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USC professor suspended for mentioning the Chinese word for "um" because it sounds like the English N-word

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DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

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Oct 25, 2017
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A business professor at USC is no longer teaching his communications course after Black students complained that a Chinese-language example he used during class sounded like a racial slur and harmed their mental health.
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Marshall School of Business professor Greg Patton was giving a Zoom lesson in his "Communication for Management" class on Aug. 20. The course, a three-week intensive, is part of the core requirements for first-year master's of business administration students.

Patton's resume describes him as "an expert in communication, interpersonal and leadership effectiveness" who has taught and led programs in the Pacific Rim for more than 20 years.

That day's lesson focused on building confidence and improving presentation skills, according to a class syllabus. When Patton, who is white, began discussing the use of filler words like "um" and "er" in speech, he offered an international example.
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"Like in China the common word is 'that' — 'that, that, that, that,'" he said, according to video recordings of the class circulated on social media. "So in China it might be 'nèi ge' — 'nèi ge, nèi ge, nèi ge.' So there's different words that you'll hear in different countries, but they're vocal disfluencies."

Patton was referring to 那个，which in Mandarin is commonly pronounced nèi ge (NAY-guh) or nà ge (NAH-guh). He was using the former pronunciation.
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To some students, the word sounded like the N-word in English. The next day a group of Black master's candidates in the class of 2022 wrote a letter to Marshall Dean Geoffrey Garrett.

"There are over 10,000 characters in the Chinese written language and to use this phrase ... is hurtful and unacceptable to our USC Marshall community," the letter said. "The negligence and disregard displayed by our professor was very clear."

The students said their mental health had been affected and they were unable to focus on their studies.

"To expect that we will sit through two more weeks of this class, knowing that the professor lacks the tact, racial awareness and empathy to lead and teach an audience as diverse as ours is unacceptable," they wrote.
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More at:
www.latimes.com

Controversy over USC professor's use of Chinese word that sounds like racial slur in English

A USC professor was asked to step away from teaching his class after students complained that an example he gave in Mandarin sounded like a racial slur.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com

Lock if hurt
 

Deleted member 23212

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DanteMenethil

DanteMenethil

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Oct 25, 2017
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Oheao said:
www.resetera.com

USC Communications Professor Placed On Leave after Using Chinese Word That Sounds Like Racial Slur

https://news.yahoo.com/usc-communications-professor-placed-leave-172039179.html Can't find a better source than National Review or Reason (ugh) but if anyone can find it please reply. Thanks! This case is definitely something that could be weaponized by right-wing "reasonable" people (including...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com
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read the op, its new news.

On topic, I find this abbhorent and imperialistic of Chinese culture from American culture.
 
Aureon

Aureon

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,819
The usual USA thing about utterly refusing to even acknowledge other languages and cultures, honestly.

I mean most language pairs have two or three of this, where a word sounds a lot like something extremely offending in your language, but it's not your language and you damn ignore it


It reminds me of a scene decently common in Rome with tourists - somebody says "Dai, dai, dai" (prounounced 'die die die') - which means roughly "come on, go go go" either as a good wish or to hurry somebody along - and some exclusive anglospeaker goes "WHY ARE YOU WISHING ME DEATH"
 

Deleted member 68874

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May 10, 2020
10,441
Yikes at them saying their mental health was harmed. They'd better avoid ever going to China or they'll have full blown mental breakdowns.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
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Oct 26, 2017
60,084
This is the type of stuff that the Ben Shapiro/Prager/Dave Rubin types salivate for.
 
Threadkular

Threadkular

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Dec 29, 2017
2,416
I admittedly found it a little jarring when I first met my wife's family who spoke Mandarin, but once I learned what they were saying I realized "the problem was me" and saw the humor in it.
 
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