No … I have not started writing for the satirical publication, The Onion – although this would be a fitting commentary if it were a joke. But it is more of the kind of insanity that emirates from the radical left that holds hegemony over academia.
In yet another example of hyper anti-racism racism, the University of Southern California has banished the word “field” to the lexicon recycle bin – at least as it refers to a professional career. No one works in the “field” of medicine … or law … or even academia … according to the University.
In explaining their inexplicable decision, the University issued a statement saying that “the change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language that would be considered anti-Black or anti-immigrant in favour (sic) of inclusive language.” (Note the use of the British spelling. How sophisticated of them. They want to define the American lexicon and do not even use it. Geez!!)
The letter continued: “Language can be powerful, and phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘field work’ maybe have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers that are not benign.”
The letter explained that the University wanted to “reject white supremacy, anti-immigrant and anti-blackness ideologies.”
The nutcase microaggression theorists of academia have decided that (follow the logic) … that slaves worked in farm fields, therefore the word is offensive to the descendants of black folks – descendants who have never worked the fields as slaves and have never had a face-to-face relationship with anyone who did.
In the isolated from realty world of the Southern Cal campus, they proclaim that the term “field of study” shall be replaced with the Latin word … (drum roll, please) … “practicum.”
(Only the occupants of the ivory towers of academia seem unaware of the fact that Latin is a dead language. Doctors writing prescriptions and Catholics attending mass have given up Latin generations ago. Southern Cal would have been wiser to use pig-Latin – in which case “field of Study” would have been eeled fay ef o tudy say. I know, I am getting silly – but no sillier than the folks at Southern Cal.)
So, in yet another insane bow to political correctness and identity polices – two concepts destroying American E Pluribus Unum (🡨 good Latin) by creating divisive tribalism.
One Southern Cal alum wrote, “What’s next, banning the wearing of clothes made of cotton?”
But my favorite alumni recommendation was: “They should drop ‘Southern’ from University of Southern California because it reminds people of slavery.”
A lot of slaves were known as “house slaves.” If you think like the folks as Southern Cal, the words “house,” housework” … and the “house” of representatives” should be added to the banned list.
But getting back to the idiocy-at-hand, what do we do about football fields … farm fields … and Mrs. Fields’ Cookies?
No … despite their arm-wrenching self-pat on the back, the University of Southern California is not eliminating social friction. They are causing more of it. They have taken a perfectly fine word that carries no negative connotations and weaponized it to create a friction between the crazies and the hypersensitive on the left and the vast majority of rational Americans. Just another piece of political cheese we can fight over. Good going, Southern Cal.
So, there ‘tis.