Faculty Policing Each Other

[mahagonny]

[waring: rant to follow. I guess that's what I do]

https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/04/02/recommendations-stopping-anti-asian-racism-campuses-opinion

"Recognize that language is an intimate and deeply personal form of communication. The way people speak and the language that they prefer to speak in are often crucial facets of their identity. So avoid comments that convey judgment or impute value around Asian people's fluency in English, even if said as a compliment. When you see others remarking on community members' fluency in English or their "lack of accent," inform those individuals that this not acceptable. Ask them to reflect on whether they would offer the same observation to someone who is not Asian or a person of color."

I'm a little confused by this from the get-go. Speaking English well while enrolled as a student in the USA has practical value, so giving someone credit for having done it might be information they would like to have. They probably already know it, but when did complimenting people become a faux pas? And the question 'would they (you) offer the same observation to someone who is not Asian or a person of color' is really quite a problematic question. Would I compliment a black or white American from Atlanta on his proper English? Of course not. But there's a reason which is not the case with the Asian from Korea. It's not a second language so having it down is not, presumably, a recent achievement for which one would could have earned a pat on the back. And what difference would it make that the young man from Atlanta is white or a P.O.C.? Like, can we have a discussion where race isn't mentioned in every other sentence, for no discernible reason?
Elephant in the room: I have taught Asian students who speak English very poorly, and it makes a difference.
The real fast-forward *progress in education* is where they require faculty to police each other about remarks that the two authors here identify as inappropriate (though my school has not, as yet). My religion doesn't allow for that, frankly. We are all considered flawed in the eyes of the Almightly. So developing supersonic radar to detect telltale signs of whatever somebody somewhere thinks might be related to a racially oriented world view that lurks ominously in the middle of a friendly compliment is not our job. A person's business of getting redemption is between him and our God.
Race is not even part of the story. The fact that someone learned a second language and uses that skill to increase their education options is. If anything, the American could be complaining that you're playing favorites.
And now we're even farther from the supposed impact of all of this on whether there might be another mass murder.
Any thoughts?

[polly_mer]

My thought is you need a hobby.  Have you consider latch hook or rock collecting?

[mahagonny]

My thought is you need a hobby.  Have you consider latch hook or rock collecting?

Or maybe I need to lose one. Reading Insidehighered or chronicle.com, for example. Each one now has the latest from academics-seeing-the-world-through-white-supremacy-colored-glasses. Getting ridiculous.
I did enjoy earth science but there are no rocks in the city.

[polly_mer]

My thought is you need a hobby.  Have you consider latch hook or rock collecting?

Or maybe I need to lose one. Reading Insidehighered or chronicle.com, for example. Each one now has the latest from academics-seeing-the-world-through-white-supremacy-colored-glasses. Getting ridiculous.
I did enjoy earth science but there are no rocks in the city.

Field trip for rock collecting!

I have definitely scaled back my CHE and IHE reading in favor of Twitter threads discussing higher ed issues through data and research on how to better serve students with complicated lives, adjust offerings for a changing modern society, and gracefully transition graduate-degree holders to good jobs that aren't faculty jobs.

That kind of productive discussion was mostly at CHE/IHE in various forms over the years.  However, with the deletion of IHE comments and deletion of all forms of discussion at CHE as well as far less useful mixes of column topics, I've moved away from reading nearly everything in IHE/CHE most days.

[Hegemony]

The reason for not complimenting someone on their English is that it is patronizing and it implies that you didn't expect them to be competent in English.

Those are the reasons for if you really want to understand. If you just want to be offended, I think you've already achieved that, so mission accomplished.

[Parasaurolophus]

The reason for not complimenting someone on their English is that it is patronizing and it implies that you didn't expect them to be competent in English.

Those are the reasons for if you really want to understand. If you just want to be offended, I think you've already achieved that, so mission accomplished.

Yes. And it's even worse when you do it to someone who's actually a native speaker.

I can't even begin to count the number of times that's happened to me, all while the idiot who's "complimenting" me is busy mangling my name despite the fact that after a mandatory eleven years of language instruction they should know a little better.

(I'm white, by the way. But I pass for some non-specific other race, most often Asian.)

[smallcleanrat]

.....
The real fast-forward *progress in education* is where they require faculty to police each other about remarks that the two authors here identify as inappropriate (though my school has not, as yet). My religion doesn't allow for that, frankly. We are all considered flawed in the eyes of the Almightly. So developing supersonic radar to detect telltale signs of whatever somebody somewhere thinks might be related to a racially oriented world view that lurks ominously in the middle of a friendly compliment is not our job. A person's business of getting redemption is between him and our God.
.....

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. I mean, I get you saying you wouldn't want to participate in penalizing someone for an action you perceive as completely harmless.

