From the Tax Prof Bog:
Interesting article in this morning’s Des Moines Register: Racial Slur Read by Professor Upsets U of I Law Students; Professor Says Racial Term Fit in a Negotiations Class, by Erin Jordan:
A professor’s use of readings containing racial slurs has alarmed students and renewed discussions about diversity at the University of Iowa law school....
The university’s Black Law Students Association, a group of 27 students, said in a letter to law faculty, U of I administration and the Iowa Board of Regents executive director that a March 29 incident was “indicative of a much larger problem at the College of Law.”
The incident that triggered the larger discussion was professor Gerald Wetlaufer reading aloud two passages that contained racial epithets in his negotiations class, according to law school Dean [and Tax Prof] Carolyn Jones.
The readings, one from Robert Caro’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of former President Lyndon Johnson and another a 1964 speech by a black sharecropper named Fannie Lou Hamer, were in context with the course, Jones said, but students may not have been sufficiently prepared to hear the racial slurs. Wetlaufer apologized to students for not adequately warning them about the readings but said he believes they were relevant to the course, which focuses on the power of language.
I’ll leave it to you all to tease out the multitudinous levels of irony here.
Me, I’m going for a nice long walk. And on that walk, I will try to forget that universities are increasingly turning to a type of “meaning by consensus” wherein offense taken by a given interpretive community (more often than not, simply one identity group or other) is privileged over the intentions of the the utterer, and then used as a bludgeon to silence those not authorized by that identity group to use the “protected” language that the group has determined belongs solely to people “like them.”
Discuss. Or don’t. Like I said, I’m going for a nice long walk.
****
update How does all my recent talk of intentionalism fit into this? Well, commenter ss digs deeper and makes the connection, excerpting this bit of student reaction from a story in the Daily Iowan:
“‘Its use the first time didn’t offend me, and I don’t think he’s racist,’ she said. “And I think he was just trying to show the power of words, the power of storytelling, but after we discussed concerns, he said it again and just kind of blew them off. So, I think it was offensive.â€Â
“So, I think it was offensive.” Is this really how we want meaning determined—by thin-skinned emotionalism and a sense that we have a right not to be “offended”? This student, bless her, admits to being offended even while admitting she doesn’t think the professor is racist, or was even using the teaching moment to make a point about race, so much as he was a point about the power of words. Still, she believes that her “right” not to feel “offended” trumps the intentions of the utterer—a position that is completely at odds with the First Amendment (but which aligns perfectly with the anti-individualistic “diversity” agenda that has been pushed by collectivists on the progressive left).
As I’ve said before: anti-intellectualism.
Some people have responded to my posts on intentionalism with arguments that intentionalism doesn’t tell us much, that of course the author intends—but, well, so what? We need (they insist) to look at the utterance in its historical context, or as part of some historical continuum, or as part of some conventional code. We need to luxuriate in the ineffability of meaning, in the “openness” of the text.
But intentionalism doesn’t prevent one from doing any of that, so those arguments are red herrings. Instead, intentionalism simply seeks to make sure we know what it is we’re doing when we engage in various kinds of textual activities.
What I’ve been arguing, repeatedly, is that the way we think about how interpretation works—which is an historically situated examination of how we engage texts for purposes of decoding them—has real consequences, and so intentionalism, for all its “obviousness,” should not be pushed aside as uninteresting, particularly when what is at stake is the very grounds for who gets to decide on “meaning” (here, the professor’s signifiers were offensive, so regardless of intent, and regardless of whether or not we think him racist, his “words” were in and of themselves offensive on racialist grounds, the argument goes). And once we allow interpreters to form “interpretive communities” that can pronounce on meanings that were never intended by the utterers—and yet still hold the utterer accountable—we have set the stage for linguistic totalitarianism, a will to power brought on by a way of looking at language that is theoretically incoherent (an author’s signs are stable, so his meaning doesn’t change based on the reaction to his signifiers by some motivated interpretive community) and should be beaten back at every turn.
I keep saying this, and for my troubles I’m called a paste-eater by those who want to carve out little ownership groups for language, ones in which you must follow the collectivist line or else risk excommunication.
We’re seeing this more and more, with universities as the testing ground. And of course, we see the ideas making their way into legislation with such things as “hate crimes legislation”—which, while they may have their pragmatic uses (and I believe they do), nevertheless create precedent for certain dangerous ideas about how language works to make their way into more legislation.
