# Brandeis University considers 'picnic' to be oppressive language **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 25, 2021, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016 "2021-06-25T19:26:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/21 "2021-06-25T20:45:45Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > The entirety of American culture seems possessed by the demons of stupidity. “But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/22 "2021-06-25T21:10:02Z")
Some of us would be screaming _with_ you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/23 "2021-06-25T21:10:58Z")
My husband works for Gartner and their style manuals have just RECENTLY changed. No more master/slave - primary and secondary. Also no more black list/white list - blocked and allowed. (And he will take some credit for that - Gartner is incredibly white/male/and older. They are SLOW to change.) ---
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/24 "2021-06-25T21:14:57Z")
> [@susan](#): > > That sort of logical response didn’t help with “niggardly.” It has. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/25 "2021-06-25T21:35:43Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > So either there is some “more woke than thou” competition among the liberals of that organization who have gone overboard to forbid anything that could ever possibly be interpreted to be offensive to anyone If you read this thread a little more carefully, you’ll note that @QuickSilver quoted from PARC’s website: > [@](#): > > This list is meant to be a tool to share information and suggestions about potentially oppressive language. Use of the suggested alternatives is not a university expectation or requirement. The language you choose to use or not use is entirely up to you. Why you made up the “fact” that Brandeis is forbidding language is beyond me. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty on this list that is just personal opinion, plenty that reflect a Sisyphean waste of time attempting to change cultural attitudes by proscribing subtle changes in language that will feel meaningless (and take more syllables) to most, and plenty that comes across as simply an opportunity for people who feel they are on the vanguard of change to assert their authority over others by nitpicking and policing language choices that are fundamentally equal, arbitrary, and not universally agreed upon or adopted. And there is plenty that feels like obvious good ideas that folks should try to adopt (in my opinion). But, there is very little on this list that is beneath consideration, even if one doesn’t agree with the recommendation. And that’s all this list is here for- for consideration. The problem here is not “woke liberals gone amok”, but rather the supposedly left-leaning folks whose reaction to a campus’ violence prevention center’s offering of a list of language to consider if one is trying to excise hurtful language from their vocabulary is to suggest that this conversation shouldn’t even be had; that this anti-violence advocacy center is to blame for Republican votes for giving voice to students on campus who had some suggestions for anti-violent language. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/26 "2021-06-25T21:53:54Z")
Dumb as the picnic controversy is, it’s not as idiotic as the fuss at an Oregon high school over what to call its mascot. Following the school’s renaming for a civil rights leader, the school board was considering switching its mascot/team name from the Trojans to…an evergreen tree. A committee of students, staff and community members voted in support of Evergreens and the change was set to go through, until a board member demurred. “A vote on the new mascot was set to take place…but was halted after a director on the board shared concerns from the community over the tree’s imagery with suggestions that a tree might conjure up reminders of lynching.” ‘I’m wondering if there was any concern with the imagery there, in using a tree … as our mascot? I think everyone comes with blind spots and I think that might’ve been a really big blind spot,’ said Michelle DePass, Portland Public Schools Board of Education Director." > **[Portland school fears ‘Evergreens’ mascot tied to lynching](https://www.koin.com/local/portland-school-fears-evergreens-mascot-tied-to-lynching/)** > > The adoption of a new mascot for Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School was put on pause, after concerns about potential connotations of lynching. Yep, any of you who’ve planted a tree should be ashamed, since that’s a hurtful reminder of lynching.\* The school board ultimately decided that school athletic teams should be called the Guardians, which is probably offensive to other people, like Britney Spears. \*I don’t recall ever seeing or hearing about lynchings from evergreen trees, but nevermind. \*\*Shame, shame on Stanford University and Evergreen College. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/27 "2021-06-25T21:57:20Z")
I would think it would be really difficult to lynch people from an evergreen. There are better trees to choose. Evergreens have dense branches, usually low to the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/28 "2021-06-25T21:59:31Z")
I was just about to mention Stanford but you got there first. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/29 "2021-06-25T22:12:30Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > The problem here is not “woke liberals gone amok”, but rather the supposedly left-leaning folks whose reaction to a campus’ violence prevention center’s offering of a list of language to consider if one is trying to excise hurtful language from their vocabulary is to suggest that this conversation shouldn’t even be had; that this anti-violence advocacy center is to blame for Republican votes for giving voice to students on campus who had some suggestions for anti-violent language. First, I resent being accused of being “supposedly” left-leaning. 😛 Second, have the conversation. But don’t have it in a vacuum among people who are unlikely to disagree with you but open it to debate and criticism. Something they clearly failed to do here. How could they not take advantage of a captive audience to engage with on their own campus? BTW, I noticed that they took out the word “picnic” from their list of offensive words. Had they made the effort to vet this with anyone outside their blinkered view, they might have spared themselves the embarrassment of the article and @Johnny_L.A 's ire. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/30 "2021-06-25T22:19:57Z")
