28 ms·

Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge

• teekert 6y ago
  It says it means "That one" in Google translate? What's up with this?
  • shadow28 6y ago
    It's pronounced "nega"
  • edmundhuber 6y ago
    It basically sounds like "n*gga" when said fast.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • chenzhekl 6y ago
    The ponounciation of "那个" in Chinese is similar to "nigger", which makes some students unhappy.
    • ipsum2 6y ago
      One note - there's no hard r in 那个 unless you're speaking a Beijing dialect. In that case there's hard r's (儿) after basically every word. Edit: TIL there's a Wikipedia article dedicated to the "r after every word" in Beijing dialect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhua
      • nmfisher 6y ago
        那个 doesn't have a hard r in the Beijing dialect either. Source: lived in Beijing for 5 years & wife is from Beijing.
        • binwang 6y ago
          can second this. I am a Chinese who lived in Beijing for 10 years. No one would pronounce a hard r after 那个
      • kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
        Black Americans don't pronounce the R either. Donald Glover has a funny bit about learning how to say it right due to his strict upbringing.
  • est 6y ago
    A while a go there was meme on reddit called "nae nae", a Chinese song repeatedly singing "that one that one" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTkNFnDcPLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTkNFnDcPLA
    • Symbiote 6y ago
      The whole song: http://baike.baidu.com/l/DQeulhMm http://baike.baidu.com/l/DQeulhMm
  • messe 6y ago
    Romanised it’s “nà ge“. According to the linked article it was deemed too similar to a racial slur.
    • ipsum2 6y ago
      There's two ways of pronouncing it, both acceptable in Mandarin. In English they would be something like: "naugh guh" and "neigh guh". The latter pronunciation is the one under discussion.
  • feanaro 6y ago
    I assume it's because the pronunciation sounds a bit like "nigga", though not really.
  • mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Yes. The lecture was on filler words, if I understand correctly, and Chinese use this word as "uhm" in English. There is of course no issue at all.
    • nullsense 6y ago
      It's especially bad that this gets pulled up on a lecture about filter words. If you listen to any native Mandarin speakers for more than 5 minutes you'll likely hear this word. If anything, being educated of it's existence allows you to recognize it as a legit word used in every Mandarin and not freak out when you hear Chinese people talking and think they're talking smack about black people. This whole thing is just silly.
  • prawn 6y ago
    I remember noticing in China that it seemed very common in Chinese casual chitchat, but to Western ears it sounded inappropriate. In the context of a lecture, I imagine it would come down to whether the delivery seemed genuinely part of the point or an excuse to push boundaries. Hard to gauge without audio/tone. I can’t think of why you’d report this unless you had a serious issue with the lecturer or they were being purposefully inappropriate.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • ipsum2 6y ago
      Someone linked a video above: https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/1301516424276578305 https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/130151642427657830...
  • robjan 6y ago
    It's just a filler word even though it can be literally translated as "that one", as you said.
  • Cro_on 6y ago
    那（nà,that）个（gè,one）。 Also 'umm, uh, like, so'. English has the same thing, for example when you can't think of a word and just start with 'that, those'. 'Eh, what's that.. that, uh, the name of that function?' It's pretty easy to mishear it, but 99% of the time you can see from the context that they're not just wildly dropping n-bombs..
  • juiyout 6y ago
    If Ne-ga is followed by other nouns, it becomes more like "that.....that...tha..." or "the...the...the"
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• VMG 6y ago
  Seize all university endowments--the crystallization of privilege--and distribute the money as reparations
  • akvadrako 6y ago
    Endowments are not the privilege – government supported loans and grants are the privilege. If private universities want to fire people for ridiculous reasons that's bad but should be legal. However it's disgusting the government supports them.
• mytailorisrich 6y ago
  > Last Thursday in your GSBA-542 classes, Professor Greg Patton repeated several times a Chinese word that sounds very similar to a vile racial slur in English. Understandably, this caused great pain and upset among students, and for that I am deeply sorry. It is simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students. We must and we will do better. This was apparently written by a university dean, in a Western country, in 2020. Not during the Dark Ages or the Inquisition, in 2020. Assuming it's true, if that does not make people pause and doubt human progress, I don't know what will.
  • colechristensen 6y ago
    I too am just embarrassed for everyone when I read these apologies, somebody go talk to the accreditation boards for that university and get it re-evaluated.
  • logicchains 6y ago
    And suddenly the president's call to defund universities for "radical left indoctrination" sounds a tiny bit less crazy.
    • jiofih 6y ago
      It was never crazy, just a wildly disproportionate knee-jerk reaction that ignores the real underlying issues, cultural and legal.
    • mindslight 6y ago
      Apart from the impact to the professor and his students who have been denied a learning opportunity, this is the larger cultural problem - validating the simplistic "other side". Both teams are rallying around straw men for each other to attack, driving polarization over essentially nonsense. Meanwhile anyone arguing for sanity gets labeled as an other for not toting the unreasonable party line. Despite claiming to be opposed to one another, Cancellers and Trumpists are just two faces of the same destructive force.
  • Symbiote 6y ago
• Symbiote 6y ago
  The usage notes on this site for with the transcript of what the professor said: its a filler word, sometimes repeated like English "um, um". https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_filler_word_%22neige%22 https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_fil...
• s3r3nity 6y ago
  Just wait until they figure out what the word for the color "black" is in Spanish...
  • glandium 6y ago
    Guess what the N word comes from...
  • salex89 6y ago
    For laughs, there is a hundred year old Hungarian/Serbian hard candy called Negro. The author's name was Pietro Negro, and the candy is charcoal black because of liquorice and doped with menthol, which gives it a distinctive medicine taste. People love it or hate it, I love it personally. In the meantime, more flavours are developed in Serbia, with eucalyptus, peppermint, lime, caramel... And all of them called Negro because it's just a strong brand name. Nevertheless, every once in a while there is some wiseguy trying to make a story out of it, just ruining the fun. If we really want to take that discussion, I would argue that it's actually an homage to people of color, being so popular yet unrelated to colonialism or slavery and treated like a folk remedy for a sore throat.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • netsharc 6y ago
    I (don't) look forward to the future where the translation for "I have a black car" in Spanish would be "tengo un auto n-asterisco-asterisco-asterisco-asterisco"...
    • kwistzhaderach 6y ago
      Poor Montenegro has to change its name to pander to the American left.
• xmprt 6y ago
  Not sure if this link will always work but here is the instance being referred to: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1
  • moab 6y ago
    If he was suspended for that, it is truly a sad day for USC. There seems to be 0 malicious intent; he's explicitly referring to "that that that" before saying it in Chinese. This is a common way of saying "um..." in fast speech. He also seems like a good professor. It's too bad some student found the need to complain when it is obvious there is no bad intent meant.
  • ordinarydev 6y ago
    He was suspended for that??? Ridiculous. Seriously, the far left has ruined educational institutions. They are so obsessed with attacking "racism" or "hate" even when neither are involved. They don't care about context, they don't care about intent, they don't care about ANYTHING. This seriously needs to stop
    • netsharc 6y ago
      As someone who is also quite a bit left, the actions of the university admins is just aggravatingly dumb. I'd ask you to have nuance and don't classify all the "left" as this idotic, hopefully you're not as reductionist as the people who got "offended"..
      • 29083011397778 6y ago
        I'd point out parent used "Far-left" in the same way I'd use Rar-right. They absolutely would not be calling everyone to the left of center crazy, in the same way I'm sure you wouldn't say everyone who is a member of the far-right represents everyone who is right-leaning. Assuming parent was lumping left-leaning and far-left together is hardly a good-faith interpretation of their comment
• andybak 6y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20200907082111/https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=48302 https://web.archive.org/web/20200907082111/https://languagel...
• ladberg 6y ago
  There have been tons of memes about this exact misunderstanding in SAT for a while... The first few times I heard it (as a native English speaker) it made my head turn but it's such a commonly used part of Chinese that after hearing it for the thousandth time you stop hearing it as English. EDIT: After watching the video I have to say that the combination of pronouncing it a bit off and surrounding it with English made it sound pretty bad on the surface, but it definitely didn't sound intentional.
  • OJFord 6y ago
    It's not like he just threw it into an English sentence the way we often do with French (when it seems the mot juste) though - he was actually talking about the word and its usage!
• Jaxkr 6y ago
  Lmao. I go to school with a lot of mandarin speakers (CU) and it’s fun to see non-Chinese-speaker’s ears perk up when they hear something so close to a racial slur. I made a joke about this exact scenario years ago.