The worst part of it? Since the controversy, he’s welshed on the offer of a picnic.
Professor: Do you know the difference between a chicken leg and a penis?
Law Co Ed: Um…no, I don’t believe I do.
Professor: Want to go on a picnic?
Geez, Robert – I was going to go for that one, but you scotched it.
Looks like “progressive” advocates of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” are backing us into the censorship that Islamists have achieved by rioting over cartoons.
Rumor has it that U of I students are going to stand in the quad with Mark Twain books pilfered from the library and burn them. This after pouring over the dictionary and
bowdlerizingredactingcorrecting offensive, racist words, like “niggardly” and “thug”.oh brave new world!
Prof. Wetlaufer joins Larry Summers in the academic stocks for his “insensitivity” to identity politics and the facism that is the modern US university system.
In California, the legislature just passed a bill requiring that textbook publishers include the sexual orientation of gay/lesbian historic figures to boost the “esteem” of gay/lesbian students. So, when do we include polygamy, incest, pedophilia and bestiality in the
pantheon of approved subjects for our children to be “educated” about and conditioned to accept as normal, while at the same time, any discussion
of biological/intellectual differences between the genders or usage of archaic racial terminology in the discussion of “the power of words” are verboten?
Does no one on that campus know how to use a horsewhip? That’s the only way to instil sense into college students.
That’s it. We’re doomed. Where do I go for my fitting?
Oh mah virgin eahs. Ahh do believe I feel a touch woozy. Catch me dahling, I may faint.
Well, I’m assuming that the ACLU is going to go running the Prof’s side for his “freedom of speech” protection.
Or does that just apply to pornography and burning flags?
Remember when the computer jargon “master/slave” had to be dispensed with because it was deemed to be offensive? As if there is any race on this planet that has never owned slaves. Or been slaves.
tw: niggardly
was not the word perchance
These are LAW STUDENTS?!? And they weren’t prepared to hear racial slurs and “bad words”? I’ve practiced crimianl law for twenty years, boy are these wimps in for an education in the real world.
Not the first time something like this has happened.
The last time, it was a law professor who asked, as a hypothetical for his students, what the residents of a black neighborhood would have the legal right to do in self-defense, should a KKK rally carrying racist slogans happen to march right down the main street of the district.
The problem was that he actually DESCRIBED the slogans, and it was apparently so shocking that he used the word “nigger” in class that he had multiple lawsuits filed against him and almost lost his tenure.
I’m with Eno – these guys want to be lawyers, battling for their clients? If you can’t take it, why should I pay you to dish it out? What a bunch of wimps!
Maybe they’re of the John Edwards school of lawyering – “I hear the unborn speaking to me” mysticism as an alternative to solid reasoning.
Literary masturbation about the interpretation of a text aside, moral culpability demands looking to the intent of the communicator.
I’m surprised the students even noticed between listening to their ipods and tapping away on their laptops. I wonder what’s on those?
Except that it is not really meaning by consensus. It is meaning by sinking to the lowest possible meaning if it is even close to being “offensive” at any time by a given “protected” class. The protection is to protect them from offense, even if the offense exists only in their misinterpretation.
Of course, slang and other words vary in meaning from one generation to the next. Time was when “fag” meant “cigarette.” Somehow that morphed into homosexual, and then it became verboten. I guess that means that if any writer used the word to mean cigarette, then his work either must be changed, or they were a homophobe.
It just makes it harder to communicate since you really have to watch what you say regardless of intent, or even ones knowledge of what is or is not offensive.
There are 712 students enrolled in UofI Law School.
27 of whom are, presumably, black and are specifically aggrieved at hearing the word ‘nigger’ used in a course about language, while attending law school… in the middle of Iowa.
Fucking.Iowa.
What kind of life does a black American lead such that they can be 20-24 years old, attend school in the middle of Iowa and be shocked to the point of group action with an historical consideration of language that involved the use of the word ‘nigger’ in a classroom setting?
Slap my frontal lobes and call me ‘Thersites’ but I think the CONTEXT – fucking IOWA – negates the complaint.
jeebus.
Or, really, just one.
The perlocutionary effect of this open secretâ€â€that the word is “nigger” and everyone knows it, but no one above a certain station says it in mixed company, and instead only crookedly points to itâ€â€is that readers provide it themselves, add their own nigger to a text from which it’s excluded.
