Amherst's Common Language Guide

We have often made threads about deconstructing leftist language, the language of the SJW movement, etc., usually the posts made in there are more or less tongue in cheek, but this one is for real.

Amherst College, like so many other universities nowadays, boasts an Office of Diversity and Inclusion. It seems the twits manning this office decided to create and release a Common Language Guide for the student body and instructors as though this should become the accepted norm in university discourse.

To her credit, Biddy Martin, the university president, disavowed the 36 page glossary of speech policing.

Creating a sense of belonging on a campus is difficult and complicated work. It is also vital to student success and the success of the entire community. I know of no educational institution that would claim to have succeeded completely in the effort. Missteps are inevitable.

The “Common Language Document” produced by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and circulated yesterday at Amherst takes a very problematic approach. The document defines terms in an effort to assist people in talking with one another about their identities and positions. The motivation of those who generated the definitions is understandable. They were responding to questions from people who wanted to know better how historically underrepresented groups and individuals think about their identities and positions.

The job of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion is to support students in their academic aspirations by helping create a welcoming environment, one in which members of the community understand and respect one another’s backgrounds and perspectives. But when the approach assumes campus-wide agreement about the meaning of terms and about social, economic, and political matters, it runs counter to the core academic values of freedom of thought and expression. I was not aware that the document was being produced and I did not approve its circulation. It cuts against our efforts to foster open exchange and independent thinking. It is not a formal college document and will not be used as one.

Awareness and understanding of backgrounds and experiences other than one’s own are vital. Using language that conveys respect for those differences is part of building community. But prescribing a particular language and point of view is anathema.

However, you'll notice that her denunciation is weak. She only calls the guide "problematic" and doesn't condemn anyone for it, and you can bet no one gets reprimanded or fired for having made the executive decision to throw this together and distribute this as though it's an official university guidance tract.

I thought, for the same of some fun and discussion, we could go through the 36-page language guide and see what they really think all these terms are supposed to mean. Just one thing that sticks out to me, is that race is linked back to white supremacy in their definition of race, but nearly every other definition that sets them apart is dependent on racial division in some way.

That makes zero sense to me. If race upholds white supremacy, then why create an entire system of language that is white dependent and demand this because the "Common Language"? Isn't that codifying exactly what you claim to hate and want to liberate yourselves from?

MICROAGGRESSIONS
The verbal and nonverbal indignities and denigrating messages targeting people of historically and presently marginalized backgrounds that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative slights and insults. The accumulation and frequency of such everyday occurrences can have a negative impact on the psychological, emotional and physical well-being of the person impacted.Perpetrators are sometimes unaware that they have engaged in an exchange that demeans the recipient of the communication. Microaggressions are rooted in institutional oppression

Oooo, here's another one. When I bring this one up, I've been told this is not a thing, but I've been born out. You can indeed be accused of a microaggression without even knowing that you did anything meaning you had no intent to do anything.

A microaggression is therefore almost certainly in the eyes of the person who feels aggrieved.

REVERSE OPPRESSION
There is no such thing as reverse oppression. Oppression is predicated upon access to institutional power. Marginalized communities do not have access to institutional power. For example, women can be as prejudiced as men, but women cannot be “just as sexist as men,” because they do not hold political, economic and institutional power

While I agree in principle that oppression is simply oppression, the argument is silly about women. What do you call the modern school? How many men teach or hold positions of power at your kid's elementary school, for example? Most of the teachers, even up to high school, are women. Many of the administrators until high school maybe will be women. So who holds the power there in that institution?

This is a very narrow thought process.

a reply to: ketsuko

Well...i got to accomplice(the first word), read the definition and really don't know if i can keep going. My brain hurts already.

ETA: Yeah...i tried...nope i'm done. I got to Colourblindness ...No more.

Ex girlfriend son went there, graduated with gaming design degree. No real grades, but grades given on effort. No job, $100,00 plus in debt, 27 living back with her. And the best part? Has a hammer and sickle frag hanging in his bedroom. Of course communism has never been done right, that’s why it’s never worked!!
Don’t date her anymore....

That was the strangest RPG Guidebook I've ever read.

"Monsters and Microaggressions".

I feel for these kids man, I really do.

It's so hard being a decent person these days.

Now we have to micromanage speech.

a reply to: ketsuko

They were responding to questions from people who wanted to know better how historically underrepresented groups and individuals think about their identities and positions. 

The question in itself is inherently problematic because it assumes that group think is the norm which we should be addressing when we should ignore it and approach life with the understanding that everyone is different.

Its actually a little racist sounding to ask something like "how do blacks feel about their place in history and in society?" As if one black should feel the same as another.

I know Mexicans who want Trump to "build that Wall!", Natives who think minorities need to quit blaming the white man for everything, and blacks who are disgusted and ashamed by the prominence of Thug Culture, Bling Bling Culture in black majority communities. I know gays who think the LGBTQ movement is embarassing and needs to calm the f down.

And I also know Mexicans who want Mexicans to take back land from America and claim it as part of Mexico, or even as a whole new soveriegn entity.

I know Natives who hate the white man and rail on whites day in day out for EVERYTHING. If they run out of gas on the freeway, that was the damn white mans fault for charging too much for gas that they didnt have a full tank last time they put $1.37 in the tank. Yeah, it was arabs who owned the gas station, but surely there was a white man involved somewhere along the supply chain.

I know blacks wholly submersed within Gang Culture to where they dont know any different. They base their self worth on how many "haters" they have. They wear the uniform of a criminal to the T and then wonder why people look at them differently and treat them differently, all while loudly proclaiming their ill intentions.

I know people who arent even gay, (or arent even old enough to really know but either way they dont proclaim themselves to be gay), and their bedrooms are decked out in rainbow flags and the like because they found an identity that gives them the feeling that they have a purpose, they have something to fight for and they literally believe its tenets and defend them Just like a religious faith. Because without it, theyre back to being a nobody again, with nothing to stand for, nothing to fight for, nothing to live or die for...


Everybody is different. Theyre trying to force us all into categories. If this book had been written satirically to make a point about how retarded PC Identity Politics is, then I could understand, but an educator actually created this with the intention that it be taken seriously. And others were okay with it. Approved of it. Applauded it even.

From a scientific aspect... Id love to get these people hooked up to some technology to see what is actually happening inside the mind. Im curious, do parts of their brain actually get shut down from disuse? Or do actually have More brain activity going on due to all the additional mental gymnastics in order to make everything look as if it fits?