  • nmfisher 6y ago
    > Lmao. I go to school with a lot of mandarin speakers (CU) and it’s fun to see non-Chinese-speaker’s ears perk up when they hear something so close to a racial slur. Don't tar all non-Chinese speakers with the same brush. As far as I can tell, this is a purely American phenomenon. No other country is so addicted to taking offense that foreign languages are now danger zones.
    • Jaxkr 6y ago
      That’s fair. I should mention I’m in America.
    • mindslight 6y ago
      The (feigned or insular) offense seems to be an American phenomenon, but ears perking up doesn't imply offense. Rather it implies attention, attention which should be followed by learning.
• latch 6y ago
  This word means "uhmm" and you can hear it dozens of times in a single conversation. It sounds like an English-language racial slur, but you stop being surprised to hear it pretty quickly when living in China. The story isn't loading for me, so I don't know the context, if this was a native Mandarin speaker speaking in Mandarin... Reminds me of the time someone pointed out that "salut" the french for "hi" sounds like "stupid donkey" in Mandarin (or maybe Shanghainese, I forget).
  • nicolas_t 6y ago
    More in Shanghainese than Mandarin, a lot of my French friends were teased by their Shanghainese partners because of that. This is really an example of a university administration that rejects culture and critical thinking in favor of quick snap judgement and celebrating ignorance. I'd expect better of universities, they should be a bastion of culture and critical thinking standing against idiocy. And instead of punishing that teacher, they should explain and make sure students understand that there are other cultures and that context matters.
  • mytailorisrich 6y ago
    Chinese sometimes joke that "bonjour" sounds like 胖猪 (pangzhu, which means 'fat pig').
  • ev1 6y ago
    The entire lead up to the professor saying it is the professor also explaining how certain cultures like in Chinese have pause words. There is absolutely all the correct context. The entire suspension is absurd.
    • clairity 6y ago
      yes, you hear it in chinese dramas all the time (which i watch subtitled), usually as a phrase trailing off ambiguously/uncertainly. the incident seems much ado about nothing.
• blanders 6y ago
  Geoff Garrett would have done well in East Germany. The unproductive nomenklatura is oppressing the productive part of the population. Why do humans always allow this to happen? The easiest way to shut down those bureaucrats is to ask publicly what their actual intellectual output is. They often tend to get very silent. Also works for whip crackers in the software industry.
  • anthk 6y ago
    Funny enough, "nomenclatura" in Spanish means the act/state/art of naming things. Such as Biology on new species. or Chemistry rules on new compounds.
• Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  We live in clown world.
  • dang 6y ago
    Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
• gatvol 6y ago
  Again, context is everything. What an utterly spineless, pathetic response from a risk averse management type - to throw their colleague under the bus.
  • thinkloop 6y ago
    The only way to solve that problem is to create risk for the spineless behavior.
  • rvz 6y ago
    > Again, context is everything. Exactly. Otherwise it is nothing more than a politically correct reaction to everything that moves in the direction of what they think is 'offensive'. Even if it unintentionally "sounds" like it. For the professor there is no 'Please, I can explain...' and there is no redemption. Instantly found guilty. This is the clownworld order folks.
  • mkwx 6y ago
    It is not necessarily spineless. These types thrive on "divide et impera" and occasionally ruining other people's lives. It is all they can do.
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    Cancel culture is just getting started. What began on Twitter has been moving into HR departments and school administrations around the country.
  • clairity 6y ago
    > "...utterly spineless, pathetic response from a risk averse management type..." the same thing happens with the corona responses of universities. colleges could open with distancing rules, sensible mask usage (inside, not outside), testing, and swift quarantine. that would basically eliminate spread in the learning environment. the problem, of course, is outside the learning environment, where students will inevitably let their guards down and mix unsafely, but that's not the purview of the university. these are (young) adults, and the university's responsibilities end at the campus edge. what the university can do is refuse access to the infected on campus (in conjunction with plentiful testing), and provide swift and compassionate support for students who do get infected (and can't come on campus), without overstepping into paternalism. then the responsible students will have access to the education they desire (and paid for), while the irresponsible will be denied (temporarily, likely having to repeat a semester or even a year). this will incentivize good behavior without resorting to autocratic mismanagement like this.
• seodisparate 6y ago
  So in Korean, the word for "you" is 니가 (pronounced "nee-gah"). Example usage: 니가 언제 먹었어요? (When did you eat? "Nee-gah un-jeh mug-uss-uh-yo") I can't help but wonder if the use of this word would also elicit a similar reaction... EDIT: I briefly forgot this, but there is a similar Korean word "내가" which is "me" or "I", and pronounced "ne-gah". Example usage: 내가 이 밥을 먹었어요. (I ate this food. "Ne-ga ee bap-uhl mug-uss-uh-yo") EDIT2: Korean is not my native language so forgive me for this, but "you" is usually just 니 ("nee"), and "me" or "I" is just 내 ("ne"), but the 가 ("gah") part is used like a conjunction to connect to the rest of the phrase. EDIT3: Ok, so I talked with a better Korean speaker about this and 니가 "nee-ga" is sort of a regional dialect (kind of like a slang term) for 너가 "nuh-ga". 니가 "nee-ga" is more commonly used in southern parts of South Korea, as the proper way of saying/spelling "you" is 너가 "nuh-ga". My Korean is influenced with the southern regional dialect as my parents were from that region. Sorry for the possible confusion. (So just "you" is 너 "nuh".) EDIT4: PSY (of Gangnam Style fame) has a song titled "Champion" that uses 니가 "nee-ga" a lot:https://youtu.be/uA4fV7Y14eg?t=49 https://youtu.be/uA4fV7Y14eg?t=49
  • nullsense 6y ago
    Probably not. The difference in vowel sounds, timing and intonation don't give it the same feel. It's pretty noticable when you hear Mandarin spoken because the word is usually spoken pretty quickly then the speaker trails off because they're thinking of what to say... Sometimes they say it two or three times on a row. So it really stands out.
  • logicchains 6y ago
    "You" and "me" are pronunced "nee-gah" and "ne-gah"? Those sound very similar, does that ever lead to misunderstandings?
    • seodisparate 6y ago
      In Korean, the vowels ㅣ (ee sound) and ㅐ (eh sound) are different in the written language. There are actually more difficult things such as ㅐ and ㅔ (both "eh" sound) which can get confusing when trying to spell Korean words. In practice, I personally don't get confused differentiating between "nee-gah" and "ne-gah", but that may have been due to me having Korean parents and being used to that terminology since birth.
• himinlomax 6y ago
  I've always found the US obsession with taboo words quite baffling. I used to tease Americans of my acquaintance by pretending to be offended when they said "oh my god" (dildo in French) or nick (fuck.) Context matters a lot in linguistic, and the Sapir-Worff hypothesis is not just unproven, it's almost certainly completely wrong.
  • dgellow 6y ago
    Without trying to be alarmist, I have a feeling that's slowly spreading to Europe too, at least France and Germany.
    • wazoox 6y ago
      Yes in universities around the world this victimhood culture spreads like fire.
    • kebman 6y ago
      The Norwegian word for blacks used to be something that isn't allowed to be uttered anymore. It started becoming a problem only after we got a few black American migrants, and other migrants influenced by American culture to Norway. These people didn't understand the context of the word, and so they became violently offended when anyone used the word, even if the the word has always been a completely harmless description and not a slur within Norwegian culture. (Trust me, you'd know if a slur was used!) But because it offended so many newcommers, and since a synonym was readily available, Norwegians didn't think it was a hill worth dying on, and so they just cut it out of everday use. Today it is regarded as a big faux pas to use the word. Meanwhile some Norwegians still feel offended that foreigners who do not understand their culture, take to dictating how Norwegians should or should not speak. Personally I honestly don't know which is worse; offending someone because you said something with the best of intentions, or forcing someone to submit to arbitrary rules to avoid that they get offended, even if you utter such words with the best of intentions.
      • __blockcipher__ 6y ago
        > ... or forcing someone to submit to arbitrary rules to avoid that they get offended, even if you utter such words with the best of intentions. Spoiler alert: this one is worse.
• vmception 6y ago
  That's ridiculous. If anyone here vicariously forms opinions from black people telling you what to believe, you now have my opinion.
• jimhi 6y ago
  那个 is the chinese equivalent to "uh/um". Just imagine how many times a probably nervous professor would say "uh/um" during a lecture. The professor also is likely not great at english or has a strong accent. Not sure how anyone could mistake this for a racial slur with hateful intent.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • jrh206 6y ago
    The professor isn’t nervous or Chinese - he’s explaining the same thing that you explain
• bezmenov 6y ago
  The video: https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/1301516424276578305 https://twitter.com/cabot_phillips/status/130151642427657830...