Having lived in a 90+% broke-ass black neighborood for years (years ago), and being a rap fan, and just generally not giving a fuck about propriety, I’m immune to excitement at seeing and hearing “nigger.” When it’s there, it’s a word among thousands. But when it’s gone, the exclusion is so glaring that it hides the story, becomes its only message. I read this article ten minutes ago and I would fail a fact-test on it already.
This is new. It wasn’t long agoâ€â€I’m young and I remember itâ€â€that the press didn’t do this. Then suddenly everywhere it was “the N word.” Now it’s seldom even that. So we all have to carry around a headful of niggers to paste over every “slur.”
What does that do? Let’s not pretend it’s nothing. It’s nothing good.
They don’t sell rap in IUowa?
There had ought to be a mandatory seminar, upon admission to university, on the use-mention distinction. Anyone who can’t understand it can’t start classes.
The BSist wrote:
I generally find myself in agreement with the BSist at PW, but must respectfully dissent on this point.
Iowa is a state that narrowly went for Bush in ‘04, but it was the first time it had gone GOP since 1984. It sends Chuck Grassley to the Senate, but it also sends Tom Harkin. And Iowa City/U of I is your typical liberal college town, and the heart of liberalism in IA. So there might well have been some shock.
Doesn’t change the underlying merit of the issue (or lack thereof)—just noting that IA has drifted leftward over the years.
I was thinking about rap, too. I bet if you checked the iPod of every student in that class (regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, etc. ad infinitum) you would find lyrics more patently, openly, and gratuitously racist, sexist, mysogynistic, homophobic (etc. ad infinitum)—and completely devoid of proper “context-setting” in which the words might be heard safely (the words having had their chambers emptied, put on safe, and properly holstered) than anything that might appear in their textbooks.
It is absurd on its face.
Gee – I must be a paste eating dolt, waaaaaayyyy behind the times, cause my little box of post-ems only contains “Hello’s”. Could be the influence, as opposed to effluance, of some movie I ate.
You mewling, attention-mongering, politically correct child. Do you every think at U of I?
Hypothetical: I’m walking the urban street with my 15 yr old daughter in any of a hundred cities. We’re discussing a variety of subjects related to her public schooling. I find the need to discuss a racial issue and consider using the word “nigger” to demonstrate it’s virtual obsolecence as a slur in today’s society.
I elect not to. My intent was to objectively inform. I elected not to. Why?
Fear for my life.
So much for intent. The repression of speech these days is in inverse proportion to one’s perception of safety. It has virtually nothing to do with race except as a hairtrigger, as Nelson proves.
Now compare the two outcomes—a racial smear vs physical fear. Is there a comparison? Seems the test fails and not in favor of any straws and camels.
The ginned up offense my contextual utterance may have given is perhaps one percent that of the offense against ordinary freedom of speech, even in private conservation in a semi-private circle. As Boz points out, the word has lost all connotation except that given it by these mental midgets with their appearances to keep up.
Not that any of this is news, but so far has the pendulum swung.
Hell yes they do: It pays. Steven Nelson, 27, a second-year U of I law student from New Orleans is an actor on a stage. This is practice and where better to practice than The Peoples Republic of the U of I, Berkeley Midwest.
tw: What you lookin’ at?
Hey…can I get a refund? I thought you were going to be here for the class.
rls – We’re all just auditing….plus Goldstein is sitting there snickering, watching to see how many have the guts to say what they really think… Damn paste eater…..
BUSH EATS BABIES! ….
They let blacks in law school up there? :D I kid, I kid. Sorry, that was a bit of an off color joke. /rimshot
Ok, I’m gonna ban myself from the internet for a few hours for that last one.
So…you’re saying that….I was the only one that had to pay?
Oh shit….did I let the cat out of the bag….. Damn it!… see what paste eating can do to you….
You buy ‘em books…send them to school..and what do they do?
THEY EAT THE PASTE!!!
College paper’s story, with this doozy from a student regarding a prior incident: “‘Its use the first time didn’t offend me, and I don’t think he’s racist,’ she said. “And I think he was just trying to show the power of words, the power of storytelling, but after we discussed concerns, he said it again and just kind of blew them off. So, I think it was offensive.”
and this from some other student: “We have the right to be in class without feeling uncomfortable,” he said.”
