babies.
Or we're making believe they are.
Zero tolerance is designed to relieve administrators of the burden of exercising discretion with - discretion. How about a rule that focuses on the perceived abusiveness of a student's behavior, judged on a case-by-case basis.
Herein is an example of the problems of hate speech - who defines it - and zero tolerance policies.
We need a book with all the words Progressives have banned so we know what we can or cannot say anymore.....Jeeez…..
“I think what happened at West was a very vulnerable moment between a Black man and a Black student, during which the word was used,”
I guessed correctly, how about that?
The n word is getting boring. Italians were called waps and they weren't slaves, the irish were called micks and they weren't slaves, the jews were called kikes and they weren't slaves, the puerto ricans were called spics and they weren't slaves. So what we have is a false equivalence and everyone is falling over each to gain moral acceptance and forgiveness from the secular gods. Oh what a terrible tale we weave.
Abolish the prohibition entirely. Say whatever you want.
The trouble is that the use/mention distinction doesn't get to the narrative, namely that the mere appearing of the word frazzles and ruins black feelings, whether used or mentioned. Because blacks are infants and idiots, is the story.
Whites somehow manage to cope with both use and mention directed at them. They're adults. It's the blacks who can't cope with words. It's no wonder they wind up the morons of society.
That's the zero tolerance story.
Not a good idea to buy into the policy in the first place. A strong rejection would itself compliment blacks.
As a board, we plan to review our approach, the underlying policies, and examine them with a racial equity lens understanding that universal policies can often deepen inequities. We will ask the community for help in that process. I have requested that this item be placed on our board agenda as soon as possible."
Oh FFS!
As a member of the community, I already formed a committee. I like to call it the "school board". Adulting is not that hard. Well for adults, its not that hard. Make a decision (like eliminate all zero tolerence policies) and communicate the values you used to arrive at the decision.
"the community" will give you input at the next election.
the Fact of the Matter, IS:
The School Board is not going far enough!
Obviously, ANYONE that uses that word needs to immediately be sent to a reeducation camp
But!
These SNEAKERS! that keep trying to sneak by, using some euphemism like: "the first letter word"
They TOO need to be PUNISHED and sent to reeducation camps
Even people (Especially People!) that try to sneak around sneaking, by using allusions to euphemisms; like "that word", or "the first letter word" need to hounded down like the dirty nigs they are!
I'm pleased to see the School Board have to confront their past idiocy in making this policy, but I suspect that new idiocy will prevail in replacing it. Especially if the racist works of Gloria Reyes are any indication.
I appreciate the use/mention distinction, but that kind of nuanced thinking is too much to expect of the radical School Board that thinks all Minorities are to be coddled.
If a nation wants to get used to electing really stupid people to high office, it has to start at the school board for practice.
How can you have a policy that varies according to the race of the speaker?!
It certainly violates the words of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race. But the Act has long since not been enforced that way. All respectable opinion seems to understand that there is "good discrimination" and "bad discrimination". Only the latter is prohibited. The former may even be required.
Only sticklers think that such a change requires a change in the words.
I'm guessing the school library doesn't carry Dick Gregory's autobiography.
I'm generally sympathetic to the school district's dilemma. School officials, including security guards, have to model the rules, not just enforce them on the students but I don't understand the immediate termination instead of a less draconian procedure. It's as if the administration doesn't want to have to deal with that messy thing called due process.
Our educators are morons and are intent on destroying Western Civilization. They have stated as much as a group. (Chronicle of Higher Education).
We have let the far left loonies take over educating our children for decades now: K-12, Universities, and now the media, and human resource departments in businesses large and small. You may say it's just the progress of time, that its just change that happens to any society. But, not all change is good. Sometimes change takes you down a wrong path. You may say they are merely disrupters. Well, I say it's time to disrupt the disrupters.
You want to heal our society? Start with the educators. Who manages the quality of our educators?
“ . . . examine them with a racial equity lens understanding that universal policies can often deepen inequities.” I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Why does our whole society say "the N-word", instead of the actual word, like everyone is a child and must have their ears protected ?
I hope there's no zero tolerance prohibition of cunt.