  • lordgrenville 6y ago
    it's also embedded in TFA
  • quickthrower2 6y ago
    Warning: strong opinions from all sides but very little of what is said in that thread makes sense!
• Insanity 6y ago
  This doesn't make sense to me at all. Like.. in Spanish the word "negro" is "black". Can Spanish teachers now no longer use that word? Crazy. It's like when chat filters (e.g in games) censor words based on the 'English' language. When I chat in dutch / flemish, my friends just see me censored for quite common words in our language. And they're often not even spelled the same as the English word that is bad.
  • csunbird 6y ago
    Two countries in the world are called Niger and Nigeria. Shall we stop talking about those countries too?
    • coredog64 6y ago
      25 years ago (give or take), a man filed a lawsuit against Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia. He was helping his son write a report on Niger but accidentally added a letter. The emotional distress it caused to him and his son led to the lawsuit. TL;DR: There is nothing new under the sun.
    • originalbryan2 6y ago
      From what I can tell, those countries are now racist based on their names and should be fired. History books should be burned. No human should ever speak to another human again. But we all need to be in offices in close quarters once the pandemic ends, so that we can fire each other for accidental using the word "she" in a conversation.
  • LeonM 6y ago
    > It's like when chat filters (e.g in games) censor words based on the 'English' language. When I chat in dutch / flemish, my friends just see me censored for quite common words in our language. I'm Dutch and play AoE2 with some friends. The in game chat is basically useless for us. Just about every Dutch sentence will be blocked. We tried switching to English, but every color (!) is now also banned. Asking "who is joining the blue team?" will become censored... Good job Microsoft.
• ascar 6y ago
  > "Professor Greg Patton repeated several times a Chinese word that sounds very similar to a vile racial slur in English. Understandably, this caused great pain and upset among students, and for that I am deeply sorry. It is simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students. We must and we will do better." It's unbelievable that this "understandably" caused pain to anyone. There is a linked recording of him using the term. Not only does this barely resemble the racial slur, it is indistinguishably used in a context where it's implicitly clear and even explicitly stated that it's a term from another language. The dean and faculty should stand behind the professor and educate whoever got upset about this that you can not expect punishment for obvious misunderstandings. Also, it might be really helpful to add (nà ge) to the title as it's impossible to make out the essence of the article for anyone who doesn't know the logographics.
  • newyorker2 6y ago
    Acts like these set precedent for future actions by colleges across the spectrum.
  • wazoox 6y ago
    Yup, this "excuse letter" looks exactly like what a victim of a sham trial would write under Stalin or Mao. This is frightening.
    • acqq 6y ago
      > this "excuse letter" looks exactly like what a victim of a sham trial would write As far as I see the letter behind the link was written by the "judge" in this "trial": "Geoff Garrett, Dean" -- it's he who wrote: "Professor Greg Patton repeated several times a Chinese word that sounds very similar to a vile racial slur in English. Understandably, this caused great pain and upset among students." Sounds very similar! Say no more!
      • atemerev 6y ago
        Depending on the Mandarin dialect, it can sound almost exactly the same (as many Chinese people had discovered in English-speaking countries). I guess that what’s happened. We Russians are usually told to never say the Russian word for “book” while in the US, or there will be consequences :)
• ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Two possible futures for ill-informed over-political correctness: 1. It continues to be pushed by those at the tops of organizations, which leads to a new pseudo-language of baby-talk that is constructed to be as inoffensive as possible. Simultaneously a ‘black market’ counter-culture emerges of those who don’t comply. 2. The entire enterprise collapses under its own weight and exhaustion. People get tired of being offended and move on.
  • eru 6y ago
    > The entire enterprise collapses under its own weight and exhaustion. People get tired of being offended and move on. You'd hope so. But that complaint in the article might have happened regardless: it only takes a few indefatigable die-hards to keep that machine going.
    • pas 6y ago
      No, it takes the majority to constantly validate these intentional or maybe ignorant dickheads. A few complaints should not be able to make a university give in/up. They do so because there is a big group amplifying the outrage.
      • eru 6y ago
        I agree with 'there is a big group amplifying the outrage', actually. I am not sure a majority is necessary. There's no magic happening at 50%.
        • pas 6y ago
          You're right, just a vocal minority, let's say a plurality is enough.
          • darkerside 6y ago
            With Twitter, now all it takes is one person and maybe 100 stars (none of which may actually be real). The "mouthpiece of democracy" is completely broken.
• prerok 6y ago
  Some time ago a fellow countryman, a basketball player, made it into NBA. After a controversial ruling by a judge that one of his teammates performed a foul, he kept yelling "ni ga, ni ga, ni ga". Contextually translated, he meant "he hadn't touched him". He had to apologize profusely and explain to no end what he meant. Regardless, his career was soon over after that. We, non-native speakers, must be really careful about using words in our own language that may sound offensive in the other language. What a world we created :(
  • andybak 6y ago
    I'd like to read more about this incident. Which country? Do you have a link to any article on this? Or a name I can search for?
    • prerok 6y ago
      Sorry, cannot find any news remaining on the web regarding the incident. I suppose the reason is that it was some time ago. The basketball player in question was Marko Milič: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Milič https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Milič
  • apexalpha 6y ago
    >We, non-native speakers, must be really careful about using words in our own language that may sound offensive in the other language. What a world we created :( And it's in English as well. Growing up in Europe but heavily influenced by American Music, Movies, TV and Internet one grows up thinking that N----- or Nigga is fine to use. You hear it all the time, especially in music. Couple that with the fact that we don't really have "career-ending words" in Europe and it leads to a lot of awkward moments. You can't even say the word, and Americans tend to censor the word even when anonymously typing it online. I did because this is an American forum, but it's really weird to see to be honest. You can't even say the word as part of a debate over the word. A while back a Dutch coach was forced to resign after using the word because it was in a song: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/18/fc-cincinnati-coach-ron-jans-quits-over-n-word-allegations https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/18/fc-cincinna... The fact that you aren't even allowed to sing along with a song without muting yourself on certain words that the singer sings anyway... it's just mind boggling to me...
• ghoshbishakh 6y ago
  Shocking response from the management. I thought people in universities are supposed to be educated.
• worstenbrood 6y ago
  So much problems to solve and they choose this one?
• hliyan 6y ago
  "When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label." -- From Dawn to Decadence (2000), Jacques Barzun. Clarification: here the slur is "decadent", not the one mentioned in the article.
• teekert 6y ago
  From a movie I watched about 50 times as a youngster: [0] I wonder if such humor will ever be made again. (fyi, me and my friends were all white but big fans of Tupac and Snoop and followed the whole Deathrow related dramas closely! Tupac is an absolute legend to me still, what an artist, pure poetry, It's very nice to listen to his music and get an idea about his life.) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIk0abbYgXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIk0abbYgXQ
• zozbot234 6y ago
  The funny thing here is that the professor is speaking English throughout, so when he says 那个, 那个, 那个 … (as the translation for "that, that, that …") it really sounds like the English derogatory word. That explains a lot of the reaction, I think.
  • juiyout 6y ago
    context is being purposefully ignored here though.
• trashcan_ 6y ago
  I guess the ship has sailed on academia resisting this nonsense
  • tasogare 6y ago
    It’s time for academics to fight for the right of « scholastic sanctuary » as featured in His Dark Materials.
• neilv 6y ago
  I just watched the video after reading the article, and the video -- if it's of the incident to which people were objecting -- wasn't as cringey as I expected it to be; however, I would've hoped that an expert who was lecturing about language and culture would've anticipated the problem, and been more sensitive to it. Maybe, if he saw the problem, he could've prefaced the example with warning, or otherwise acknowledged the sensitivity. I didn't get a sense that the offense was intentional. The article had a comment that suggested someone didn't see how the similar sounds were a problem. One reason I would suspect it's a problem (which I heard in a TV show, in which a character explains how an anti-gay slur is hurtful to them), is that they grew up hearing that slur hurled in the context of other injustices, from childhood. I can also imagine that insensitivity to how hurtful a slur is could feel like a signal that someone doesn't understand or care about the associated injustices. This hurtful mistake could be a learning moment for the professor, and maybe he could then help a lot of other people to also learn something constructive from it, and help everyone move forward in understanding and helping each other.
  • bananaface 6y ago
    I think you need to be developmentally disabled to genuinely think that foreign language words that resemble curses in your language are offensive. It's not on the professor to do backflips to protect against people looking for excuses to get offended.
