Have we truly run out of real problems to solve? How is this an actual effort by someone at a prestigious university?
> there has been much discussion of a website that provides advice for the IT community at Stanford about word choices in Stanford websites and code.
Ideologically driven language manipulation under the guise of "inclusiveness" is a real problem too.
It's like the folks read Orwell and took it as an instruction manual rather than a warning.
It's pretty clear to me that the above is not a true statement. If the term "American" is/was absolutely welcome, it would not have ended on the "do not use list". You can frame it as "not a ban", but it would not make it "absolutely welcomed".
This is a polite non-apology, non-admission, "sorry we put out something too early that we could not get away with right now, but we will try again soon" statement.
The “African American” phrase is a great example of this. Has using this phrase in any way reduced racism, police shootings, or any other harm? Of course not. Racism is in peoples mind. And no amount of word censorship will eliminate it. Racists will simply figure out how to work around the censorship. Using other words to express their hatred.
And non-racists will be in constant fear of accidentally saying anything that might be interpreted in some negative way. Making any interactions with outside groups a mine field. I personally feel like I am in a mine field talking to people of a different skin colour. Even though I am married to a person who is of a different skin colour from mine! It’s beyond crazy.