But what do you mean when you say your religion doesn't allow for "policing" others in the sense of reporting them to some authority? Like...for anything? Or specifically for actions you don't see as harmful?

I mean, would you report a colleague if you saw them committing theft or vandalism or some act of physical violence?

[ergative]

The reason for not complimenting someone on their English is that it is patronizing and it implies that you didn't expect them to be competent in English.

Those are the reasons for if you really want to understand. If you just want to be offended, I think you've already achieved that, so mission accomplished.

Yes. And it's even worse when you do it to someone who's actually a native speaker.

I can't even begin to count the number of times that's happened to me, all while the idiot who's "complimenting" me is busy mangling my name despite the fact that after a mandatory eleven years of language instruction they should know a little better.

(I'm white, by the way. But I pass for some non-specific other race, most often Asian.)

'Oh, thanks--yes my English should be unaccented, given that I was born and brought up in Peoria. Good to know you think I don't look like it, though.'

'Oh, wow--I've been working on that speech impediment my entire life. I thought I had it licked, but evidently I didn't because you thought it was necessary to comment on how my pronunciation doesn't sound right.'

[mahagonny]

I have definitely scaled back my CHE and IHE reading in favor of Twitter threads discussing higher ed issues through data and research on how to better serve students with complicated lives, adjust offerings for a changing modern society, and gracefully transition graduate-degree holders to good jobs that aren't faculty jobs.

That kind of productive discussion was mostly at CHE/IHE in various forms over the years.  However, with the deletion of IHE comments and deletion of all forms of discussion at CHE as well as far less useful mixes of column topics, I've moved away from reading nearly everything in IHE/CHE most days.

Sounds like you notice the article I linked is 100 data-free. That's becoming more common.

The reason for not complimenting someone on their English is that it is patronizing and it implies that you didn't expect them to be competent in English.

'

The reason for being thought to expect little of members of another race is you're a white supremacist. Another one busted! In reality, actually having learned English, even poorly, could well identify one as a striver.

'Oh, wow--I've been working on that speech impediment my entire life. I thought I had it licked, but evidently I didn't because you thought it was necessary to comment on how my pronunciation doesn't sound right.'

We're not talking about impediments. We're talking about endeavors.

.....
The real fast-forward *progress in education* is where they require faculty to police each other about remarks that the two authors here identify as inappropriate (though my school has not, as yet). My religion doesn't allow for that, frankly. We are all considered flawed in the eyes of the Almightly. So developing supersonic radar to detect telltale signs of whatever somebody somewhere thinks might be related to a racially oriented world view that lurks ominously in the middle of a friendly compliment is not our job. A person's business of getting redemption is between him and our God.
.....

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. I mean, I get you saying you wouldn't want to participate in penalizing someone for an action you perceive as completely harmless.

But what do you mean when you say your religion doesn't allow for "policing" others in the sense of reporting them to some authority? Like...for anything? Or specifically for actions you don't see as harmful?

I mean, would you report a colleague if you saw them committing theft or vandalism or some act of physical violence?

I would report someone for that.
The new liberal orthodoxy says all racism is evil, but only racism residing in the psyche of the white man or woman is consequential enough that we need to do something about it. Or even acknowledge that it's there. That's an original sin concept. When I go to church, we confess our sins, together, but we're not talking to each other. We're talking to Him. I should ask forgiveness of a neighbor if I say or do something wrong to him, but why on earth would I ask forgiveness from him for my inherent nature? He's got the same problem I have. It's between him and his God.
The new anti-racism training will tell you that in a private conversation if a colleague says something that shows inadequate attention to anti-racism objectives and protocol, as regards changing ourselves, you must correct him. That goes too far for me. I might not do it.

[ergative]

The reason for not complimenting someone on their English is that it is patronizing and it implies that you didn't expect them to be competent in English.

'

The reason for being thought to expect little of members of another race is you're a white supremacist. Another one busted! In reality, actually having learned English, even poorly, could well identify one as a striver.

'Oh, wow--I've been working on that speech impediment my entire life. I thought I had it licked, but evidently I didn't because you thought it was necessary to comment on how my pronunciation doesn't sound right.'

We're not talking about impediments. We're talking about endeavors.

I think we're talking at cross purposes here. Your interpretation of the value of compliments rests on the assumption that you can always correctly identify whether some is a striver, who works hard to master a new language and deserves be praised for it.

What we're suggesting is that those identifications may not always be correct. A person may appear to you to be such language-learning striver, but is in fact just some Asian-American kid from Peoria who has a speech impediment. When you compliment them on their English, they don't hear a compliment. They hear another reminder that they don't look like someone who speaks English, and that their attempt to work past a speech impediment was not successful. Of course, that's not what you intended to say--you had no idea they had a speech impediment, and you only intended to be encouraging. But the encouragement was built on a false premise, so what they hear is: 'you don't look like you're from around here; you don't sound like you're a native English speaker; and I feel entitled to comment on it.'