    • neilv 6y ago
      I'd say it's not merely a curse word, for reasons I already suggested in the comment to which you're replying: I argue that it's understandably hurtful to some, and is associated with immense, tragic, shameful wrongs towards groups of people. Separately, could you have made your point without saying that anyone who thinks differently than you must be developmentally disabled? Would it have been sufficient to say you don't understand why someone would think differently? Or, if you were very confident, and felt some emphasis were needed, could you have emphasized with more detail in a logical argument?
      • 6y ago
• Renaud 6y ago
  Watching the video, I cannot fathom how anyone can interpret this as being a racial slur? This is a common idiom in Chinese, people say it all the time. This is baffling and truly terrifying. Are we really there? This sort of overreaching witch hunting is belittling the fight against racism. Am I missing something?
  • orangecat 6y ago
    I cannot fathom how anyone can interpret this as being a racial slur? Nobody believed it was. This was a a demonstration of power by the extreme "progressives", reminding the faculty that they will do exactly as told or be smeared as bigots.
• dudeinjapan 6y ago
  那个请 (na-ge please)
• newyorker2 6y ago
  I've gotten heat for saying this in the past, but the "student" community of certain academic departments are almost looking to be offended at anything these days. The perils of social media and cancel culture...
  • tomcam 6y ago
    > I've gotten heat for saying this in the past What? Here on tolerant HN? Blow me down with a feather. I’m shocked!
  • globular-toast 6y ago
    Those who can't create destroy. It's their way of making a difference.
• compsciphd 6y ago
  I heard nega (as in negative), not niga (as in shenanigan), are my ears off?
  • eru 6y ago
    If you grew up speaking mandarin, you would likely hear it yet a different way.
    • compsciphd 6y ago
      right, but I'm just approaching it as a native english speaker born and raised in the US would hear the word. I wouldn't think it has anything to do with the N word. As opposed to the those who think a synonym for miserly has something to do with it (they are wrong of course, but at least that sounds very similiar to the american english turned ear)
• rasz 6y ago
  Everyone knows you cant say shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, and 那个.
• alex-lx 6y ago
  The first time I knew the two words (那个 and n*gger) was from a report about Yao Ming who was a basketball play in NBA. I just thought it'e more like a joke...but, it become real and unreal today
• ipsum2 6y ago
  For people who are confused, here's an informative video on the phrase and misconceptions: https://youtu.be/bqmO4yvoXwQ?t=46 https://youtu.be/bqmO4yvoXwQ?t=46. He does a great job with the correct pronunciation too.
• nix23 6y ago
  >psychological safety of our students Are those student's even allowed to watch the news or is "Detective Barbie" the only watchable thing?
  • ppf 6y ago
    Detective Barbie is very problematic due to extensive transphobic and gender-normative storytelling. Here at the UCC (University of Corrected Culture), we only allow our students to watch videos of kittens.
    • undecisive 6y ago
      I'm writing to tell you how deeply offended we are by your flagrant use of s_xualized language in a technology-based forum. It's utterly reprehensible to use a word so closely related to the P-word in a context where people might not reasonably expect to encounter it, and you appear to have no remorse for doing so. Please remove this horrible word (ki____ns) immediately or we'll have no choice but to report you to the moderators. (Just a joke... for now...)
    • nix23 6y ago
      Damn you right! Thanks for the big laugh :) Are you watching the Kittens in B/W or are colors allowed?
      • ppf 6y ago
        There are only colours, comrade. Whiteness is not acceptable. Sounds like you need further education.
        • nix23 6y ago
          That thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2AitTPI5U0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2AitTPI5U0 Would be sooo illegal then, see i learn fast :)
• iagovar 6y ago
  Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities. Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read about events similar to this one.
  • nix23 6y ago
    Probably because the Students are the paying Customers and not Students in a Government sponsored Institution, you don't want to loose customers so you fire the employee (just a theory)
  • gadders 6y ago
    >>Why is this happening? Cancel Culture.
    • undecisive 6y ago
      As much as I totally understand the downvoting of this comment, it unfortunately isn't entirely wrong. I desperately want to be an all-in liberal person, and I would rather not have stock phrases in existence that can be misappropriated by the Donald Trump / Katie Hopkins' of the world, but with any knee-jerk reaction from humans there are people who take them to extremes, and this story is one of an increasing number of examples. Thankfully, we have a media source that is willing to call out stupid examples of suffocating over-liberalism. Most other people don't, all their news is being filtered by traditional (and clickbait) media, and fewer and fewer people are actually looking to get the real story from the primary sources. That said, I don't think this particular moniker is going to help much. It's already been polluted.
      • gadders 6y ago
        Well I think the phrase has been used by people whose views you may or may not agree with, the phenomenon itself has conditioned companies/organisations to immediately roll over at any whiff of a controversy or face a twitter/social media hate mob.
        • 6y ago
• RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u 6y ago
  WTF. There's is literally a stand-up skit[0] on this. Moreover, any quick research would show it's the Mandarin filler word. Plus, I dunno, just ask the other Mandarin-speaking faculties and students? Do you know the number 99 (nine-nine) sounds like the derogatory term for mammary glands in Mandarin? Are they going to redact every instance of the number on campus, on grounds of potential sexual harassment? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk
  • andi999 6y ago
    They didnt have to ask mandarin speakers. The admin agree that it is a mandarin word, but that understandably people got upset because it sounds like an US slur.
    • himinlomax 6y ago
      > understandably That's far from understandable for the majority of commenters in this thread, myself included.
      • andi999 6y ago
        Exactly. I shd have put it in quotation marks
• KaiserPro 6y ago
  For fucks sake. This sort dumbarse action sets back the cause of equality by a country fucking mile. This stuff happens when you take Dr DiAngelo too seriously and ignore what minorities are saying and just go with your ill informed guilt ridden heart. Clearly he wasn't saying what is implied. I had assumed that "nà ge" was a slur in mandarin(when I saw the original news report). Its 100% clear from context that its nothing to do with race. Whats more the context is directly linked to the three words he says. We must strive for equality, We _must_ help wider society by lifting up minorities. This does not achieve this, in fact it will embolden the dickheads who want to make this a "thing" (SEE! "they" want to undermine us etc etc etc)
  • high_derivative 6y ago
    ' who want to make this a "thing" ' Clearly it is a thing, why pretend otherwise? If this were some extremely small minority, it would not have such widespread cultural influence now. It is a thing.
    • KaiserPro 6y ago
      I should clarify: by "thing" I mean "see this is why the [minority] are anti american. lets punish them for not being grateful" I strongly suspect that this decision was not made by someone from the affected minority, so it seems unfair for them to shoulder the blame.
  • jjeaff 6y ago
    I'd bet big money that even DiAngelo would not find that lecture offensive in any way. Nor does she advocate for retribution when unintentional slights happen. In her online lectures, she tells a story of how she offended some Black colleagues by making a silly joke. She apologized and they came to an understanding that the colleague would help keep her in-check when it happens again and they carried on.
• _peeley 6y ago
  Incredibly tonedeaf on part of the University - they claim to fight for those that are marginalized, but how will the Chinese international students on campus feel, now that a precedent has been set that they'll have to think twice before speaking in their native tongue?
• nindalf 6y ago
  I heard my niece recite a poem in Spanish about a penguin - it's white in the front, black in the back. I wonder how long before the woke kids decide to ban Spanish or demand a change in the word for "black".
• hansjorg 6y ago
  This is so far out there that there must be something else going on. From his profile, the dean (Geoff Garrett) does not seem like someone who would be overly concerned with something like this. Could it be a play for Trump? If not, is there something special with the power relationship between the MBA students and the University? Could it be a large company paying for their employees degrees threatening to withdraw?
• ilammy 6y ago
  There is a old joke that Americans are probably better off not knowing how a Russian word for "a book" is pronounced.
• peignoir 6y ago
  Good summary : “Please know that there are many people that support you and are sick of this hyper-sensitive, McCarthyism-like environment that is being fostered across the country."
• maaaaattttt 6y ago
  When I read stories like this I can't help but think of Newspeak[0] from 1984. From afar (not a native English speaker nor a US resident here) it feels like a form of control over people through control of their language. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
  • stallmanite 6y ago
    As a native English speaker and US citizen / resident I think you are 100% correct in your observation.
• mola 6y ago
  People like to blame progressive ideology for these sort of crazy stuff. But actually, the real culprit is consumerism and customer mentality of students. The professor was suspended because the faculty is terrified from upset customers. Same goes for all cancel culture incidents. The hyper producticised media , is using the upset sentiment to get attention (racial clickbait triggers) But it's riding the tiger, so it needs to keep pace with its own click bait to not get the customers to hate them and boycott them. This dynamics spills onto the academic realm. Students at US colleges consider themselves customers. So they must never be made upset. They have silly optic based notions of justice. And the faculty have to comply. This is what contemporary information capitalism does. Consumes and kill off any sort of idea turning it to plastic product and optics.