Wetlaufer’s response: “Something about this seems deeply perverse. Isn’t it likely that the Black Law Students Association’s tenacious attack will cause us to spend less classroom time – not more – trying to talk about race in America? Isn’t it odd that the association, in the name of racial insensitivity, is attacking someone for honoring the service, sacrifices, and effectiveness of Fannie Lou Hamer – for having read and praised her great call to the American people?”
Recommendations of the black student organization “suggesting the law college institute mandatory diversity training, create an official policy for discussing diversity issues in class, and seek to increase the diversity of its faculty and staff”
A UI (non-law) black (African) professor’s reaction: “This unfortunate incident shows how far the University of Iowa has gone on the road to becoming a breeding grounds for victims. While playing the victim of racism may be psychologically rewarding in the short run, the future belongs to those who recognize and become partners in good-faith efforts to right the wrongs of the past and resist the ever-present temptation to “act out” and play the part that has, for centuries been assigned to black people, “the victim”, with a capital V.”
– Actually as I recall, the cute little Liberal dish that sat next to me, with her pretty bare legs dangling over the desk seat edge, spent most of her time sucking on a crayon, which I assume was because it was so much more radical and artistically liberating, not to mention flooding my Neocon war mongering head with all sorts of visions…..
Will to power brought on by a way of looking at language that is incoherent and should be beaten back at every turn.
I keep saying this, and for my troubles I’m called a paste-eater by those who want to carve out little ownership groups for language, ones in which you must follow the collectivist line or risk excommunication.
Thanks for finding that, ss.
These folks are mad because the Prof quoted from Fannie Lou Hamer’s speech from the 1964 Democratic convention?
I bet those philistines don’t even know who she was, such as the state of middle school education in America today.
Hamer’s speech, if you haven’t heard it, is one of the most searing political orations ever given. It probably tipped the convention toward the MS Freedom Party’s claim for floor representation.
A defining moment in American history to be sure.
I wonder how they feel about bitches and ho’s?
– Wonder what Bill Cosby would have to say about all of this….
TW: “bill”… yes you Turing twit….I already said that…
I think I just read one of the better examinations of the drivers behind the kneejerk reaction of the reality based community to label anyone not in lockstep stupid. It’s clear and given the complexity of the subject surprisingly concise. The folks at the core of the absurdites in this thread’s post and even closer to home the asinine Dr Haggerty et al dovetail nicely into the concept.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/179368.php
Anybody want a pudding pop?
I guess you can ignore my last comment. I made it because I was impressed by Ace’s post as a standalone. After poking through the comments, it appears I’m behind on the curve by a few hours.
Iowa’s not all bad, check out the opinion page in the latest Daily.
Then again
Grab this guy and put him on a ticket with Gen. Russell Honore (the John Wayne dude) for ‘08.
I’ll go knock on doors for that ticket.
Here’s the deal…bear with me now…
If you say something, and people say, “hey, that makes me feel all squirelly, could ya’ please show some restraint now so I don’t have to feel uncomfortable again” and the speaker blows them off and says it anyway, it is not beyond the pale that the person(s) youv’ve blown off will think your continued pressing of a sensitive button is bad manners…i.e., offensive.
But what I’m really driving at is something else. I just happen to think instructors at college should have the freedom to have that kind of bad manners. I think it’s stupid and inimical to intellectual exploration and instruction to try to create an atmosphere where anyone or any group is protected from feeling offended.
I think folks should not necessarily keep silent about feeling offended. I think folks may need to make a stink about being offended from time to time. However they should understand the goal of attending university is not to find some perfect sanctuary against offense. This attempt of colleges to to create some kind of perfect little happy friendly sensitive land is the opposite of what should happen at college.
The problem is not that people have separated listeners interpretation from speakers intent unfairly. Once you have told the speaker “I don’t like that” the speaker has been given fair warning. The problem is that the listener expects to be able to enforce a speech code at college to protect himself from things he doesn’t want to hear.
LibLib had to break the page.
Dood.
The University of Iowa was the first state university in the US to grant admission to women and blacks on an equal basis, in 1861. The UI Law School granted the first US law degree to a black person, Alexander Griffin Clark, in 1879, as well as Juanita Kidd Stout (’39), the first black female judge. My UI college dormitory, Slater Hall, was named in honor of UI alumnus Fred “Duke” Slater (BA ‘21, JD ‘28), the first All-American black football player, who became a federal judge in Chicago. The UI granted the first black PhDs in history (1941), chemistry (1956) and chemical engineering (1971), as well as the first black MFA (1940). It is the alma mater of Al Jarreau, US Poet Laureate Rita May Dove, Metropolitan opera star Simon Estes, and Ebony executive editor Herb Nipson.