It's like an earlier discussion we had about complimenting women's hair or clothes or appearance: Maybe much of the time the complimenter is correctly reading the situation, and the women's like having their efforts to look nice be noticed and praised. Maybe much of the time the non-native English speaker likes being complimented on their linguistic attainment.

But when you read the situation wrong, then you do harm. Women feel objectified; minorities feel unwelcome in their own homes. And I argue that the harm that is done by implying that the kid from Peoria with a lisp can't possibly be who they are, because they look and sound 'wrong', far outweighs the momentary pleasure that the Korean student feels at a compliment.

Possibly what's going on is that the two sides of the argument simply don't agree on this relative weighting: People on my side think that the harm that comes from speaking from flawed assumptions is greater than the benefit of a well-aimed compliment. Perhaps you think that the benefit of a well-aimed compliment is worth the harm that it causes when it is aimed poorly. If that's the case, I don't see that we can every come to an agreement. There's no conflicting information here; we agree on the facts; we just disagree on what's more important.

[marshwiggle]

Possibly what's going on is that the two sides of the argument simply don't agree on this relative weighting: People on my side think that the harm that comes from speaking from flawed assumptions is greater than the benefit of a well-aimed compliment. Perhaps you think that the benefit of a well-aimed compliment is worth the harm that it causes when it is aimed poorly. If that's the case, I don't see that we can every come to an agreement. There's no conflicting information here; we agree on the facts; we just disagree on what's more important.

But this raises the serious question of whether that could be the case with any compliment. If you tell a student "That was an excellent presentation!" it implies you were expecting less. In principle, any indication that someone exceeded expectations implies that it was assumed that they wouldn't do that well.

[ergative]

Possibly what's going on is that the two sides of the argument simply don't agree on this relative weighting: People on my side think that the harm that comes from speaking from flawed assumptions is greater than the benefit of a well-aimed compliment. Perhaps you think that the benefit of a well-aimed compliment is worth the harm that it causes when it is aimed poorly. If that's the case, I don't see that we can every come to an agreement. There's no conflicting information here; we agree on the facts; we just disagree on what's more important.

But this raises the serious question of whether that could be the case with any compliment. If you tell a student "That was an excellent presentation!" it implies you were expecting less. In principle, any indication that someone exceeded expectations implies that it was assumed that they wouldn't do that well.

I think that in this particular case there's no problem: our role as a professional is to evaluate our students' work. By contrast, it is not our role as humans to evaluate our fellow humans' perceived fit into society.

[Ruralguy]

I'm with Polly here....collect rocks.  Sketch buildings. Write a trashy novel. Learn an instrument. Take up investing and cash out your bitcoin and live high off the hog.

[Cheerful]

https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2021/04/02/recommendations-stopping-anti-asian-racism-campuses-opinion

"Recognize that language is an intimate and deeply personal form of communication. The way people speak and the language that they prefer to speak in are often crucial facets of their identity. So avoid comments that convey judgment or impute value around Asian people's fluency in English, even if said as a compliment. When you see others remarking on community members' fluency in English or their "lack of accent," inform those individuals that this not acceptable. Ask them to reflect on whether they would offer the same observation to someone who is not Asian or a person of color."
Any thoughts?

I didn't read the article, only the quote.  The quote is humorous.  Such a simplistic attempt to generalize, it's silly.  I'll say what, when, and to whom I want, according to my values and judgments regarding appropriate conduct.

I work with many students for whom English is not their first language.  Many are insecure/embarrassed/concerned about their English communication skills and "confess" such to me directly.  In some cases, their English is quite good and easy to understand.  In other cases, I've seen students improve dramatically over a semester or two.  When I say "your English is very good, I appreciate your comments in class" or "Your English has really improved, you're doing great!" their faces light up with joy and gratitude and they express sincere thanks for the compliments.  Priceless to see the impact a few nice words can have on another person.

Disrespectful of people to call out Mahagonny for posting higher ed news items in a higher ed forum.  Looks like all are not welcome here.  Why not just scroll on by rather than snide comments?

[spork]

I'm with Polly here....collect rocks.  Sketch buildings. Write a trashy novel. Learn an instrument. Take up investing and cash out your bitcoin and live high off the hog.

Not possible. He's decided it's psychologically safer to live the life of a poorly-paid, disgruntled part-time employee.

Oh, and please don't compliment my wife on her English. She has a Ph.D. in it and is fully bilingual, which is completely unrelated to her physical appearance and her use of a Northeastern USA accent when speaking the language within the USA. Same for my colleague in the next office, who code switches to Nigerian English depending on who she's talking to.