  • pnw_hazor 6y ago
    Can't let post-modernism and critical race theory off the hook. Objectively, the statement was not racist and it should not be offensive to anyone. However, objective thought is not in favor anymore as it is associated with whiteness. We must accept the subjective view of the victims as paramount.
    • mola 6y ago
      If you think that is the reason the dean suspended him, you are being naive. He suspended him because he's afraid of financial repracussions. The post modernism went off the rails because of the reasons I mentioned. Otherwise it could have been a fertile ground for empathy and a way to reconcile our differences. instead it ended up a culture war. Because our culture is war. We are taught to fight and compete from day 1.
• andi999 6y ago
  This is obviously a prank/joke trying to fool you.... right? ... i mean right?... it has to... omg .. On a more cynical note, i am surprised they sacked him on a misunderstanding and not on cultural appropiation charges for using a foreign language.
• drevil-v2 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance I am really afraid this is another sign of the death throes of Liberal values and institutions. They need to realise that pragmatism and nuance are acceptable and desirable attributes of a sustainable and long lasting civilisation.
  • robotron 6y ago
    "they"? This place has gone downhill fast.
• __blockcipher__ 6y ago
  But why are the students like that in the first place? It sounded outlandish to me at first, but over time it seems more and more likely that it could be the result of decades-long subversion campaigns that sought to supplant western/enlightenment ideals with authoritarian-marxist ideals which view speech as inherently dangerous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion Maybe I’m disregarding Hanlon’s razor
  • ceilingcorner 6y ago
    https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI
  • skrebbel 6y ago
    > decades-long subversion campaigns I get where you're coming from, but by phrasing it this way you draw up the image of a secret cabal of influential marxists waging a "campaign" via gullible students. That's not really doing the rest of your argument justice. As always, the much more likely story is that these students are gullible and silly totally by their own means.
    • mayniac 6y ago
      >I get where you're coming from, but by phrasing it this way you draw up the image of a secret cabal of influential marxists waging a "campaign" via gullible students. Probably because the "cultural marxism" conspiracy theory originated from the Nazi conspiracy theory of "cultural bolshevism". The idea that Marxists are subverting Western society is a delusional theory pushed by far-right lunatics.
  • encom 6y ago
    Look up "Yuri Bezmenov", and be enlightened. His insight on subversion is eye opening. I'd link some stuff, but I'd probably be banned.
    • ceilingcorner 6y ago
      I just linked to it. It was in Call of Duty, hardly a lunatic fringe source.
• OJFord 6y ago
  The craziest thing about this is that it wasn't - as I initially assumed - a misunderstanding. The Dean's email says the professor used 'a Chinese word that sounds very similar to a vile racial slur in English'.. 'Chinese'.. 'similar'... ok, yes, and? Edit: No - wait, it gets weirder - http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/~bgzimmer/zoom_0.mp4?_=1 - he even introduces it! He doesn't just use it himself, he's actually talking about it! > in China the common word [for pauses in speech] is 'that', so you might say 'that-that-that': 'nage-nage-nage'
• jhanschoo 6y ago
  In combating against bigotry, it is important that we do not become bigots ourselves. Regarding painful words, it is my position that policies against uttering them (for people without any intent to hurt) must essentially be no more a courtesy to those sensitized against them, because of words with multiple meanings and foreign languages with different meanings, and also because what is taboo on one society may not be taboo in another. Punishing the reasonably ignorant seems to be immoral to me. Being sensitized to painful words spoken by people who don't mean them seems to me that it needs to be counted not on the person who says them and does not mean them, but on the people who said them and meant them and made people sensitized to them in the first place. It is the continued damage created by bigots, making words that in some situations are necessary to speak (or far too inconvenient to not use) painful to some because of their bigoted use. The rest of us can try to avoid them, but morality-wise, it looks to me more supererogatory for those in a position to do so rather than a moral obligation.
  • thinkingemote 6y ago
    Could you rephrase this? I'm not sure what the main points were.
    • jhanschoo 6y ago
      * In combating against bigotry (racism, xenophobia, etc.), we must be wary that our anti-bigotry policies aren't themselves bigoted. * On slurs and other words that hurt: we cannot punish people who say them if we do not have proof that they intend to hurt. Some people think that even saying them unintentionally ought to be punished, because someone gets hurt even though none was intended. But because words like these so frequently get said - out of necessity - out of ignorance - because it is tremendously inconvenient (considering foreign language meanings, multiple meanings, etc.) it's unrealistic to put this onus on everyone to avoid these words, especially when bigots can so easily make another word a taboo word. My position is that it is a courtesy (and not moral obligation) to actively try to avoid using taboo words and think of synonyms and circumlocutions to avoid hurting someone when none is intended. When analyzing the cause of the hurt, I think we should analyze the pain that happens when hearing someone says a hurtful word unintentionally as not primarily caused by the person saying the hurtful word, but by the person or people that sensitized the hearer into feeling hurt upon hearing the painful words, but having a delayed effect.
• koonsolo 6y ago
  Am I the only one who finds it very ironic that you can't use the "n-word" because it offends the African American community. Yet when you listen to rap music, it's all nigga this and nigga that. Makes me wonder if these offended students first complain, and then drive home singing along with Snoop Dogg.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Am I the only one who finds it very ironic that you can't use the "n-word" because it offends the African American community. Yet when you listen to rap music, it's all nigga this and nigga that. No, racists that are upset that it's not socially acceptable to demonstrate their racism this way conplain about this a lot, you aren't the only one. Also, within the African American community there has very long been a very large group that has attacked this trend in that particular form of popular entertainment. And, finally, beyond that, context matters.
    • username90 6y ago
      > context matters. Yet people get fired even when context is as benign as possible.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • koonsolo 6y ago
      > No, racists that are upset that it's not socially acceptable to demonstrate their racism this way conplain about this a lot, you aren't the only one. Just because racists use certain rights, doesn't mean that the rest needs to give up on those rights. The laws of free speech, incitement etc. are pretty clear. Offending people is not against the law, discrimination is. And using certain words is definitely not against the law. But now there seems to be a new law, where you get punished by using something that sounds like "a vile racial slur". It is just very stupid. Which word did they actually use? Sorry, nobody is allowed to answer that, except for "a vile racial slur". There is definitely racism in US, maybe even more so than in EU. But these kind of actions bring zero to the cause of getting rid of it. Maybe something needs to be done about discrimination and racism, and not so much about offending people.
• ppf 6y ago
  It's been obvious for a while that the US is primed for its own Cultural Revolution. It's why I ironically support the various West-Coast separatist movements, because the inevitable communist hell hole created would remind folks how bad life can be. Also ironically, Trump be the US' saving grace from all of this, at least for now.
• profthrow 6y ago
  why is this post not on front-page with 175 points in 1 hour whereas tons of post with barely any traction from 20 hours ago are still there?
  • LandR 6y ago
    It was. I think it got removed. Too inflamatory?
  • dang 6y ago
    This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. See "Why is A ranked below B even though A has more points and is newer?" In this case, users flagged it and it set off the flamewar detector.
• arkadiytehgraet 6y ago
  You can see the same happening here, on HN: this post has been literally hidden from the main page - you won't find it among first 150 entries, despite having relatively high score and number of comments. I guess moderators hope that if they pretend something does not exist, maybe it will go away.
  • edanm 6y ago
    Please don't make speculations like that about HN. I'm pretty sure it's against the rules, and even if it isn't, it doesn't foster good discussions. You can't always know what is the reason a story is or isn't on the front page. For the record, at the moment, this story is the top story on https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active, which is the main way I personally view HN. So I doubt it's being actively hidden.
    • arkadiytehgraet 6y ago
      Please do not be that condescending towards me or towards anyone else on HN. I am glad that using obscure viewing option, literally absent from anywhere in the interface, works for you. However, majority of people are using HN via default https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/, and this story is missing from there completely.
      • fingerlocks 6y ago
        It’s not absent or obscure, it’s at the bottom under “lists”. Also the front page rank is the determined by the number of upvotes divided by time to a low power, times a flagging factor. It’s open sourced.
        • dang 6y ago
          That's the basic algorithm, but there are quite a few additional factors- see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
• ashildr 6y ago
  This happens if people in power only speak a single language.
• skrebbel 6y ago
  I wonder whether this would've had the same effect if he had said it in a classroom instead of an online video lecture.
