Identify as American? You're, "problematic".

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

We are the only country on Earth with the word "America" in its official title.

True now, not in the past, perhaps not in the future.

[Lplus]

Originally Posted by Darat

Criticism of what?

The thinking behind the list.

[johnny karate]

I have trouble imagining how dedicated to being unhappy one must be to work this hard to find something to upset them.

[Ron Obvious]

Originally Posted by johnny karate

I have trouble imagining how dedicated to being unhappy one must be to work this hard to find something to upset them.

Agreed. And yet they do, coming up with lists of problematic words and nonsense like that.

[lobosrul5]

Originally Posted by catsmate

True now, not in the past, perhaps not in the future.

Isn't that true for every country in the world? If Nigeria changes its name to Canada, do Canadians need to change what the call themselves?

[johnny karate]

Originally Posted by Ron Obvious

Agreed. And yet they do, coming up with lists of problematic words and nonsense like that.

Can you show me on this doll where the list hurt you?

[ahhell]

Originally Posted by johnny karate

Can you show me on this doll where the list hurt you?

Can you show on the doll where the brown bag hurt you?

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

Isn't that true for every country in the world? If Nigeria changes its name to Canada, do Canadians need to change what the call themselves?

Canada Classic.

[Darat]

Originally Posted by Lplus

The thinking behind the list.

There is nothing that I have posted, nothing that even hints that I think criticism of the thinking behind the list should be cancelled.

[catsmate]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

Canada Classic.

Original Canada.

[chrispy]

Here in Guatemala, at least, it is far more common to hear people referred to as "estadounidense" rather than "americano", just for this very reason. It is commonly accepted that all in habitants of the Americas are Americans, so people from the USA are referred to by the former.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally Posted by catsmate

Original Canada.

Try the whole range! Canada Tropical, Canada Ranch, Canada Nacho Cheese, Canada Flavorblasted Red-Hot Zesty Pepper, and of course Newfoundland niche favorite Canada Cod.

Canada Diet turned out to be Minnesota and was removed from the shelves from lack of consumer interest.

eta: although realistically if there were a national soda meant to represent Canada it would definitely be ketchup flavor.

[Frank Newgent]

Originally Posted by chrispy

Here in Guatemala, at least, it is far more common to hear people referred to as "estadounidense" rather than "americano", just for this very reason. It is commonly accepted that all in habitants of the Americas are Americans, so people from the USA are referred to by the former.

^ this

[Frank Newgent]

Used to spend a lot of time in Mexico where puns are loved.

Funny to say not los Estados Unidos ie the United States but, rather, los Estados Hundidos or the Sunken States.

[Checkmite]

Originally Posted by chrispy

Here in Guatemala, at least, it is far more common to hear people referred to as "estadounidense" rather than "americano", just for this very reason. It is commonly accepted that all in habitants of the Americas are Americans, so people from the USA are referred to by the former.

In Honduras too. A Honduran friend of mine who arrived in the US by plane told me that it was a weird moment when the customs official or whomever it was that was checking people off the plane said "Welcome to America" as he was passed through. The official was obviously being pleasant, but it was a bit nonsensical to my friend, for that reason.

Now hearing that the thinking is the same in Guatemala, I suspect this is perhaps a common sentiment in Central and maybe even South America.

[ahhell]

There are legit racial slurs on this list but I have hard time imagining that people are routinely referred to as Pocahontas in the Stanford IT department.

This reminds of the whole micro aggression thing. Every example or list of potential micro aggressions I've seen always include straight up racist aggression as well as utter trivial nonsense.

[d4m10n]

Avoid "ladies" and "gentlemen" b/c such language "Lumps a group of people using gender binary language that doesn't include everyone."

Don't say a piece of research is "seminal" in its field because that "term reinforces male-dominated language."

Don't say "she...[u]nless you know the person you're addressing uses 'she' as their pronoun, it is better to use 'they' or to ask the person which pronouns they use." That said, don't ask for "preferred pronouns," because "[t]he word 'preferred' suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference."

Don't say "people of color" say "BIPOC" instead.

Don't say "tarball" for a .tar archive, b/c it reminds people of Song of the South.

Don't say "Karen" or "Pocahontas" unless that is literally someone's name.

[ahhell]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demony..._United_States

Basically, its some form of American in almost every language except Spanish. Many languages have academics and what not trying to change it to some term less encompassing of all folks from the Americas.

