Just when you think the campus political correctness police have just about outlawed every harmless expression known to man, (er, excuse me — humankind), they come up with a new way to be offended.
The latest phrase — I kid you not — is “long time, no see.”
Writing for the Rocky Mountain Collegian campus newspaper, Colorado State University student columnist Katrina Leibee explains: “In a meeting with Zahra Al-Saloom, the director of Diversity and Inclusion at Associated Students of Colorado State University, she showed me an entire packet of words and phrases that were deemed non-inclusive. One of these phrases was ‘long time, no see,’ which is viewed as derogatory towards those of Asian descent.”
Now while most normal people might just take the phrase to mean “hey, I haven’t see you in a while,” leave it to the folks who see everything through the lenses of racism and identity politics to determine the phrase is offensive.
Leibee’s Nov. 4 column adds that phrase isn’t the only one she was told is problematic by diversity officials’ standards:
We were told that the popular term “you guys” was not inclusive of all genders, and we should instead replace it with “y’all.” We were told to use the term “first-year” instead of “freshman,” because “freshman” is not inclusive of all genders.
After getting involved in residential leadership, I was told not to use the word “dorms,” and replace it with “residence halls.” Apparently, dorm refers to only a place where one sleeps, and residence hall refers to a place where we sleep, eat, study and participate in social activities.
A countless amount of words and phrases have been marked with a big, red X and defined as non-inclusive. It has gotten to the point where students should carry around a dictionary of words they cannot say.
Give Leibee credit for calling out the absurdity she has witnessed on her campus. She is brave enough to take a stand against the wave of over-the-top political correctness that has a strong and growing vice-like grip on higher education.
What campus officials try to instill in these young people by grooming them to watch what they say and never say anything even remotely offensive (even if it’s not offensive) is linked to a more insidious effort by the Left to silence voices with which they disagree — not only on campuses, but in the political realm as well.
Leibee’s example from Colorado State University is far from an outlier. One would be hard-pressed to find any campus in America that does not have some sort of “inclusive language” campaign that warns students what they are and are not allowed to say.
We need more students to take a stand against this nonsense. Hats off to Leibee for doing her part. (Hopefully the term “hats off” hasn’t been deemed offensive to anyone yet).
“We should all consider the possibility that these words were not a problem until we made them a problem,” Leibee wrote. “These phrases were not exclusive until we decided they were. Ultimately, the word ‘freshman’ is never going to go away just because CSU has decided it should.”
Read her full column here.
READ MORE about campus “inclusive language” campaigns nationwide here.
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