• thinkingemote 6y ago
  For those thinking it's crazy, consider how we assume seeing trigger warnings for rape etc before certain content are normal and approved in our societies. It could be simply a cry for a trigger warning: this lecture may contain words which sound similar to words which cause trauma. Sounds okay to me. I predict that you will see these trigger warnings before Chinese subtitled films, lectures which talks about the Chinese language at the very least within a year. The university is ahead of the curve, this is progress and a natural extension of current protections against reliving past trauma. If trigger warnings in general are also considered crazy, to say so would get you instantly fired in every YC startup and silicon valley corporation.
  • baby 6y ago
    if you're that sensitive you shouldn't try to learn about another culture
• apexalpha 6y ago
  Ah yes, when I was in China I constantly heard people say it... niggeh... nigge... nig uh.. depends a bit on where and who in China but it sounds eerily similar to the untrained ear.
• 4ct1ve 6y ago
  lol remember 100 years ago when whistles got blown and men this age went over the trenches to face their certain death so we'd have the freedom to cry over being offended literally by sound waves
• rv-de 6y ago
  There you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j556MWGVVqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j556MWGVVqI Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Talks to [Students from a PC University Club]
• bjowen 6y ago
  Putting this here because it quotes the statement of complaint for context, which has got a bit buried - and it may address some of the more superficial commentary: http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2020/09/04/usc-marshall-professor-placed-on-leave-after-using-chinese-phrase-that-resembles-racial-slur/ http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2020/09/04/usc-marshall-pro...
• crc32 6y ago
  I can’t believe the reactionary comments to this. Of course, we have no idea of the context. But if it was anything like the linked video - and it could have been worse - it’s perfectly understandable why students would be surprised and perhaps upset. If you disagree, its worth asking yourself, what reaction would you expect if you were a chinese professor enunciating the word “cunt” during a lecture, with no prior warning?
  • sudosteph 6y ago
    That video IS the context. It's Covid era - everything is streamed. We are all watching the same thing the students saw. And if a Chinese professor prefaced the use of that word with an explanation about that word's usage in another language, I would find that a very memorable educational experience. That's it. I don't need to be warned about a sound because a similar sound with a different meaning is used in negative ways.
    • crc32 6y ago
      > I don't need to be warned about a sound because a similar sound with a different meaning is used in negative ways. Perhaps you don’t - that’s fine. But can you see why other people might need such a warning? If you were teaching a foreign language word with a similar sound to “motherfucker” what reaction would you expect from your class of 18-21 year olds?
      • sudosteph 6y ago
        No, I really can't see why. And like many other women in this world, I've actually experienced being called that word in a threatening way. Sound alone does not make a word scary. Context and intent matter. As far as saying "motherfucker" - I'd expect chuckles from any students paying attention. Then class would continue. It's not like students haven't heard all of these words before.
      • cik2e 6y ago
        I would expect them to use their brains and understand that this is a word in a foreign language that has a completely different meaning than the offensive word in their own. Is that too much to ask for?
• techolic 6y ago
  那个can be pronounced either (nà ge) or (nèi ge). When it's used in a pause, it's most typically (nèi ge) not (nà ge), the title should be updated.
  • juiyout 6y ago
    depends on the locale, in my area almost no one says nei ge.
• ghgdynb1 6y ago
  Yeah USC never belonged in the top 25 US Colleges, but their current leadership seems hell-bent on correcting any misconceptions.
• guardiangod 6y ago
  Obviously, Chinese the language is racist. - An American, probably.
• stjohnswarts 6y ago
  It sounds like he can sue for lost and potential lost salary for sure. This is not a legitimate reason to fire him if he was doing it innocently. Students could have said something and he could have avoided it I suppose. However whenever I hear the term "microaggressions" I know I'm talking with an idiot who values being emotional over being logical and just stop the conversation.
  • tgv 6y ago
    It's apparently a common word, a demonstrative pronoun, similar to "that". Pretty hard to avoid without language acrobatics.
    • Nbox9 6y ago
      Did you watch the video of him using it? While it’s a very common phrase while speaking Mandarin, and while I do not think this is a fireable offense, the professor could have chosen one of dozens of other examples in his lecture very easily.
      • jasonjei 6y ago
        Are you an expert in Chinese? What, in your opinion, is a suitable alternative example in Mandarin Chinese, then, that is commonly used by speakers of Mandarin Chinese?
      • TechBro8615 6y ago
        I think this is all a huge overreaction. But I also watched the video and honestly it looked like he was saying it because he knew he could get away with it. That's the most likely explanation for why he picked Chinese as an example of another language's "um" word. Just IMO though, no way to know for sure. It was at least tactless. He knew how it would sound.
        • jiofih 6y ago
          Why the need to judge and condemn here? If it’s such a common word in Chinese speech, have you considered that it may be a common word for him?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• anonu 6y ago
  The comment at the end is spot on: Please know that there are many people that support you and are sick of this hyper-sensitive, McCarthyism-like environment that is being fostered across the country." My view on this is it's the culmination of years of anti free speech trends on campus. It's a sad day when universities which should be bastions of tolerance, exploration and ideas have their culture consistently chipped away at by people who get "triggered" so easily.
  • vladd 6y ago
    At the end of the day, students vote with their wallet. The decision of the dean chooses to protect an environment of low-risk social-compliant low-EQ classroom, which will act as a deterrent on the university's prestige moving forward (e.g. you don't see those traits associated with MIT or Harvard). At the end of the day the dean might get fired for his actions. To use an analogy, "nobody gets fired for choosing IBM, but if for years you're left beyond Amazon"... one might need to eventually take a hard look at the university leadership and make the needed changes.
    • Alex3917 6y ago
      > e.g. you don't see those traits associated with MIT or Harvard Didn't this entire movement basically start with Larry Summers?
  • sydd 6y ago
    But why does the university cave in so easily? Why is the Dean himself crawling on the floor to apologize for basically nothing? Are they afraid of bad PR? or lawsuits? Why?
    • white-flame 6y ago
      I would say that's the most likely explanation. Plus, we see very similar things happen in primary education, where the loudest craziest parents cause the biggest potential PR/legal kerfuffles, so the schools often bend to them instead of standing on educational principles.
• mirekrusin 6y ago
  It's the first word you hear repeated in China, like kurwa (that one is vulgar) in Polish.
  • jiofih 6y ago
    Incidentally in Portuguese “curva”, pronounced exactly the same, means curve.
• wedn3sday 6y ago
  This is so amazingly stupid it blows my mind. I've always thought the right wing hand wringing over "cancel culture" was over blown, however this is such a stupid case of over reaction that its making me re-evaluate my stance.
• BitwiseFool 6y ago
  Anyone who is taught to look for racism everywhere - no matter how minor - will find it everywhere. The false-positive rate must be astronomical.
  • xucheng 6y ago
    Ironically, the whole over-reaction can be seen as a form of culture imperialism. Punishing people for using other language is itself racism, in this case, to the Chinese minorities. Last time I check, there is no official language in US.
  • violetgarden 6y ago
    Yes! I am a female in the tech industry, and we are inundated with warnings about going into a male dominated field. I’ve noticed it gets to a point where some women can’t even receive criticism because they think “he wouldn’t talk to another man like that,” even if the criticism is valid. I can see why it happens though. We hear over and over about being harassed and put down that we almost subconsciously get a chip on our shoulder about it. I’m not saying that racism or sexism doesn’t happen. But I am saying I see how a person can also take something as racist or sexist just because it’s something you’re told to expect.
    • burfog 6y ago
      That sounds like the robustness principle, featured in RFC 1855 (Netiquette Guidelines) among others: "Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others" or "Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you receive." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855
    • 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
      O guess these things also depend on country, in Eastern Europe where I'm from many high position successful women leaders have stated that gender quotas are actually offensive and they wouldn't want to be so called diversity hire. I think about it often how Americans who get into somewhere because of their knowledge and skill but are part of some minority think affirmative action (discrimination for us), it would be obvious for people to suspect then they are only there because of lowered exceptions.
