Merely existing on a college campus these days can feel like you're walking through a minefield while blindfolded and juggling nine sticks of unstable dynamite. You just never know if you're going to offend someone by blinking in a culturally appropriative fashion. Thankfully, one school has done the hard work of identifying many things that students simply must avoid saying at all costs:
A newly expanded list of language to avoid using at one ultra-woke college now warns against joking about obsessive-compulsive disorder — unless you've actually been diagnosed with it.
More than a dozen words and phrases have been added to Brandeis University's widely mocked compendium of "violent" and "identity-based" terminology ahead of the start of its fall semester on Thursday.
The list is an invaluable tool if you ever find yourself marooned on Brandeis's campus; it is now not okay, for instance, to say the phrase "I'm so OCD" unless you actually have OCD. But perhaps most surprising among the newly forbidden words is the term "African-American." Why is it now wrong to say that highly politically correct phrase?
For Black folks born in the United States, hyphenating their identity can be interpreted as othering. Some folks do prefer to use African-American, particularly in connection to their ancestral roots, while others may identify with other ethnicities. We recommend using Black as a default, but being open to adjusting if asked to.
That's right ... "othering."
It might be safer to just say nothing at all—to literally never open your mouth for any reason. Barring that, maybe just don't ever go to Brandeis.
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