What's the difference between saying the word and saying "n-word"? Everyone knows what you mean. In the case of literature, you should respect it, and not shy away from it, particularly because it's use in that book was reflecting the repugnancy even at that time. If you don't want to deal with it, choose another book.
Teach everyone, including the students, about the "use/mention distinction" and have the consequence for violating the zero tolerance policy depend on whether it was a use or a mention.
The whole point of zero tolerance policies is to avoid having to make, defend, and be responsible for, such distinctions. Distinctions cause lawsuits, and get people fired.
Here’s an idea: Make real tolerance (of views and expressions you find abhorrent) a virtue, and eliminate all “zero tolerance” policies.
The use/mention distinction is worthwhile but I think zero tolerance policies are a sign of rot in the administrator class:
So many times I've seen local school principals who fall back on one zero-tolerance policy after another to defend an obviously stupid decision. My response has always been, why do we need to pay an administrator $200,000/year to apply simple rules? We pay so much because we expect wise judgement of situations, as well as logical and communication skills to convey why a decision was made. If we are going to live under simplistic zero tolerance rules, we don't need people with doctorates in education enforcing these rules, the school janitor could do it as a side-gig.
Why does our whole society say "the N-word", instead of the actual word, like everyone is a child and must have their ears protected
Asked and answered.
Dave Chappelle could not be reached for comment.
So the people who have created s system that openly discriminates against White people in favor of colored people in education and employment, and now want to create laws that allow Black people to do and say things that White people can't, are exactly the same ones complaining about the systematic oppression of Black people in the US today.
“It is different when a white person says this term than an African American,” Reyes said.
Newspeak lives.
People of character know the history of the word and do not use it, and any honest judge who has read the Bill of Rights would dismiss a court case over this "policy" immediately. The problem is we have school leaders who are not honest but servile in their adherence to the agenda du jour. Heck, we probably have trained lawyers who would try to press such a case.
One pathetic anecdote from George Packer's Atlantic article about his family's experience with New York City public schools: "One day he (my son) told us about 'N-word passes' that were being exchanged among other boys he knew -- a system in which a black kid, bartering for some item, would allow a white kid to use the word. We couldn't believe such a thing existed, but it did."
Let’s stop pretending that school is a good thing. West high school students, after more than eight years of “education”, still can’t grasp the concept of “zero”.
SHUT IT DOWN!
So: child asks dad sitting with Mom: are you mother fucker?
How should parents respond?
Correct usage/mention!?
Zero tolerance policies are just some ethical jiu-jitsu so that administrators can pretend that they are doing the right thing all the time. They can merely point to the policy and say, "See, I'm merely following policy.". Zero tolerance policies can not work in schools, because schools are meant to prepare students to live and prosper in a hyper-complex free society. Free Societies cannot be governed by zero tolerance policies, precisely because they are free so therefore hyper-complex. These jokes of policies merely let administrators dodge the burden of having to make fair and prudential decisions when different circumstances arise. That burden is supposed to be why administrative professionals can be so highly paid. I have no problem with principals getting paid $150k or $200k a year, but they better not shirk their duties and merely throw every situation though the administrative action decision tree.
The obvious solution is to stop firing people for saying a "Bad word". But that's impossible in Insane Liberal Land. Everything the left touches turns to shit.
BTW, what happens if you call your teacher a goddamn fucking Cunt in Madison? Do you get a Gold Star?
Referring to the N word as the N word leaves too littoral the imagination.
In the future I’m requesting that it be referred to as either “the 14th lettering the alphabet” word, or as “the letter between M and P word”
Another possibility (and I know it sounds extreme) would be to just eliminate the letter all together. But I say that if a letter of the alphabet offend thee, pluck it out. Lest thy entire lexicon perish.
I assume "Huckleberry finn" "tom Sawyer" Conrad's "The Nigger of Narcissus" and to "Kill a mockingbird" have been eliminated from the school library and memory holed.
I remember our school library had an old copy of dick Gregory's "Nigger".
I, for one, prefer the old rule: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. In my school days, I'd have been punished had I let mere words affect me enough to lose control over my behavior leading to violence.