• javajosh 6y ago
  This action is so obviously wrong I can't but wonder if its not some prank. It would be an ideal prank for the Chinese in particular, to audit the course (at first as an attempt to see how Chinese language and culture is taught here), and then stumble upon this coincidental pronunciation, in the context of a tinder-dry atmosphere of political correctness, and send in (multiple) complaints and watch America burn just a little bit more. Truth is, if this was the case, then we deserved it. It seems sometimes like America has split into the two races in "The Dark Crystal", and we very badly need a reunification. We need the reason and open-mindedness of the left, and the practicality (and romanticism) of the right. We need to accept the truth that there are real differences between people (even groups of people) and celebrate those differences and not pretend they don't exist. We need to accept the truth that racial/ethnic/religious bigotry is essentially a human universal, which doesn't justify it but it also means you can't stop it with law or strongly worded emails to university authorities. So yeah, if the CCP is behind this one, I say: thanks. Hope we can learn from it. P.S. The culprit is the dean of the USC Marshall School of Business, Geoff Garrett, not UPenn. Also, according to the LA Times it was a group of black students, not the CCP. Feel free to call or write (213) 740-6422 ggarrett@marshall.usc.edu or tweet https://twitter.com/USCMarshall/ https://twitter.com/USCMarshall/ https://twitter.com/garrett_geoff https://twitter.com/garrett_geoff
  • whiddershins 6y ago
    It would never be accidental. In China, English language students are taught to break that habit for fear of it being misinterpreted by a native English speaker. It could be opportunistically malicious though, to feign outrage. That’s not beyond the realm of possibility at all. Edit: people are asking how I ‘know’ this. —— It is anecdotal, so I should have phrased it more carefully. When I was in mainland China about 15 years ago I talked to several people eager to practice their English, in various regions. They were aware. One kid in particular I remember vividly having that conversation. But this was a very small sample.
    • galimaufry 6y ago
      > In China, English language students are taught to break that habit for fear of it being misinterpreted by a native English speaker. Based on my Chinese colleagues this is not true, or at least is not universal, or it changed within the last 3 years.
• xg15 6y ago
  To play sort-of devil's advocate, while the concrete situation is completely over-the-top, it's easy to imagine that "nà ge" could become an actual racist dog whistle if widely enough known. E.g., I personally believe there is ample room for criticism on the way the Israeli government treats Palestinians (to put it mildly). There are some attempts to define any and all criticism on the Israeli government by non-jews as anti-semitism, which frankly seems ridiculous to me. Nevertheless, it's also true that "solidarity for Palestine" and "criticism on the Israeli government" are frequently used as covers and dog-whistles by actual antisemites. Marches in solidarity of Palestine can be easily be co-opted by Nazis if the organizers don't work too actively prevent it, even if the original intention was genuine. In a similar way, white supremacists, racists, etc, might start to use "nà ge" as a substitute for the slur and attempt to back down with some bullshit excuse like "I was just speaking Chinese" when called out. This is not advocating banning words preemptively because they could be used as slurs (nor banning pro-palestine demonstrations) but to stay vigilant. Context matters, but this goes both ways.
  • ffggvv 6y ago
    whats the point of that random devils advocate scenario when that isn't at all what happened and doesn't have any bearing on the current scenario
  • benchaney 6y ago
    Since you are playing devil's advocate anyway, could you try to defend the concept of dog whistles? Recent events suggest that if someone wants to be racist they simply will, without any attempt to disguise it. I also think it is too convenient to give one political movement the ability to say that their enemies are secretly racist (aka evil) even though everything they say is actually innocuous. While the antisemitism example resonates somewhat, antisemitism withing the anti-Israel political movements is: A) not coded at all, and B) not a good reason to dismiss all anti-Israel arguments all of the time. Therefore, it is hard to see how the concept of dog-whistles is at all useful.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• stevespang 6y ago
  Ahhh, U of Penn now pandering to the PLA . . .
• lehi 6y ago
  Are any unrelated observers trying to defend this suspension? How would one even begin to go about doing that? This seems like a topic where everybody can and does agree that the reaction is wrong.
• newsbinator 6y ago
  Reminds me of this (2011): https://www.amren.com/news/2011/08/foreigner_on_ko/ https://www.amren.com/news/2011/08/foreigner_on_ko/ > “A video is circulating on the Korean Internet of a black gentleman yelling at and threatening an elderly Korean couple. His violent behavior was the result of him misunderstanding the elderly man’s comment to him. The elderly man reportedly said “니가 여기 앉아” (a sign of consideration) (“You can sit here” = Niga Yuh gi anja”), but not knowing Korean, the man in question interpreted “니가” as the N-word which led to his violent outburst.
• kristjansson 6y ago
  And at no point before it got this far did anyone ask ‘perhaps, part of the knowledge we’re buying for $120,000 and part of the value our future employers will impute into that degree is the cultural literacy and emotional competence to discern when a Chinese colleague is saying “ummmmm” and when they’re casually tossing out racial epitaphs midsentence?’
• TheMagicHorsey 6y ago
  For a number of reasons, including this kind of political correct fascism, cost, irrelevant coursework in 95% of majors, ideological approach to knowledge, I think American Universities have jumped the shark.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• sudosteph 6y ago
  Just from watching that lecture - he seems like a genuinely good professor. He provided tons of context before he introduced that example, and it's a real-world example from a language that nearly a billion humans speak. By choosing an example that is from a language that is foreign to most of his students - he's helping his students understand that the actual concept he's teaching is not just an english linguistic feature or a western-centric mannerism - it's a communication pattern that occurs widely. I feel bad for the future UCS students who will miss out on his class. I also wonder to what degree this decision will have a chilling effect on the content of other lecturers at UCS. Could history professors see this as a reason to exclude primary content that reflects the racist realities of the past? Or maybe music professors will reconsider whether they can teach the work of artists who might be cultural appropriation? It's hard to say. I hope that another university makes this professor a job offer - or at least speaks out in support of his teaching. This seems so bizarre that I can only reckon with it by imagining it's a west-coast cultural phenomenon. I certainly wouldn't imagine this going down the same way in my home state (North Carolina) - but maybe I'm underestimating how pervasive this extreme sensitivity trend really is. There WAS an incident with a professor who got suspended at NC State recently ( https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article235747982.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article235... ) but in that case - the professor was publicly mocking his students in a way that may or may not have been interpreted as sexist. Even if the suspension for that scenario actually overkill (which I think it was) - it seems crazy pants to put the professor who was thoughtfully teaching a lecture in the same category as one who gets a kick out of insulting students for laughs.
• valuearb 6y ago
  I once said in a senior staff meeting that we shouldn’t be niggardly with employee benefits. A disturbing quiet dropped over the room and I realized a half dozen white men and women were staring at me, while uncomfortably not making eye contact with our African American Business Development director. The CEO rebuked me saying that was not the type of language I should be using. The Director of Business Development then spoke, he was a Stanford graduate who was always the nicest smartest guy in the room. He gently corrected the CEO, saying exactly what I understood, it was an Old English term meaning cheapness that had no connection (other than its sound) to the racial insult and he wasn’t offended at all. Thank god for Johns erudite knowledge of historic English words and his omnipresent empathy but think it illustrates an important point. Intent should matter. Even if the word I used had a connection to a racial slur, I would have been unaware and in no way would intentionally use such a slur, not alone in a group of white men let alone in front of a valued colleague. That word can never leave my mental database of descriptive terms and phrases, but I fight against its use even more so today, afraid it might unconsciously slip out.
  • asddubs 6y ago
    To be honest, when I hear someone use that word, I do assume it's primarily in service of saying something that sounds like the n-word with plausible deniability. It'd be something else if it was a commonly used word
    • valuearb 6y ago
      I think that’s where it’s use ends. It’s always been a niche word, but with todays common assumption it’s racist few will want use it at all.
    • ci5er 6y ago
      IMHO - you would be wrong. It is a perfectly good word. This horse-shit has to stop.
      • dennis_jeeves 6y ago
        Correction: this horse-manure has to stop :)
• dathinab 6y ago
  Warning: I'm not sure how to formulate that properly, I hope no-one gets offended to much. I think one of the worst thinks you can do is to be afraid of a word itself. But that's exactly where it has come to. It often seems that just pronouncing the n* word or spelling it out is highly offensive. But IMHO this is super bad for the people who are offended. If there is a problem you should speak about it and this include pronouncing and spelling the offensive word. If you don't you are only helping the people which use that word as a insult and a denouncement. You are now at risk of feeling offended or even threatend from just hearing the word even if it's not directed at you , not used as the insult and maybe you misheard (like above). Demonizing a word when it's the contextual usage of the word which is the problem isn't really helping anyone I believe. Don't get me wrong using the word to insult, denounce or describe an person is an absolute no-go and as far as I can tell should stay that way. But when you speak about e.g. how someone breached that no-go and how that is not ok you shouldn't be afraid to use that word instead. And yes I'm not using the word here because I know how people can be offended by it. Still fear the abuse of words but don't fear words itself or the fear might just eat you up. (Abuse as n* originally only described someone from Nigeria, like Berlin => BerlinER with some shortening. But yes this doesn't matter anymore at all and might sometimes even be used to downplay the insult which is not ok.)
