University of Michigan's IT department suggests terms like ‘picnic’ and ‘brown bag’ are offensive

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Sure is crazy. Meanwhile, while those with too much time on their hands worry about such nonsense, people worldwide are suffering economically and dying from the coronavirus as well as famine, disease, and natural disasters.
 
This grab for people controlling the language of other people because THEY THEMSELVES deem it as racist must be rejected.

Everyone knows these (academic) people look for excuses to see racism everywhere because the new religion of calling someone racist is a way to control people and society which unnecessarily divides and demeans people.

It is a madness that grows and has grown to ultimately affect society across all levels of human interaction, goodness and intelligence.

Students at the University of Michigan as well as other universities, schools, government departments, private companies etc should be defended against this insane and divisive religion.
 
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This sounds a bit dated. These types of suggestions have been floating around for years. Since then, instead of having “brown bags” we’ve had “lunch and learns.” Instead of “picnics” we have had BBQs. Instead of “master and alave” we shifted to “primary and secondary.” So on…
 
This kind of remedy-searching-for-a-disease approach also cheapens and demeans the very real racial and sexual epithets by making people hypersensitive to the least microaggressions. There are even workshops today at college campuses on the latter. And such flailing attempts at riling people to no end by means of focusing on the smallest indiscretion or off-color remark is accompanied by frowning upon ethnic humor (including people of the same ethnic group poking fun at their own members) and upon any kind of humor at all. A show such as Seinfeld could NEVER have had any success in today’s climate. It would have been immediately censored as being insensitive to every group.
 
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I agree. Somewhere along the line we have stopped judging people by their intrinsic goodness, their reflection of God as you will, and instead judging them by other criteria.

I think we get a better society by treating everyone with respect as long as there is goodness in their hearts.

Of course there are times to speak up but i think we do it too many times today and use the wrong criteria.
 
ok general rant now.

There are people who i have and do socialise with who act in certain ways which i don’t really like. Some of them act in the extreme but i think even those should be judged in their reflection of God. That is not to agree with behaviour but offer an alternative if there is goodness in the other person.

Some people i meet are overly aggressive, loud, swear a lot and use racial perjoritives like n***er.

I see the good in these people even if my personality is exactly the opposite of this. If they had venom in their hearts then i wouldn’t socialise with them. Many of these people have a military background and so i understand that they have had experiences that i can’t really understand.

Often i think this brash nature is a shield for an inner insecurity because it keeps other people at arms length.

I like to befriend these people and while they are loud and swearing and cussing the world and using racial pejoratives i just smile and be polite, find common understandings where we can and not disparage anyone (except the Left, i can’t help that).

I find that if i see the good in them very often they will calm down and quietly come and apologise for certain things like being aggressive or saying the word n****er even though i haven’t said anything.

Very often they will want to be friends even though i am opposite to them in many ways because i am ignoring the loud facade and judging them on their inner goodness, even if it has trouble expressing itself.

I think this is a world away from looking to condemn people as is said with a cure looking for the disease.

Last night for example i went out playing pool and a guy who used to be tank commander came in with two other people i know and as usual he was aggressive (in general but not personally) swearing and very loud. That is just his way or how he has learned to be.

The two friends that i play pool with left because of him but i stayed and played pool with him, treated him well but met his loud and swearing manner with softness, politeness with no apology or backward step but also in a friendly manner. Instead of being intimidated or shocked or offended i knew that he was the odd man out in the room and that he knew it despite the bluster.

I think this is a much better reaction than immediately ostracising him and telling him all about his transgressions.

Somewhere along the line we have adopted a harsh judgmental way of viewing people that is mistakenly called inclusion, compassion and tolerance.
 
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ThinkingSapien said:
This sounds a bit dated. These types of suggestions have been floating around for years. Since then, instead of having “brown bags” we’ve had “lunch and learns.” Instead of “picnics” we have had BBQs. Instead of “master and alave” we shifted to “primary and secondary.” So on…
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??
I’ve heard the terms “brown bag” and “picnic” in workplaces and professional contexts right up to this day. These are enlightened major international corporations as well, such as my current employer which has an annual “picnic”. “Lunch and learn” can be helpful given that many employees nowadays do not bring lunch, rather they would buy it at the cafeteria or nowadays even eat it at home while they’re watching Zoom.