On the other hand, pine pitch is great for burning witches…so evergreens are inherently misogynistic. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/31 "2021-06-25T22:36:04Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Yep, any of you who’ve planted a tree should be ashamed, since that’s a hurtful reminder of lynching. For a little more context, the school was being renamed after Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a Black journalist and activist in the late 1800s/early 1900s, who was most well known for her crusade against lynching and her efforts to educate foreign audiences about it. So the association to lynching was already there, and choosing a tree as the mascot carries a little more baggage than it would for a school named after some governor’s white son. Maybe not enough to force a different mascot, but at least enough to spur a conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/32 "2021-06-25T22:56:06Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Every time something ludicrous like this happens, a candidate like Trump picks up some votes. Alternatively: “Every time some right-wing propaganda outlet finds some minor fringe position and over-inflates it into an unrecognizable parody of reality in order to wind up the rubes, a candidate like Trump may or may not pick up some votes, because the voters who would be swayed by this kind of nonsense are poorly informed and lack critical thinking skills, but they’ve probably already been recruited into this bleating cult, so the result is a wash.” ---
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2021, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/33 "2021-06-25T23:06:10Z")
Starting about 10 years ago the annual staff Christmas party at RI School of Design was redesignated year after year - first to Holiday party [fair enough] then to Holiday Gathering [some employees held beliefs that prevented them from attending parties] then finally to Winter Gathering, because after all it’s not a holiday for everyone, but Winter is a given… During the same era, the annual summer staff picnic …you guessed it… became the Summer Gathering. Many of the Persons of Color on the staff thought the rationale for dropping ‘picnic’ was ludicrous - but when HR speaks… ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/34 "2021-06-26T00:15:07Z")
Perhaps we need a national conversation about trees - and whether they should all be cut down, in case someone views them as symbols of oppression. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/35 "2021-06-26T00:47:04Z")
They want to replace “homeless person” with “person experiencing housing insecurity”. The politically correct euphemism for “vagrant” has now become politically incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/36 "2021-06-26T00:51:25Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > As a side note, I know this board takes a dim view of complaints about “political correctness.” But consider that, for many voters, this sort of speech-police nonsense is _ **exactly** _ what people have in mind when they think of the term “PC.” Every time something ludicrous like this happens, a candidate like Trump picks up some votes. Yes, we know. And, as usual, it turns out what was really going on was far more nuanced, but was being presented in a cartoonish way to further the “PC gone amok” narrative. That’s the issue. Whenever the right wing complains about “political correctness,” it’s always either this situation, where the real story is less controversial, or it’s a cherry picked example of a single person who has no power. Yet the right wing treats “political correctness” as a huge threat that is everywhere. That’s why it is merely fearmongering and a snarl word. Unfortunately, the concept has caught on. Hence the attempt to rebrand it. Keep the name, but have it just mean “trying to be considerate of other cultures or minorities.” We call this “reclaiming the word.” In this situation, it seems some organization just listed this word on a list of words that may have baggage, and suggests that you discuss these words. It’s people trying to be nice—not some Orwellian attempt at controlling language to control thought, as the right always argues. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/37 "2021-06-26T01:02:23Z")
> [@vbob](#): > > Starting about 10 years ago the annual staff Christmas party at RI School of Design was redesignated year after year - first to Holiday party [fair enough] then to Holiday Gathering [some employees held beliefs that prevented them from attending parties] then finally to Winter Gathering, because after all it’s not a holiday for everyone, but Winter is a given… During the same era, the annual summer staff picnic …you guessed it… became the Summer Gathering. Many of the Persons of Color on the staff thought the rationale for dropping ‘picnic’ was ludicrous - but when HR speaks… My employer had an on-site day care center for children of employees. One of the things they used to do at Halloween was have the kids parade through the work area in costumes; I believe employees were allowed to pass out treats (I’m not sure because I pretty much ignored the whole thing). Of course, it was originally called something like the Halloween Parade, but eventually this was changed to “The Harvest Stroll”. I’ve been retired for 14 years, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they’ve stopped doing it completely. If they haven’t, I’m sure that there are now all sorts of rules about acceptable costumes. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/38 "2021-06-26T01:18:07Z")
Perhaps they should have renamed the team the “Wilting Flowers” or the “Smelling Salts”. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/39 "2021-06-26T01:20:02Z")
Oh no! How horrible! What will the people do now that their passwords are primary instead of master? How will we ever go on? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2021, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016/40 "2021-06-26T01:27:29Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Also no more black list/white list - blocked and allowed. “Aw, man–I tried to pledge that frat, but someone blockballed me!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brandeis-university-considers-picnic-to-be-oppressive-language/945016.md?page=3)