  • joshuamorton 6y ago
    FYI, your etymology is wrong. The n word derives from spanish and latin for black (this itself possibly derived from the proto-indo-european for "night"). While Nigeria and the Niger river come from local African languages for "river", although that pronunciation itself is probably influenced by the same latin-for-black. What eventually became Nigeria was a British company founded in 1886, well after the n-word was in common use for anyone of dark skin.
    • dathinab 6y ago
      Oh, thank you. Doesn't change much practically but it's very good to know.
• anonytrary 6y ago
  Intent matters, and we shouldn't be allowed to be lazy and assume others' intent and then get angry at them because of our own assumptions. I don't see how banning this guy for speaking his language isn't just the most blatant normalized racism. This incentivizes people to remain ignorant and not learn about others' cultures. This is an embarrassing direction for a University to go in. In general I think this micro-aggression/Karen-culture is an awful direction we are going in. At some point, being offended at everything is itself offensive. It is offensive to me that you choose not to understand me, and instead get mad about some fictitious damages.
• divbzero 6y ago
  那個 is a verbal filler [1] as common and as harmless as um, like, you know… I remember hearing it as the punchline of a joke highlighting a linguistic and cultural mixup. Never imagined the mixup would be taken as a serious offense. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler_(linguistics)
• djaque 6y ago
  I think all of the comments here that say "McCarthyism and cancel culture have taken over our universities!" miss the point. The real story is that in the US, we are politically polarized enough to buy into the dean's story that this is the only reason for the suspension. Universities are run as businesses nowadays and I can assure you that they don't care about angry students unless there is money or prestige to be made in appeasing them. At a past university I attended, class enrollment was horribly broken causing people to miss out on courses they needed to graduate. Basically the whole student body was mad and made it known and sent around petitions, but nothing changed. The fix being pushed by students would literally just require changing a config file somewhere and sending some emails, but nobody cared. If universities won't lift a finger for issues that cause campus wide outrage, why would I believe that they'd suspend someone after a twitter minority gets unreasonably angry about something like this. I'm at one of the super liberal universities in the US and I can promise you that it really is a minority. Even in the liberal arts classes I've attended, everyone I've met would be like "yeah, that's an unfortunate mistake and at most you should probably just inform him that the word sounds like a slur". I have literally never met someone that would call for a firing except for on twitter. I've also taught classes here and never met one, so I know it isn't a selection effect where I'm in a bubble. I don't get to choose the students I teach. There is 100% more going on than what the dean is claiming. Maybe it's administrative drama. Maybe the professor wasn't pulling in enough grant money. Maybe the university was eyeing his salary and knew about an adjunct that will do it cheaper and thought that this would be a nice excuse to make a change. From everything I know about universities and from currently working at one, the guy didn't get fired for something as outlandish as saying a word that sounded like something else. It just doesn't make sense.
• danielam 6y ago
  When I was a child, I was in the supermarket with my mother and apparently I was repeating some Polish phrase containing the infinitive “to be”. The Polish equivalent is “być” which sounds like “bitch”. From what I’ve been told, it drew some attention, but the impression I’m left with is that eavesdroppers were more amused than offended. Similarly, my Spanish-speaking classmates in school found it amusing that a common way to refer to one’s aunt is “ciocia” which is pronounced like the Spanish word “chocha”. The same holds for English words like “duper” as in “super duper” which sounds almost like the Polish “dupa” (especially when spoken in non-rhotic English). This extends to brand names (the name of the German lighting manufacturer Osram is a good example: it is the simple future first conjugation of the Polish transitive verb “to shit all over“). Given how ubiquitous this phenomenon is, and how international UPenn is, I am having trouble comprehending how a professor could be fired for a perfectly banal Chinese expression which many of us have heard many times in American cities with significant Chinese populations.
  • adfm 6y ago
    I just watched the video and in context, suspending this guy does a disservice to: the student, who must learn to listen and process in context; the educator, who must teach without fear; and the school, that loses revenue because it becomes both feared and a laughing stock. If I've somehow been misled, I don't mean to offend, but seriously, this does not bode well for anyone in higher education.
• baby 6y ago
  Here's what Russel Peters has to say about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvnx1wcrbcg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvnx1wcrbcg
• libraryatnight 6y ago
  This seems a rather nonacademic response.
• curt15 6y ago
  This rush to punish scholars for "incorrect" expression is reminesicent of Mao's Cultural Revolution.
• TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Is it bizarre this is an MBA class? What's going to happen when these aspiring business people visit other countries?
• m0zg 6y ago
  Suspended by someone who has never heard a Chinese person talk to another Chinese person in Chinese. There's at least 1 "n-word" per minute there. Professor should sue their ass.
• smallgovt 6y ago
  I think it's important to note that nowhere in the article (nor anywhere else I can find) does it state that the professor was "suspended". Rather, it only says that the professor will "no longer be teaching this class for the remainder of the semester". I think this is an important distinction because it leaves the door open to the possibility that: 1) the professor voluntarily stepped down 2) the professor will return after the semester is over 3) the professor is being paid during this leave and will suffer no real professional consequences. In other words, there's a real possibility that the Dean had the following conversation with the professor: "Hey, I know this wasn't intentional on your part, but this is quickly becoming a PR nightmare and I'd like to nip it in the bud. Would you mind stepping down from your post for just this semester until this dies down and I can get a handle on it? This will make everyone's life easier & you'll still get paid anyways." In this light, there's less reason to be outraged at the Dean.
  • crc32 6y ago
    I disagree with the assertion, prior to your edit, that the complaint was necessarily unwarranted. But regardless, the reactions in the comments here are verging on hysterical - references to McCarthy, and even Stalin and Mao.
  • unwoundmouse 6y ago
    PR nightmare is a bit extreme. A few students emailed the dean is all. I feel as though in these situations, you have a moral obligation not to back down if you did nothing wrong. Otherwise the bounds of what one is allowed to say gradually erodes away. Sort of like the “first they came for...” poem
  • vanusa 6y ago
    I think it's important to note that nowhere in the article (nor anywhere else I can find) does it state that the professor was "suspended". The action was asymptotically close to a suspension (so in attempting to draw a distinction, you're basically splitting hairs). In other words, there's a real possibility that the Dean had the following conversation with the professor: More likely that conversation went like this: "Hey, I know this wasn't intentional on your part, but this is quickly becoming a PR nightmare and I'd like to nip it in the bud. If we were to go by common sense and the basic ethical and intellectual principles this institution claims to uphold, we'd simply explain to the student that (being young and naive as they are) they're clearly jumping the gun and not seeing the forest for the trees -- and are doing themselves way, way, way more harm in delusionally believing themselves to have been 'microaggressed' by what happened, than by even the worst case version of what they fantasize as having happened. But that would require a modicum of ethical integrity and backbone on my own part, which, being the stuffed shirt that I am, you know I don't come even close to possessing. So to make my life simpler, would you mind taking the hit, stepping down from your post and basically allowing everyone to believe you were an insensitive ass (if not in fact an outright racist) for a while? BTW you'll still get paid - and this being USC, that's all anyone really expects you to care about anyways."
• crc32 6y ago
  If it was a German professor talking about buttermilk do you think he would given a build up?
• vanusa 6y ago
  To echo one of responses to the blog post: What a niggardly (and just plain ludicrous) response to what could only have been an entirely innocuous coincidence. Not too long from now, USC will look back on this episode with a profound sense of regret and embarassment.
• phendrenad2 6y ago
  Okay this makes sense, everyone should know by now that being white and saying the N-word in ANY context is a third-rail. USC likely doesn't want professors who can't figure that out, what else will they screw up?
• raincom 6y ago
  See the history of this B-school dean. He was the dean of Wharton b-school before. Prior to that, he was a professor at Stanford. B-school deans reflect the corporate America: virtue signaling. I think, USC must be paying Dean Garrett at least a million dollar per annum or even more. This is the expected behavior from people like him.
• ipiz0618 6y ago
  The pronunciation is very common in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Korean. If the offended person ever visits Asia, he'd find himself punching literally every person. This is extremely arrogant and disrespectful of other cultures. It's even more bizarre that the college takes the report seriously. For instance, listen to this (once extremely popular) song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw No reasonable person would, or should be offended. I hope that person never leaves his/her English speaking community.
• calyth2018 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsWp07BwVk Life imitates art in a bad way at times.
• evgeniysharapov 6y ago
  Ahhah, all this silliness makes me want to use word "niggard" and "niggardly" where it's appropriate
• runeks 6y ago
  > It is simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students. Psychological safety? What does that mean? I hate these vague, marketing-like terms. Just say what you mean: you find it unacceptable to say something that causes a negative emotion. The problem is that saying it like this makes it sound less problematic — because it is. Whereas using the word “safety” implies a physical danger as opposed to just negative emotion.