Woke Massachusetts college bans use of the word “field”

[The Liturgist]

Since we all know farms, lawns and sports grounds harbor racist sentiments:

Massachusetts college program ends the use of the word ‘field': 'May hold negative associations'

Seriously, how much more of this woke insanity are we to be subjected to? It makes the absurd heights of political correctness attained in the 1990s look like a bastion of sanity. But at least the 1990s were followed by the relative reduction of insane political correctness during the early 2000s.

 

[Servus]

They should first ban "Massachusetts" on the grounds of cultural appropriation.

 

[HTacianas]

Since we all know farms, lawns and sports grounds harbor racist sentiments:

Massachusetts college program ends the use of the word ‘field': 'May hold negative associations'

Seriously, how much more of this woke insanity are we to be subjected to? It makes the absurd heights of political correctness attained in the 1990s look like a bastion of sanity. But at least the 1990s were followed by the relative reduction of insane political correctness during the early 2000s.

"our commitment to anti-racist work"

Should I tell them that slaves were once sent into the field to work and spoil their good time?

 

[Arcangl86]

Should I tell them that slaves were once sent into the field to work and spoil their good time?

That exactly why they changed it, so I'm not sure how that would spoil anything.

 

[Servus]

Does this mean Sally Field is going to have to change her name? What about baseball fields? Wrigley Field? Field of Dreams? What about Baba O'Riley by The Who?

 

[hedrick]

Of course the actual letter doesn’t say this. It says that the school of social work will no longer refer to “field work,” meaning students in that school doing studies outside the college. Nothing about agricultural fields, magnetic fields, Sally Fields, etc.

The Fox headline is misleading, but if you read the article it’s clarified, and certainly if you follow the link to the actual letter.

 

[Servus]

magnetic fields

Drat, I didn't think of that one.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Since we all know farms, lawns and sports grounds harbor racist sentiments:

Massachusetts college program ends the use of the word ‘field': 'May hold negative associations'

Seriously, how much more of this woke insanity are we to be subjected to? It makes the absurd heights of political correctness attained in the 1990s look like a bastion of sanity. But at least the 1990s were followed by the relative reduction of insane political correctness during the early 2000s.

Not an end to the use of the word "field ",just a name change by replacing it with practicum. A more suitable word. Truth matters.
Blessings.

 

[hedrick]

Drat, I didn't think of that one.

Would present challenges to the physics department. But they haven’t actually banned the word field, just changed field work to other standard terms such as practicum and internship. I’m not convinced the change is useful, but it’s harmless.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

Well, I can tell a lot of people here didn’t read the article or the release by the college and instead fell for the clickbait article title.

 

[dzheremi]

I appreciate those who involve themselves in language planning like this for always giving people like me with a background in Sociolinguistics something new to marvel at. Also, for those currently working in the...erm...pursuit of this topic, I'm sure the job security is nice.

 

[Servus]

Well, I can tell a lot of people here didn’t read the article or the release by the college and instead fell for the clickbait article title.

Sorry, but reading isn't my field.

Oops. This is gonna be hard.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

It’s all giggles and jokes until it applies to you, then you get big mad.

 

[Servus]

It’s all giggles and jokes until it applies to you, then you get big mad.

I DON'T GET MAD!!

 

[The Liturgist]

Not an end to the use of the word "field ",just a name change by replacing it with practicum. A more suitable word. Truth matters.
Blessings.

There is nothing unsuitable or racist about the term “field work,” since not all industries that have fields engaged in slavery, and indeed the majority of agricultural work since the beginning of time, whether performed by slaves, serfs, peasants, sharecroppers, agricultural employees including unionized migrant farm workers, or the American ideal of the homesteading farmer, has involved either fields, ranges or orchards, depending on what is being produced.

The term “in the field” is entirely appropriate in all of the contexts in which it has historically been used, and the suggestion that it carries with it any racist connotations is frankly demeaning to all workers in every industry, including African Americans. I myself have worked in Africa where black Africans used the term in the various ways it is commonly used in the field of business management, and no one in the field in which I worked at the time, or the fields in which I presently work (systems programming and religious ministry) has ever objected.

