Tag: political correctness

Three Wise Monkeys Are Racist Now, Says Woke University of York

Academics at the University of York removed a depiction of the three wise monkeys from their website after they determined it could be seen as an insult to ethnic minorities.

The Three Wise Monkeys, which embody the Japanese proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” and are often used to describe those turning a blind eye to wrongdoing, have become the latest victims of the Black Lives Matter iconoclastic movement in the United Kingdom.

The organisers of an upcoming art history conference at the University of York in England have apologised for their use of the three monkeys in their call for submissions and removed it from their website.

“Upon reflection, we strongly believe that our first poster is not appropriate as its iconology promulgates a longstanding visual legacy of oppression and exploits racist stereotypes,” the organisers wrote in comments reported by The Times.

“We bring this to your attention, so that we may be held accountable for our actions and, in our privileges, do and be better.”

Experts in Japanese history and culture were shocked by the academics insistence on likening the three monkeys to racist iconography.

The former curator of the British Museum’s Japanese collections, Tim Clark, said that he had “no idea” why they would be seen as offensive.

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Proposed House Rules Seek To Erase Gendered-Terms Such As ‘Father’, ‘Mother’, ‘Son’, & ‘Daughter’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern (D-Mass.) announced on Friday that the rules package includes changes that would “honor all gender identities by changing pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral.”

A separate announcement from McGovern (pdf) said that the Democratic rules package will make “Changes [to] pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender neutral or removes references to gender, as appropriate, to ensure we are inclusive of all Members, Delegates, Resident Commissioners and their families—including those who are nonbinary.”

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University Claims Words ‘Picnic,’ ‘Brown Bag’ Are Offensive

The University of Michigan has a “Words Matter Task Force.”

Seriously. Maybe that’s why out-of-state tuition costs more than $66,000 a year.

The WMTF, set up by the school’s Information and Technology Services (ITS) department, has declared that it finds more than two dozen words and phrases possibly offensive to people, including “picnic,” “brown bag” and “blacklist.”

“To effectively communicate with customers, it is important for ITS to evaluate the terms and language conventions that may hinder effective communication, harm morale, and deliberately or inadvertently exclude people from feeling accepted to foment a healthy and inclusive culture,” the task force said in a memo.

The WMTF offers alternative words to use, for instance urging people to say “gathering” instead of “picnic” and “lunch and learn” instead of “brown bag.”

“The word ‘picnic’ appears to be banned because of false suggestions on the internet that it originates from the racist, extrajudicial killings of African Americans,” the Daily Mail reported. “The word picnic actually comes from the 17th century French word ‘pique-nique,’ a term used to describe a social gathering in which attendees each contributed with a portion of food.”

In July, the Reuters News Agency published a piece headlined: “Fact check: The word picnic does not originate from racist lynchings.”

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Student Cancel Mob Comes For Harvard Law Prof. Adrian Vermeule Over Tweets Mocking Leftists

This story of cancel culture would be laughable were it not for the fact that it is so serious. It involves an attempt by four Harvard Law School student groups to interfere in the employment of, and damage the career of, Professor Adrian Vermeule.

This reflects an ongoing attempt by leftwing students to purge academia of viewpoints that do not perfectly align with the social justice and Black Lives Matter orthodoxy. Much like during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, students lead the way in belittling and trying to damage dissident professors, with public shaming and institutional ritualized denunciations preferred methods of intimidation.

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Facebook To End Race-Blind Hate Speech Moderation

Facebook is ending race-blind hate speech moderation and will begin policing hate speech directed at black Americans, Muslims, multi-racial Americans, Jewish people and LGBTQ people more aggressively than hate speech directed at white Americans, according to the Washington Post.

The “WoW Project” is aimed at automatically detecting hate speech that is “the worst of the worst,” internal documents about the project that were obtained by the Washington Post said. The project will re-engineer Facebook’s automated moderation system to try and get better at detecting hateful language aimed at minority groups.

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Students at UK University Demand the Word “Black” be Banned From Lectures & Textbooks

Students at Manchester University have demanded that the word “black” when used as a negative expression such as the word “blackmail” should be banned because it is “divisive.”

Yes, really.

The complaint was prompted by a university study surround issues affecting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff and faculty.

Citing concerns of black people, the report noted that there were “linguistic concerns about Black being associated with negative expressions” such as “blackmail” and “black sheep.”

After the report labeled the use of words which included “black” and “divisive and not inclusive,” the university’s student union demanded that “any other use of the word ‘black’ as an adjective to express negative connotations” should be banned in research papers, lecture slides, and books published by professors.

Students claimed that such words were based on a “colonial history” and should be abolished in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

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