That this truism has been abandoned is not a sign of a sound policy at all, at all.
It certainly violates the words of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race
_________
Isn't this where the problem was created and false solution designed to virtue signal !
Asserting that without the law Constitution does not restrain government on this matter?
Further unleashing. other attacks on Constitution
rhhardin said...
"Abolish the prohibition entirely. Say whatever you want."
Howard would find that problematic. That cracker don't believe in no free speech.
"Zero tolerance" is for people who cannot think independently. The people who implement it cannot see people and agency as individuals and individuals making decisions. IOWs folk of low IQ.
And another thing: watch Blazing Saddles on cable some time, and try not to laugh at the Bowlderization of the script. It was funny with the original language, but the language police have made it even more hilarious by trying to clean it up.
Chris of Rights said...
My daughter just read Mockingbird for school last year. And they did read some of it in class.
They skipped over the n-words.
10/19/19, 6:58 AM
A friend of mine taught high school English in the Northern VA school system back in the 90's and that was her approach. "I realize this is a very, very disturbing word so you don't have to say it."
Every single kid who read aloud, no matter what color they were, did say it - with relish. while looking at her and grinning. Kids of my generation would have thought it a hoot if the nuns had had us read "Catcher in the Rye" aloud and told us all the cursing Holden does was very naughty and we didn't have to say those words if we didn't want to. It's fun to break taboos, especially right in front of teacher.
Whether the taboo word is spoken or not, the problem is that the work you're studying becomes all about The Bad Word, not about other, deeper ideas.
Nobody gives a shit about the seven H-words who got fired over this, but we’re supposed to care because zero tolerance caught one nigger.
How can you have a policy that varies according to the race of the speaker?
"I am so old that I remember when most racists were white."
Thomas Sowell.
This incident and the subsequent walkout has made both television and St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper coverage since yesterday. That school board will have its hands full.
Our Hostess cannot be serious about a use/mention distinction. Surely she must know that if a mention is all that is required to get a n-word pass, anyone truly determined to hurl a racial slur in earnest will only have to merely mention it...repeatedly...in the most intentional way.
We would then be left to divine whether the act of mentioning was, in fact, use. Context.
- Krumhorn
The primary reason zero-tolerance policies exist is to absolve officials of the responsibility for making distinctions and decisions.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
Is quoting lines from a Tarantino move a "use" or a "mention"?
Randall Kennedy wrote a book about this. Maybe the school should read it.
https://www.amazon.com/Nigger-Strange-Career-Troublesome-Word/dp/0375713719/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Nigger&qid=1571496621&sr=8-1
You can ban the word, but you can't ban all the shame, rage, and history that gives the word its impact. Maybe in another two or three generations.....I'm of primarily Irish descent. So far as I know, I've never been discriminated against because of being Irish. That's a wonderment because on a per capita basis, Irish produce a slightly higher percentage of assholes than most other ethnic groups and certainly deserve to be regarded with suspicion and mistrust. On the other hand, the Irish were treated abominably by the English for eight hundred years and are certainly entitled to their grudges, dark moods, and need for a drink.....But the way history--in America anyway-- has worked out, I don't feel any particular animus against English people, and English people, so far as I know, no longer regard me as some form of sub-human farm animal with an evil religion. History does not inevitably have a tragic ending. A great many problems become obsolete with the passage of time.
This is schizophrenic. How can it be harmful to hear a word spoken, but harmless to read the same word from the printed page?
If the word is harmful don't assign books with the word.
Don't pretend that the eyes and the ears don't go to the same brain.
I have a practical suggestion. LeBron can ask Xi, and then tell us what educated people are allowed to say.
Maybe they should think these through a lot more, virtue signaling policy’s are easy.
If this whole situation were a proposed comedy sketch, it would be dismissed as being too obvious. What did you think would happen when you started down this road?
This is just society disintegrating step by step. The people running our institutions are, increasingly, the bottom of the heap- the people incapable of doing anything productive or useful. They like these sorts of rules because, without them, they would actually have to use their low IQ brains.