Present topic aside, your implication that Iowa is a state of racist yokels demonstrates you are a fucking retard.
I’ve also noticed that the local news has stopped mentioning the race of individual criminals–which seems self-defeating when they’re asking for the public’s help in finding a perp.
Also brings to mind the story of the drunk driver checks in one city, 97% Hispanic, that were halted because of “racial profiling,” as most of the drivers stopped were Hispanic!
SarahW
I get your point, but if the professor merely displayed bad manners, there would be no story and nothing for the black student association to get involved in. The whole point is that he said things offensive to black people. And that he kept saying “offensive things.”
The lede is “Professor uses N-word, Students offended,” not “Professor blows off reasonable student request, Students offended.”
I agree with much of what you say, SW. But there IS a BIG problem with interpretive “re-purposing” of intent and I wouldn’t even begin to guess when or how the action could be judged “fair” or foul. I’ll leave it to Jeff to keep teaching the finer points of that issue. (Because I wouldn’t be able to anyway.)
I just wish I could have given most of my profs “fair warning” that their repetitive offences of drooling Marxist drivel…blah, blah…evil imperialism…hegemony…blah, made me want to throw up.
TW: stand
couldn’t take one if you wanted the degree
Brings to mind this Instapundit reference to racial profiling by traffic cameras.
And these are law school students. No wonder the court system in this country is in the dumper. Fail all of the stupid idiots that took ‘offense’ to anything that is said in a law school class. They’ll graduate more stupid than they arrived, so send the poor thin skinned wimps home to momma.
Apparently the bivalve known as “geoduck2” is harboring the notion that “Tar baby” and “don’t throw me in the briar patch” originated in the movie Song of the South and not, y’know, elsewhere. Me, I’ve never seen SotS, but I have read the books that it was (loosely) based on.
Probably one of those transmission things.
This, from a self-professed historian. How does one respond to such claims politely?
Iowahawk, I believe Bumperstickerist was speaking ironically, but I could be mistaken. It’s happened before.
Slart – I noticed her apparent unawareness of Joel Chandler Harris as well. To be fair, though, the scholarly clamshell has already demonstrated a troubling problem with the handling of evidence, much less cause and effect, that to me seems worrisome in an aspiring historian.
It’s not so much the making of mistakes that’s problematic; it’s the making of mistakes that are so obvious even I can spot them.
Twenty-plus years ago in grad school, one of my fellow students froze us all in shocked disbelief by asking, quite seriously, whether Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar before or after he died.
The bivalve reminds me of that kid.
In the meantime, the bivalve in question is still talking out of both sides of its…shell?
All polite and respectful in one place, but still with the paste-eating in others.
And, apparently Thersites has a new place, complete with a new name.
Odd, that. No profanity, and no paste-eating commentary. Hard to believe it’s the same guy.
LOL – reading the Valve thread?
GeoDuck is double-dip crazy! – by the end of the thread, it seems that she’s acknowledged having no background in literary interpretation. The reason that she’s fixated on New Historicism is that she’s a History ABD.
Here’s some more GeoDuck wisdom..
e.g.
That appears to be a robo-blog (i.e. the posts are programmatically generated marketing solicitations).
Insult + Injury = Metacomments becomes a spam site.
You know what? I’m through with the lot of it. I can’t even go to a serious lit crit site and have a serious conversation. What’s the use?
Those comments over at ntodd’s place are so delusional that it’s hard even to respond. I mean, the debates are HERE, in PROSE, for all to see. Was I throwing tantrums? Was Thersites “whomping” my ass? Was my Klonopin usage evident? Do I eat paste? Does it appear I have no idea what I’m talking about?
Screw the lot of them. I’m through with it. Geoduck has been spending the last few days trying to ingratiate herself in the comments over at the Valve, but it’s become fairy obvious even to those predisposed to support her that she doesn’t have much of an idea what’s she talking about.
And that thread on NTodd’s site is just some much more vile bullshit.
It may be time for me to take the gloves off.
Jeff. They’re ILL. They have no self-doubt.
Take a mental vacation over at Godwin’s “One Cosmos.” You deserve it.