In my experience, most folks from Mexico and south don't refer to anyone as Americans, referring to themselves and others generally by the demonym of their nation of origin.

[lobosrul5]

Originally Posted by d4m10n

Avoid "ladies" and "gentlemen" b/c such language "Lumps a group of people using gender binary language that doesn't include everyone."

Don't say a piece of research is "seminal" in its field because that "term reinforces male-dominated language."

Don't say "she...[u]nless you know the person you're addressing uses 'she' as their pronoun, it is better to use 'they' or to ask the person which pronouns they use." That said, don't ask for "preferred pronouns," because "[t]he word 'preferred' suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference."

Don't say "people of color" say "BIPOC" instead.

Don't say "tarball" for a .tar archive, b/c it reminds people of Song of the South.

Don't say "Karen" or "Pocahontas" unless that is literally someone's name.

The highlighted is the only one that I'd be taken aback if someone said... unless of course they are referring to the actual Pocahontas or the cartoon. If you use it like Trump or to refer to a native American woman or women in general you are in the I'm a white supremacist category.

The tarball thing is... wtf is that a joke? Like the vast majority of people I've never even seen Song of the South since its very hard to even find a copy of.

Part of BIPOC is "people of color" so its OK to use an acronym containing the word "people of color" but not to say "people of color"...

[d4m10n]

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

The tarball thing is... wtf is that a joke?

Sort of, but only just; I threw in the movie reference myself. The guidance document says "While the term refers to an archive that has been created with the tar command, it can be negatively associated with the pejorative term tarbaby."

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

If you use it like Trump or to refer to a native American woman...

Other than Trump and his acolytes (rather few of whom I'd expect to see at Stanford) I've heard anyone do this.

I do think it's a pretty bad idea to make one person shorthand for an entire ethnicity.

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by d4m10n

Avoid "ladies" and "gentlemen" b/c such language "Lumps a group of people using gender binary language that doesn't include everyone."

Don't say a piece of research is "seminal" in its field because that "term reinforces male-dominated language."

Don't say "she...[u]nless you know the person you're addressing uses 'she' as their pronoun, it is better to use 'they' or to ask the person which pronouns they use." That said, don't ask for "preferred pronouns," because "[t]he word 'preferred' suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference."

Don't say "people of color" say "BIPOC" instead.

Don't say "tarball" for a .tar archive, b/c it reminds people of Song of the South.

Don't say "Karen" or "Pocahontas" unless that is literally someone's name.

Sounds good to me.

[Thermal]

It's a very good idea to avoid the term "gentleman", simply because it is often untrue, as not all guys are gentle, man. They may even take it as an affront to their masculinity. Addressing such a person as "violentman" is not only more honest, but gives the heads-up to others that if you start talking about otherkin gender stuff he will likely punch you in the mouth.

[d4m10n]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Sounds good to me.

Do you avoid "seminal" in your writing on account of an (etymological?) association with semen?

This strikes me as a something of a stretch.

[ahhell]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Sounds good to me.

Even tarball? Or Brown bag, or rule of thumb, user?

One of my issues with the sort of folks that create these sorts of lists, is they way they treat legit slurs and trivial or occasionally BS alleged slurs as though its all the same.

Seriously, the basically say there is no evidence that rule of thumb was ever mysogynist but just in case, don't use it.

[autumn1971]

Originally Posted by theprestige

I wonder how many Ukrainians are confused about which is the most important nation in the Americas.

I wonder how many immigrants and refugees from other parts of the Americas passed right through the nominal sanctuary state of Mexico, to seek a better tomorrow in the only country in the western hemisphere that really matters to them. I wonder how many of them are both students at Stanford, and also supremely butthurt that "America" doesn't give full respect to country they chose to leave behind.

Whose feelings, exactly, are being hurt here? I posit mostly rich white women, their simps, and the various ideological carpetbaggers.

Seems like your feelings are being really hurt.
To which of your self-described categories do you belong?

[autumn1971]

Originally Posted by Hercules56

Wokeism is a mental disorder.

No, believing that wokeism is anything other than mass hysteria over a silly thing taken seriously by a few hundred idiots on the left, but every idiot on the right, is a mental disorder.

[sackett]

Calling an attitude you don't like a mental disorder is

oh I'm just going to call it unhinged.