You could still outlaw the word in the workplace, but make the penalty for mentioning it minimal.
Or we could have free speech, rather than try to create elaborate systems to control who can say what and for what purpose.
It's an idea so crazy it might just work!
My daughter just read Mockingbird for school last year. And they did read some of it in class.
Sounds like they read some of some of it in class.
And they were taught that government censorship of what you can say is perfectly OK.
That second thing was probably the bigger take-away.
So now Huckleberry Finn is an abomination? How much better to teach children how and why things were the way they were, rather than try to embed them in some artificial universe.
Zero tolerance is the refuge of cowards and fools.
"On the other hand, the Irish were treated abominably by the English for eight hundred years and are certainly entitled to their grudges, dark moods, and need for a drink...."
Yeah, the Irish who live in Ireland have a right to feel this way. The Irish-Americans, who've been in the USA for 100 years or more, need to shut the fuck up. And stop whining. Nothing is more boring than hearing some American Mick wank on about Cromwell.
The usual root cause: you can't beat children anymore. How long before tbis is reversed too?
Althouse wrote: “How can you have a policy that varies according to the race of the speaker?!”
Seriously? Progressives have many “policies” that vary according to to race, gender (whatever “gender” means today), national origin (often confused with race), religion or creed, political party, etc., of the speaker or actor.
Included among these, so far, is immunity from prosecution for prominent Democrat office holders.
This s-word is f-word r-word. I understand why the n-word is offensive, maybe more so than most such words (Brits are fond of using the c-word, which use is still quite shocking to many/most in the US). But if you are overwhelmed by its use you have given the speaker power over you. Stand up for yourself, sticks and stones and all that. Maybe even use the f-word in your rejoinder, it is the most versatile of such words.
"Nothing is more boring than hearing some American Mick wank on about Cromwell."
My wife and I had that exact experience from an American couple sitting next to us at a roadside pub in Kildare 25 years ago. The woman was blabbering on about how miserable and nasty the British had been toward the Irish. Bono said it well during a live performance of Sunday Bloody Sunday on Rattle and Hum:
"I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home...and the glory of the revolution...and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution!"
It was about that time I stopped thinking of myself as Irish-American, rather American with Irish lineage (on both sides), but America through and through. Born here, raised here.
Social ostracism is a traditional remedy for rude behavior. Let's try that.
This right here is the MMSD Board of Education.
The situation is hopeless. Just give up.
I always used to laugh when the big thinkers of the Regulatory State used to earnestly propose "principles-based" regulation rather than "rules-based" regulation. Then they would get down to implementing their "principles" by writing a bunch of rules.
The advantages to society of custom, tradition, and convention a very real, in part because they are so flexible. Of course, these tools for governing social and commercial intercourse are not brisk enough for some people, who want the firm smack of authority enforcing their views of proper conduct. If Donald Trump had never been able to get financing because banks, financiers, suppliers, and customers refused to do business with him, we would never had heard of him. But he did get financing, and America is better for it. Elizabeth Warren and her ilk would like to make it illegal, through bank and other regulations, for someone like Trump to rise.
It seems to me that Mr. Anderson did a reasonable and good thing. The rule is silly. The school administrators are sillier. The school board can bring this farce to a sensible conclusion. What are the odds?
Althouse, you can't successfully buff a turd. If you have any rules other than those necessary to maintain a nonviolent public discourse (yup, no protection for "fighting words" and a few other things), you are going to get nonsense like this. I believe that this has been your view. The use vs. mention rule doesn't cut it, for reasons you have espoused over the years.
What progressive (political slur intended) proposed such an idiot policy?
This policy applies only to "racial slurs?" "Spic" and "WOP" are not proscribed, Hispanic and Italian not being "races?"
Native American, problematic - maybe a "race," maybe not. Suppose an employee addresses a Native American fellow employee as "Chief?"
And the fellow employee is the elected head of his tribal unit.
So, just "race," huh? Something like "shorty" or "fatty" or "fag" or "kike" or "cunt" or "progressive" would be OK?
Not so long ago, a logical distinction was always made between traits over which a person has no choice (sex, height, place of birth) and those over which there is some measure of choice (religious and political affiliation). Sexual and "racial" affiliation are now in the elective category.