I’m not sure if “Master-slave” is still used at all in the programming context, but when discussing spam and filtering there’s certainly still “blacklists” and “whitelists”.
 
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Oh well, we evil white people. Apparently Black people fear being lynched by the white people at a picnic. Although in the article it says that the term “picnic” means that"burning black flesh" is"on the menu".
So does the term “lynching” also mean that people were burned (alive?). And that us evil white people are cannibals and we’re going to eat the black people? In this case it seems like “BBQ” should also be expunged.

 
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Reuters has already published an article explaining that “picnic” is from a French word that has zero to do with lynching or race.

I suppose next Yogi Bear will be banned for his constant discussion of “pic-a-nic” baskets.

Sometimes it’s best to just ignore this stuff when it’s downright silly. Also, universities are likely to be the silliest places on earth when it comes to what’s PC.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m not sure if “Master-slave” is still used at all in the programming context, but when discussing spam and filtering there’s certainly still “blacklists” and “whitelists”.
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I still hear blacklist and whitelist. I think the shortness of the words helps them win out in competition against polysyllabic phrases. “Prohibited list” just does not roll off the tounge the same way.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Reuters has already published an article explaining that “picnic” is from a French word that has zero to do with lynching or race.

I suppose next Yogi Bear will be banned for his constant discussion of “pic-a-nic” baskets.

Sometimes it’s best to just ignore this stuff when it’s downright silly. Also, universities are likely to be the silliest places on earth when it comes to what’s PC.
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Correct, it acknowledges that the term didn’t originate from lynchings, but that you could describe the atmosphere of some lynchings as “picnic-like”.

https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN24E21V
 
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That is a problem with the lynching, not a problem with the benign concept of a picnic. People have had millions of picnics before, during, and after the era of lynchings that had no violent overtone.

With apologies for the Godwin’s Law reference, Nazis celebrated Christmas too, but we don’t stop having it or stop using the word.
 
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Jen95 said:
Apparently Black people fear being lynched by the white people at a picnic.
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Fear? No. If I were to invite someone to a “picnic” they would probably respond with an inquiry for the details, not with fear.
Tis_Bearself said:
Sometimes it’s best to just ignore this stuff when it’s downright silly. Also, universities are likely to be the silliest places on earth when it comes to what’s PC.
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Here on CAF I think I am seen as left leaning. On some campuses, I get the impression I would be seen as conservative. On some other campuses I think they may see me as "a bigot "or sexist if they observe me long enough (I am far more liky to hold a door open for a woman than a man, and I am far more likely to refer to so.eone’s perceived sex than their chosen gender). I just need to make it to retirement. Once I am out of the corporate game, I’ve got little reason to care about some of the evolving rules of language usage.
 
It is easier for the university to just not use a word like “Picnic” than to have to deal with some radical new young professor (we’ve all seen how crazy university faculty can be) and 10 student activists having a protest in the quad over its use. I get it from a risk-mitigation standpoint for them. However, the rest of the world is going to roll its eyes.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
I’m not sure if “Master-slave” is still used at all in the programming context
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I can assure you it is.
I was and am still using such.
Right up to last week I was dealing with a client that was using older drives and software, and the master/slave drive convention was alive and well.
Likewise, I have another client that has slave printers connected to his terminals.
 
vz71 said:
I was and am still using such.
Right up to last week I was dealing with a client that was using older drives and software, and the master/slave drive convention was alive and well.
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Is that computer using an IDE interface? I don’t think the term applies to drives using SATA and PCIe interfaces.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
Is that computer using an IDE interface?
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Yes.
The client was a programmer wanting his first computer running. Guess it was nostalgia to him.
Of course, I still have others that are likewise running configurations that have master/slave setups…and they are in a business environment.
 
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