[jt512]

Originally Posted by ahhell

Even tarball? Or Brown bag, or rule of thumb, user?

One of my issues with the sort of folks that create these sorts of lists, is they way they treat legit slurs and trivial or occasionally BS alleged slurs as though its all the same.

The people who create these lists are administrators with 6-figure salaries at elite American universities, all of which are now woke, who have been hired to tell so-called minoritized people what terms they should be offended by and what terms they should prefer instead. Thus we have "Latinx," which Latinos overwhelmingly reject; "BIPOC," which nobody except privileged white people like; etc.

I wonder how many black linux users have ever associated the tarball file archive type with anything remotely racist.

[CORed]

Originally Posted by DevilsAdvocate

It appears this inclusion is the result of some laziness on the part of the Stanford University IT Community's Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative and on the part of old pot stirring by conservative media.

The document created by EFLI includes the sources of the entries on their list. The entry for "American" comes from an archived web page for XSEDE. The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment was a National Science Foundation project to provide digital resources to scientists and researchers. The Terminology Task Force published a terminology list with entries taken from a number of sources. The "American" entry was taken from a document created for the Inclusive Communications Task Force at Colorado State University.

That Inclusive Language Guide was published by the university newspaper where it then was frequently referenced by conservative media as an example of liberals gone crazy with political correctness. The university then explained that the document was draft document created by a small group of students as possible proposals to a language guide and that the group itself had rejected that entry prior to submission and therefore was never adopted a policy by the university.

The frequent references to the document by conservative media no doubt caused the document to frequently appear when searching for official academic terminology lists, and some of the entries made it on to other lists such as XSEDE which then carried over to the ELHI list.

Stanford has since issued a statement that the document is not official university policy at that the term "American" is not prohibited or even discouraged and that the entry is only included because it may be imprecise in some contexts. I think Stanford is backpedaling and looking for excuses for an entry that was only included by virtue of the path I described. But they certainly never said that it was "problematic" for someone to "identify" as "American".

As others have pointed out, the terms "America" and "American" can be problematic. If I recall correctly, when the Politics section was split it was initially called "USAian Politics" for that very reason until people complained that the name was too silly. My recollection of discussion at the time was that people in South and Central America and some other countries find "America" and "American" to be odd and somewhat confusing because in some other language the name of the country is always a translation of "United States" and "America" is used to refer toa continent or set of continents.

It is a problematic word due to potential ambiguity, but there are not really any effective practical alternatives other than specifying what is meant by the term within a certain context. I think the list should be updated to either remove the entry altogether or at least specify that the issue is ambiguity rather than some sense of superiority and eliminate the rather impractical suggestion of US citizen" as an alternative.

Otherwise--meh. Tempest in a teapot.

So, conservative media picked up on a rather foolish document put together by some college students, which never had any official status, in order to demonstrate that universities, and liberals in general for that matter, hate America? Business as usual for them. Straight out of Rush Limbaugh's playbook, as picked up by Fox News and many others.

[autumn1971]

Originally Posted by CORed

So, conservative media picked up on a rather foolish document put together by some college students, which never had any official status, in order to demonstrate that universities, and liberals in general for that matter, hate America? Business as usual for them. Straight out of Rush Limbaugh's playbook, as picked up by Fox News and many others.

Stop, the right-wing snowflakes must not be upset! It’s hurts their sense of entitlement.
Which is pretty much the sum total of their feelings

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by CORed

So, conservative media picked up on a rather foolish document put together by some college students, which never had any official status, in order to demonstrate that universities, and liberals in general for that matter, hate America? Business as usual for them. Straight out of Rush Limbaugh's playbook, as picked up by Fox News and many others.

Exactly. The Right loves making tempests in teacups.

This is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[ahhell]

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Exactly. The Right loves making tempests in teacups.

This is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

How is complaining about someone saying you shouldn't say "brown bag" any more a tempest in a tea pot than the person saying you shouldn't say brown bag in the in first place?

Somewhat confoluted way of saying, the left is the first side to pretend this is a tempest in the first place, then folks on that side act like they didn't do it in the first place.

Now, what is the tempest in the teapot from the right? "Hey, look at this dumb thing the lefties are doing?" Tell me something, is this list defensible? Not just some, parts, all of it? Defend the notion that you shouldn't say any idiom using black as a metaphor? Brown bag? Things with false etymolgies? Is this list reasonable? If so, you might have a point.