Unsolicited advice?
Keep the gloves on, it’s going to be a long fight.
This is the nature of memetic combat, you don’t beat the person, you beat the idea.
The good news..
Thersites is done, 24hrs later his site is overtaken by spammers.
Nate has been forced to admit to his ‘embarrassing ignorance’ (see his post on Semantic Externalism).
* I think that he’s mistaken your position for ‘semantic internalism’ btw.
Who the hell cares what GeoDuck thinks ?!?
S.Kaufman credits you with
in a prominent ALSC thread.
And political bloggers have seen how to strike-back at the subjectivists – this incident is getting more coverage than you might realize.
Check google in a few days, you’ll see what I’m getting at.
bad news..
The likelyhood of you being invited to a Circle Dance in Trustfund Vermont is close to nil.
Ooh, now she’s got a snappy ‘rebuttal’ up on NTodd’s site.
Jeff: a man without honor. From the bivalve that to this day insists it’s one of Jeff’s commentariat that posted the DSL comment. Me, I think that she’s slurped far too often from the Atrios trough.
Sorry for my ignorance but exactly what is a paste-eater. Additionally who cares what the other side thinks….screw them.
Course it is mighty depressing to think that my children will recieve a much better education than I right up to the college I never attended…then it will all turn to shit. Fuck. Keep the fight up Jeff.
Just consider – what term might one apply to a group of people (Thers, Geoduck, Nate, et al) declaring victory while retreating as rapidly as they possibly can? Other than “French,” I mean.
> I was thinking about rap, too. I bet if you checked the iPod of every student in that class (regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, etc. ad infinitum) you would find lyrics more patently, openly, and gratuitously racist, sexist, mysogynistic, homophobic (etc. ad infinitum)
The point is, it’s a WHITE GUY doing the talking.
Unless you’re Eminem, WHITE GUYS aren’t even allowed to THINK racist thoughts. If you do, if you give the Thought Police ANY call to even *SUSPECT* you’re daring to think—no, make that CAPABLE OF THINKING—Sexist, Racist, Homophobic, “Non-Xtian Anti-Religious” thoughts, well, let’s just say: ”You in a HEAPA Trouble, BOY!”
Baathist?
Have you ever known anyone else who would introduce themselves and their politics with a fucking reading list?
These people sre incapable of explaining themselves, and they do not think. They repeat.
Let me see if I get this straight – 2nd year law students are offended by speech? And the words are not even the words of the prof, but the words from books.
And these kids can’t stand it?
Good lord, wait until they get to actually practice law!
Wimps and simps.
Oh, and to Bumper Sticker – the students are not from Iowa, they are from New Orleans, so it’s hardly fair to blame Iowa for their wimpiness.
Looks like Ric’s comments to NTodd have got our friend Todd positively a-lather. If the guy doesn’t get a splenectomy soon, he just might rupture.
Well, there are 27 students acting in concert. I doubt that all of them are from New Orleans.
What amazes me is that 26 members of the group didn’t turn to the offended person and say “Get over it.”
I understand Iowa’s not just cornfields and silos—though driving along Route 30 to Mamie Eisenhower’s birth house you’d be hardpressed to think otherwise—but my point (as such) was that the students here weren’t suddenly visited in their homes by a Law Prof. The act of being in a law school classroom at the U of I sets some conditions on the reasonableness of the students’s actions.
Also, I’ll jump to the end of the argument and simply assert that Jeff’s wrong.
In the end this will all come down to biology rather than philosophy. Somebody, somewhere will find out that people’s brains respond to stimulii in predicatable patterns and that the Left’s reactions to cogent thought is, basically, a Linguistic Allergic Reaction.
Which is all Thersites and NTodd and Geoduck and the Law Students are having. It’s allergic – a spontaneous response. And like all allergies, it’s the responsibility of the person to 1) inform people of their condition if it’s known and 2)understand that it’s their problem, not society’s.
If a person declares themselves ‘allergic’ to the n-word, then I know that my use of that term might provoke a specific reaction in that particular person.
Some words are the linquistic equivalent of poison ivy, others are the equivalent of shellfish or peanuts. If somebody is so damn sensitive that *everything* annoys them, then they should damn well put themselves in a bubble rather trying to put everybody else in one.
Has “baldy” reached the b-word status?
If so, I totally oppressed some schmoe in a toop last night.
Sorry, follically-challenged-dude, wherever you are.
