# Thoughts on the suspension of this professor? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830 "2020-09-04T18:08:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/101 "2020-09-05T08:09:33Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > We had zero problems with any language when I was in school. You probably had zero problems with racism, bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination either. ---
**Author:** ![Terwilliger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Terwilliger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terwilliger)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/102 "2020-09-05T08:28:45Z")
Regardless that some people might think nobody ever had a problem with language in school, the subject at hand is not that. Nobody called anyone a nigger or even used the word. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/103 "2020-09-05T11:04:08Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > If our college aged adults are really this fragile this country is in terrible shape. You’ll be gratified to know that not all college aged adults are this fragile. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/104 "2020-09-05T12:06:03Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > What exactly do you think a student should do in such a scenario? Talk to their doctor if their bad feels are preventing them from functioning fully. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/105 "2020-09-05T13:53:42Z")
It seems to me that before doing anything, the dean should have listened to the tape and talked to the professor and some other students in the class. Did he do that? It certainly doesn’t seem that he did. But then as a professor I’m naturally prejudiced against deans. ---
**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:** [September 5, 2020, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/106 "2020-09-05T14:10:11Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Isn’t _negro_ the word for black in Spanish? (My source is two years of high school Spanish back in the 90s, FWIW) Not only that, Negra Modelo is a popular dark beer, especially in Mexico. And an excellent fig variety (bears heavily when still a small tree) is Petite Negra. There probably will be a reckoning about those two names before long. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/107 "2020-09-05T15:17:26Z")
All I can say is that it’s a good thing Tyler Negron is dead before he was forced at gunpoint to change his name. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/108 "2020-09-05T15:22:06Z")
Everyone needs sensitivity training. The seminar will be in Montenegro. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/109 "2020-09-05T15:25:53Z")
That’s too far to travel for Americans. Better make it Matamoros TX. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/110 "2020-09-05T15:41:49Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I disagree entirely that someone can assume someone isn’t being racist. That would only be possible when people didn’t try to the thing claimed. Yet people who try to find a way to get an n-word pass by using a similar word happens all the time. If there were _other_ reasons to believe this professor were racist, you might have a point here. But clearly there aren’t. This entire thing is a manufactured fantasy based solely on the superficial resemblance of the phonemes of the Chinese word. > [@BigT](#): > > I don’t blame the students at all for investigating, and, since they apparently spoke to actual Mandarin speakers who said the word was being mispronounced, it makes perfect sense they’d make the conclusion they did. They asked an expert. Clearly they didn’t actually do what they claimed, or they were extremely careless in their “research”, because no actual Mandarin speaker would have told them this. Once again, there are two ways to pronounce the word in standard Mandarin (nage, neige), but it’s always the latter when it’s used as a filler word. The professor’s pronunciation was perfectly standard and correct, and (as noted in the transcript above) he could not have been more explicit that he was speaking a Chinese word. > [@BigT](#): > > The goal is to make it seem like political correctness as a whole is bad. And it seems to me that it is most likely to succeed when people like you and others in this thread prevaricate, and refuse to respond with a straightforward condemnation of the students’ foolishness and the Dean’s inappropriate response. That makes it seem like this is _not_ just fringe behavior from immature students, it makes it seem that many on the left _agree_ with this kind of ignorant performative offense-taking. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/111 "2020-09-05T16:15:59Z")
No, there won’t be. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/112 "2020-09-05T16:25:03Z")
Actually, there have always been those issues. However, the students in middle school back then just happened to be far less fragile than the ‘adults’ of today. ---
**Author:** ![Mallard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Mallard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mallard)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/113 "2020-09-05T16:29:26Z")
I guess it will bring new meaning to the expression from Seinfeld “not that there’s anything wrong with ‘that’” ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/114 "2020-09-05T16:41:08Z")
Please prove a study or cite that backs this claim. Please don’t bother with anecdotal nutpicking. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/115 "2020-09-05T16:44:11Z")
I’m not providing anything. Use your eyes and you can see how fragile modern adults are. ---
**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:** [September 5, 2020, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/116 "2020-09-05T16:49:18Z")
Agreed! Conservative snowflakes are constantly whining about bullshit and refusing to go to any effort to explain why. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/117 "2020-09-05T16:50:29Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > At the core of it, it’s still that we care more about a single case where a white, middle aged male professor was unjustly put on suspension on probably improper grounds and give a collective shrug to the definitely thousands of cases of unambiguous, unpunished racism enacted on POC every single day. We’re fine with any system that mitigates racism as long as it unambiguously, 100% never makes the mistake of unfairly accusing a non-racist of being a racist which means we’re not actually fine with any system to address racism ever. It sounds like you’re coming perilously close to advocating that because _actual_ racism goes unpunished all the time, we shouldn’t scrutinize ignorant false allegations of racism too much, because punishing a few innocent people makes up for the many guilty people who get away with it. Do you really think that prevaricating over calling out these students for this ignorant immature nonsense is helpful in the cause of fighting _actual_ racism that causes _actual_ harm? To the contrary, I think it’s actively harmful to the objective of fighting racism to tolerate such nonsense, because unless such ridiculous cases are roundly condemned _by those on the left_ it makes us look like idiots and risks alienating public opinion altogether. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/118 "2020-09-05T16:52:50Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > The complaint did _not_ have a problem with the professor using the term 那个, the students involved are perfectly well aware that 那个 is a common term in Mandarin. The complaint was that the professor was purposefully mispronouncing 那个 in a malicious fashion to make it sound as close to the N-word as possible as a way of antagonizing Black students. … > > Now, this complaint is factually wrong, … > > My purpose in posting this isn’t to defend the students, I think what they did was stupid too. **But to highlight how almost all stories of recreational outrage intentionally flatten the characters so they seem like they’re complaining about something dumber than they actually are and we shouldn’t feed into this clickbait media ecosystem.** (bolding mine) I’ve been waiting to see if there was some sort of back story to this. It is just about what I expected though. This is just a game, a weird game that makes idiots out of all the participants. The reaction to the incident is itself the problem. I’ll save the entire rant and stick to the basic points to remember - these are college students, professors, and administrators. They are all dumb as rocks. Don’t “Stay in school” until you “Learn to think”. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/119 "2020-09-05T16:53:45Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > Isn’t _negro_ the word for black in Spanish? (My source is two years of high school Spanish back in the 90s, FWIW) > > Not only that, Negra Modelo is a popular dark beer, especially in Mexico. > > And an excellent fig variety (bears heavily when still a small tree) is Petite Negra. > > There probably will be a reckoning about those two names before long. All those “bad words” come from Latin: > Nonne fuit satius tristis Amaryllidis iras > Atque superba pati fastidia, nonne Menalcan, > Quam vis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses ? > O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori ! > Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur. > [@GreenWyvern](#): > > The professor will get a rap over the knuckles for not understanding how dumb his students are. I guess that classical poetry is still OK, though. The students who can read Latin or Ugaritic or (classical) Chinese or Sanskrit are probably not the ones who will see you done in for sexual harassment or racism for mentioning Catullus. ---
**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:** [September 5, 2020, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/120 "2020-09-05T16:59:57Z")
This whole incident is also a consequence of hair-trigger culture, a shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality. Professor says something that sounds like N-word? Rush to jump to judgement, rather than thinking - maybe, in the context, he said something totally innocuous? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830.md?page=7)