Related side note, why is it there is this element of the left that does seem to think words are so important. Its the whole words are violence set as well as the folks that think person centered language matters. As an example, Colored vs People of Color vs BIPOC. Why is it some folks on the left are so fixated on language usage?

[arthwollipot]

Originally Posted by ahhell

How is complaining about someone saying you shouldn't say "brown bag" any more a tempest in a tea pot than the person saying you shouldn't say brown bag in the in first place?

Somewhat confoluted way of saying, the left is the first side to pretend this is a tempest in the first place, then folks on that side act like they didn't do it in the first place.

Now, what is the tempest in the teapot from the right? "Hey, look at this dumb thing the lefties are doing?" Tell me something, is this list defensible? Not just some, parts, all of it? Defend the notion that you shouldn't say any idiom using black as a metaphor? Brown bag? Things with false etymolgies? Is this list reasonable? If so, you might have a point.

Related side note, why is it there is this element of the left that does seem to think words are so important. Its the whole words are violence set as well as the folks that think person centered language matters. As an example, Colored vs People of Color vs BIPOC. Why is it some folks on the left are so fixated on language usage?

Some folks on both sides are fixated on language usage. But it's utterly irrelevant, because language will evolve in the ways in which it involves without regard to what some extremists think is the latest linguistic outrage.

It's nothing. It's ignorable. At best, it's a distraction from human rights issues, which are what really matter.

[Checkmite]

Originally Posted by CORed

So, conservative media picked up on a rather foolish document put together by some college students, which never had any official status, in order to demonstrate that universities, and liberals in general for that matter, hate America? Business as usual for them. Straight out of Rush Limbaugh's playbook, as picked up by Fox News and many others.

We go now to a breaking story out of Pennsylvania where an Adams Elementary School student council presidential candidate has vowed to END HOMEWORK in exchange for votes, in yet another sadly predictable example of corrupt LIBERAL policies destroying American schools...

[mgidm86]

As if Republicans want an educated public who can see through their bullcrap.

[jt512]

Originally Posted by CORed

So, conservative media picked up on a rather foolish document put together by some college students, which never had any official status, in order to demonstrate that universities, and liberals in general for that matter, hate America? Business as usual for them. Straight out of Rush Limbaugh's playbook, as picked up by Fox News and many others.

Originally Posted by arthwollipot

Exactly. The Right loves making tempests in teacups.

What is a standard tactic is the woke playing down the significance of everything they do. The ploy is, unfortunately, effective. Outside of academia, to the extent that anyone is aware of the woke movement, they think it is harmless and silly, when, in fact it is an existential threat to the Enlightenment values that are responsible for the progress democratic societies have made in every aspect of life.

[Parsman]

Originally Posted by sackett

Yeah, well, when you're crossing into Canadia (see my location? we do that a lot) an American had better answer "US" respectfully when the border guard asks for your nationality.

Border guards have way too much power. Anywhere in the world.

Just be happy the Canadians haven't built their wall (yet) and made you Americans pay for it!

[Rocket_Scientist]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

Try the whole range! Canada Tropical, Canada Ranch, Canada Nacho Cheese, Canada Flavorblasted Red-Hot Zesty Pepper, and of course Newfoundland niche favorite Canada Cod.

Canada Diet turned out to be Minnesota and was removed from the shelves from lack of consumer interest.

eta: although realistically if there were a national soda meant to represent Canada it would definitely be ketchup flavor.

Sparkling Heinz?

[Steve]

Originally Posted by sackett

Yeah, well, when you're crossing into Canadia (see my location? we do that a lot) an American had better answer "US" respectfully when the border guard asks for your nationality.

Border guards have way too much power. Anywhere in the world.

A power bestowed by their respective governments, and deemed appropriate by those governments. Perhaps you are saying that governments have too much power in their own countries? Or perhaps that foreigners should have more say in how border guards do their jobs?

[Darat]

Originally Posted by jt512

What is a standard tactic is the woke playing down the significance of everything they do. The ploy is, unfortunately, effective. Outside of academia, to the extent that anyone is aware of the woke movement, they think it is harmless and silly, when, in fact it is an existential threat to the Enlightenment values that are responsible for the progress democratic societies have made in every aspect of life.