“We have the right to be in class without feeling uncomfortable,†he said.â€Â
Good luck kid. Wait until you stand up before a three judge appellate panel. They will make you cry.
…oh and Iowa is the state of my ancestors. Both sides of my family settled Iowa and did the hard work themselves as opposed to using slaves. So it’s ironic that in a state that really should harbor no guilty feelings about our history should be in the center of this forced-victimization.
….and don’t set yourself up to let Iowahawk take a shot at you. I speak from experience. He is a stone-cold, killer, yo.
“Twenty-plus years ago in grad school, one of my fellow students froze us all in shocked disbelief by asking, quite seriously, whether Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar before or after he died.”
Why are you shocked? Did he win before or after he died? “I have done my duty, thank God for that.”
I’d set myself up as target just to see the guy crank out another piece. If I can’t laugh at myself, maybe others can.
Iowa SUCKS! Iowans can’t figure out if they have eyes like those of hawks, or if they’re the actual eyeballs of hawks. Confused bastards.
There. Have at me, Iowa guy.
Yes, of course. We collectively willed it out of existence. Glad to know that works. Sometimes, anyway. Meanwhile, NTodd STILL is at it with the fallacy-making. You’re next on the willed-out-of-existence list, NTodd!
Somebody’d better let these idiots know that, since we’re no longer discussing lit theory (not that “we” ever were), I’m free to start writing creatively again.
And I sense a sitcom coming on—about a community college in NY. I’m thinking about calling it “Welcome Back, Haggerty”.
Or maybe a comic strip: “Broome County.”
Or else maybe a journal, like the diaries Martha Stewart kept in prison. Then I can use “withal” and “delectation” without feeling all strange and creepy.
Slartibartfast, should NY Mary be talking about Andy like that? Doesn’t seem very loving.
Remind me to never get sideways with Ric.
That has got to hurt!
I’m not sure I understand this “intentionalism” thing completely, but if I’m correct, what Jeff’s basically saying is, meaning should be defined by the speaker, not by the listener.
Which would be a logical conclusion for him to draw, since he’s constantly battling people who he believes misunderstand him. It makes a kind of sense for him to adopt a position which boils down to, “It doesn’t matter what you think I meant – it matters what I think I meant.”
But what do you do when the speaker has foreknowledge that a particular statement or phrase has multiple meanings? Or is potentially controversial? Or triggers emotional responses that may prove distracting? Should the speaker be responsible for accomodating these alternate meanings that may be imposed on his speech?
If the speaker wants to be effective, he or she must. Because the unavoidable fact is that regardless of a speaker’s intention, interpretation happens, and a smart speaker does his or her best to understand not only his or her own intentions, but the possible interepretations the words might encounter.
I liked this response (via Romanesko) to the Tony Snow tar-baby remark:
It was “poor craft.” I like that. Right or wrong, in this world you have to look forward and think about more than what you intend to say. You have to think about how it will be recieved and interpreted.
In the Iowa case, it’s possible that the professor could have “prepared” his students better – – simply by saying, “these passages use words that we don’t normally use in this class”—and he certainly needed to be prepared to deal with any offense or confusion, and defend his choice. Because we know that the word “nigger” is a trigger.
It might be intellectually offensive that its meaning is not always determined by the intention of the user (I too get frustrated when I walk up to black people and say, “what’s up nigger,” only to find that they don’t respect my intention to use that word as a term of endearment), but the teacher’s “craft” demands caution and foresight.
So back to Jeff’s question quoted above: it’s kind of irrelevant how we want meaning to be determined. The fact is that people make up their own minds about the meaning of what they hear. It’s the speaker’s job to anticipate how they’ll interepret what they hear, and craft the speech accordingly.
They often do, if you’re also black. It’s use as a term of endearment is extremely common.
Said the politically-correct leftist, turning to protest anti-porn efforts he believes to be oppression of free speech.
Sorry beeter, the simple maturity that comes from an anti-victimhood mentality outweigh anticipating reactions to mere words. Or should, what with this being a society that values its freedom far more than its appearances. Never judge a book by its cover, right? The essential truth of tolerance, that.
I realize that’s a controversial notion in this, our growing nanny state. But to reuse my example many posts back, is it more harmful to (1) walk in perpetual fear, repressing oneself due to the likely harm the an aggressive mind may very likely do to the free speaker under the protection of “racial sensitivity”, or (2)to utter “nigger” and know it simply means nothing and makes you look like an ass. If you’re white.