Suppose a School Dist employee, non-native English speaker, utters with intent to demean a "racial slur" in his native tongue which is heard but not understood by others?
So - is this list of "racial slurs" published anywhere? Are employees permitted to know the utterances which terminate employment? Does publishing of a proscribed word constitute prohibited use? If not, it should be OK to brandish a placard bearing the proscribed word. If so, then employees involved in publishing the list must be dismissed.
Asking for a friend.
Chris of Rights: "My daughter just read Mockingbird for school last year. And they did read some of it in class. They skipped over the n-words."
Made particular effort to draw attention to it, did they?
They should sit in a corner and ponder the wisdom of "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech...."
Diversity, or color judgment, another progressive policy under the established Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, politically congruent quasi-religion ("ethics"). What do people believe, for convenience, for leverage, for profit?
Hammond proposes School Board hold meeting and replace problematic policy with proscribing use of definite and indefinite articles in written and verbal communication.
This s-word is f-word r-word. I understand why the n-word is offensive, maybe more so than most such words (Brits are fond of using the c-word, which use is still quite shocking to many/most in the US).
Don't forget the t-word that has lost its sheen. The b-word, the f-word, and the c-word, which are often used interchangeable, and can be selectively deemed offensive. The b-word, the w-word, the h-word, the b-word, again, and the o-word, the y-word, too. All under the d-word, the p-word, the l-word, the p-word, again, and the c-word umbrella. Oh, and the s-word.
A click, a whistle, an inflection, a hyphen away from irrelevance.
In his new book, The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray makes the point that political correctness of this sort is a form of derangement. The person who says and believes it is clearly deranged, but it threatens to derange the listener or observer as well.
Very true, and this is a good case in point.
As for 'n****r' in To Kill a Mockingbird, a decade ago it was Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn in the dock. Including, libraries banning it.
Knowing that that word was in common usage, and how it was used, is important to understand the deep problems among the people and across the culture of the time, and to understand the motives and actions of the story's protagonists, cannot even be voiced. Context DOES matter, even aside from the First Amendmant.
This is all so deranged. Our culture is being defined by people with the emotional development of 4-year olds, and in writing that I may be unfair to 4-year olds.
Rabel said...
This right here is the MMSD Board of Education.
Remember!
it's OKAY! to discriminate against White Males, in the interests of 'diversity'
We HAVE TO HAVE 'diversity' in school settings, so; Stick it to the white man
If we (white men) were to suggest affirmative action on school boards; we'd be racist/sexist
right?
Duty of Inquiry said...
How can it be harmful to hear a word spoken, but harmless to read the same word from the printed page?
It's Really Quite Simple
1) we, as a society; now completely, and wholly embrace witchcraft and sorcery
2) when you SAY a word, you invoke the word's spirit; and unleash it's spell
3) just reading a word, can be safely done (if you think Correct Thoughts, while reading)
4) witchcraft and sorcery, ARE PROVEN SCIENCE; and are SUPPORTED by 97% of modern scientists
5) YOU are just an ignorant ignoramus for not trusting your very life to witchcraft and sorcery
Having grown up in the Middleton-Cross Plains School District, I have to laugh at Madison West. They brought this national attention upon themselves. They always did think of themselves as betters.
What did they do about about the kid who called his teacher a nigga?
I've always objected to "hate crimes" laws and "hate speech" codes and so on, as I knew it would always lead inevitably to such actions. "Zero-tolerance" polices are similarly ill-considered, crude and draconian means to address real-life situations.
Everyone at school wears a badge that defines the words they can use.
The color is defined by a DNA test. Make it a spectrum of color from black through the grays to white.
allows use of certain words for certain defined colors.
You figure it out.
Everyone at school wears a badge that defines the words they can use.
The color is defined by a DNA test. Make it a spectrum of color from black through the grays to white.
allows use of certain words for certain defined colors.
You figure it out.
Maybe worth noting, that fiction writers obviously 'use' the n-word as opposed to 'mentioning' by non-fiction writers.
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