Indeed in West Africa, the country of Ghana owes much of its wealth to the cocoa plantations, which were not a colonial imposition, but were rather developed by a Ghanaian botanist named Tetteh Qarshie, who took seedlings from a failed Spanish cocoa plantation on the island in what is now Equatorial Guinea, and worked out how to get the plants to flourish in the Ghanaian climate, and the Ghanaian chocolate industry was developed entirely by Ghanaians, literally under the noses of the British colonial government, and today Ghanaian cocoa plantations account for much of the world’s chocolate production.

 

[Divide]

Does this mean Sally Field is going to have to change her name? What about baseball fields? Wrigley Field? Field of Dreams? What about Baba O'Riley by The Who?

What about Playing the Field? We can't do that anymore? We couldn't let them do that to Sally Fields either. They cant touch her, lol!

But men and women are like a battery. Opposite poles of the energy field. They want to take away the energy field now? To what end? Being gay? See, it's obviously a Conspiracy where it is reversed in the future but for other reasons, hmmm.

 

[The Liturgist]

Well, I can tell a lot of people here didn’t read the article or the release by the college and instead fell for the clickbait article title.

I myself did read the article, and I consider the title to be surprisingly not click-baity, especially considering that clickbait titles are a vice indulged in to a great extent by the websites of the major American news networks. It was for this reason I used to avoid them, but lately I have been enjoying Fox, and feel a certain debt of gratitude since they saved COPS from cancellation by the woke media in 2020.

 

[Servus]

There's another older thread about this and I thought this thread was basically a duplicate. But it turns out the other thread is about a school in Michigan.

The word "field" is a racial slur now.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Southern California's school of social work have taken steps to ban the word "field" on official documents, citing racist implications. .... “This change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language...

www.christianforums.com

 

[Tropical Wilds]

There is nothing unsuitable or racist about the term “field work,” since not all industries that have fields engaged in slavery, and indeed the majority of agricultural work since the beginning of time, whether performed by slaves, serfs, peasants, sharecroppers, agricultural employees including unionized migrant farm workers, or the American ideal of the homesteading farmer, has involved either fields, ranges or orchards, depending on what is being produced.

The term “in the field” is entirely appropriate in all of the contexts in which it has historically been used, and the suggestion that it carries with it any racist connotations is frankly demeaning to all workers in every industry, including African Americans. I myself have worked in Africa where black Africans used the term in the various ways it is commonly used in the field of business management, and no one in the field in which I worked at the time, or the fields in which I presently work (systems programming and religious ministry) has ever objected.

Indeed in West Africa, the country of Ghana owes much of its wealth to the cocoa plantations, which were not a colonial imposition, but were rather developed by a Ghanaian botanist named Tetteh Qarshie, who took seedlings from a failed Spanish cocoa plantation on the island in what is now Equatorial Guinea, and worked out how to get the plants to flourish in the Ghanaian climate, and the Ghanaian chocolate industry was developed entirely by Ghanaians, literally under the noses of the British colonial government, and today Ghanaian cocoa plantations account for much of the world’s chocolate production.

The point is the name for the department was dated, didn’t reflect what it did, and created confusion among immigrant students (a large number of which are represented in that department).

Using your Ghana factoid, while it’s kind of true it’s an industry that is mostly run by their own populace, it’s also rife with exploitation, lack of safety, and human rights violations. Behind the diamond and vanilla industry, cocoa is one of the most significant industries that relies on human rights and trafficking violations. So I can see why a name of a department for sociology using the term “field work” would be hard to understand.

 

[Tropical Wilds]

I myself did read the article, and I consider the title to be surprisingly not click-baity, especially considering that clickbait titles are a vice indulged in to a great extent by the websites of the major American news networks. It was for this reason I used to avoid them, but lately I have been enjoying Fox, and feel a certain debt of gratitude since they saved COPS from cancellation by the woke media in 2020.

Well this was a big ol “yikes” post, from start to finish.