You put it a different way:
(I too get frustrated when I walk up to black people and say, “what’s up nigger,†only to find that they don’t respect my intention to use that word as a term of endearment)
Frustrated? I think you mean to say something between totally ostracized for life and beat to a pulp.
beet writes:
Well, you’d hope that a speaker would be as clear as possible. And “poor craft” has nothing to do with meaning, but rather with the way meaning is signaled.
Still, I dispute Rosen’s observation about Snow’s use of a fairly conventional statement being poor craft, because no one in that room believed he was talking about racial issues.
So if everyone understood what he was saying, how is it poor craft?
Instead, what the Snow incident shows is that we can never control what people can do with our signifiers, even if we have succeeded (by everyone’s admission) in having conveyed what we intended to convey with our signs. The only way to take back language is to assert control over it. Why you wish to have it control us—well, that’s something you need to think through yourself.
Me, I don’t think we want to reach the point where we say a speaker is responsible for anticipating anything an audience can come up with, and then accepting responsibiity for it. Aside from there being no grounding for such a ploy other than the audiences’ assertion that they are in charge of determining what the utterer meant—or that, even if he didn’t mean it, his words still did (which simply doesn’t follow logically, because they are no longer “his” words we are dealing with), the fallout from such an idea of language is that you’d see a lot less people speaking. Think Late Beckett.
Which, sadly, is already what is happening in universities.
So you are correct in one way, beetroot: it IS irrelevant how we want meaning to be determined. But what is not irrelevant is how it actually IS determined.
My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel– it is, above all, to make you see. That– and no more, and it is everything.
—Joseph Conrad, preface, The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’,1897
I get frustrated when I see beetroot walk up to a black guy and say “what’s up nigger”, and the black guy doesn’t do anything. Then I get really frustrated when I go over to the black cop and say, “excuse me Holmes, but that little poindexter who’s head looks like a beet, just called that black guy a “nigger”, and then the cop shoots me for using the n-word.
I fear a sleeping giant is about to wake.
The best thing about the floor show is that it’s free.
Jeff: Let’s see if I can blow up this whole thread.
In what way is the law students’ complaint any different from the radical Islamic world’s protest reaction to the Danish Mo ‘toons, as both are based on the “right” to not be offended?
And both instances regard the interpretation (I’m offended) of the intent (alleged racial bigotry/religious blasphemy) of the sign (word read from book, artist’s cartoon image).
I may not be portraying the linguistic mumbo-jumbo accurately, but my common sense smell test tells me these two incidents cross the same speech/censorship intersection.
The spurious claim to a “right” to not be offended, so championed by the political left, runs entirely counter to the left’s multi-decade campaign to mainstream all things offensive, such as vulgarity and pornography.
That a backlash to the “if it feels good, do it” Me Generation is founded upon the idea that some “speech” offensive–and finds soulmates on the political left–well, irony unbounds.
I think you missed the whole point. This guy is just practicing for the future when he becomes head of the Congressional Black Caucus. You gots to get your practice in whenever you can and this is his shot. Give the man some room here. He needs all the help he can get.
It’s poor craft because it distracted those that Snow was communicating with — not the people in the room, but their readers and listeners—from the message and kept them focused on language and intent. A good PR craftsman avoids language that he or she can reasonably assume will prove distracting or useful to those who wish to spark a controversy. A good writer and communicator understands that he or she must accomodate his or her audience’s interpretation of words, and adjusts the language accordingly in order to be effective—especially in political speech, where it’s a given that your opponents will use whatever they can to get at you.
That is true. Put another way, you can control what goes into people’s ears, but you can’t control what happens in their minds.
You’ll never “control” language completely, because you’ll never control other people’s minds completely. That’s why I like the focus on “craft” in the Snow or Iowa cases – – the craft of communication requires the speaker/writer to anticipate what meaning will be drawn by which audiences. Put another way, you’ve got to get in their heads. Sometimes people’s reaction catches even the best-intended speaker by surprise, but then you learn and adjust or make your case for what you’re saying or whatever.
I don’t see this as language “controlling us” in some horrible way. Words are loaded with meanings and history that predate me, for which I have no responsiblity, but which I must understand and accomodate if I’m to use them effectively.
Or, one can be like 6GUN, and use language that makes no sense at all.