I don't know how this is real but somehow this is real.
University of Southern California professor Greg Patton has been placed on leave from his MBA-level virtual communications class after he used a common Chinese expression that sounds similar to the English N-word while illustrating a point about "filler" words in different languages.
Patton said:
"You have a lot of 'um' or 'ers' — and this is culturally specific, so based on your native language," Patton said. "Like in China, the common word is 'that' — 'that, that, that.' 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, it's saying 'that, that, that'; 'um, um, um'; 'er, er, er.'"
A group of black students who identified themselves as "Black MBA Candidates c/o 2022" wrote an email to university administration complaining that the experience harmed their mental health.
Here's part of what the students wrote in the email. Read it slowly because it's tremendous, and remember that these are real, presumably intelligent adult humans saying this:
"Our mental health has been affected. It is an uneasy feeling allowing him to have the power over our grades. We would rather not take his course than to endure the emotional exhaustion of carrying on with an instructor that disregards cultural diversity and sensitivities and by extension creates an unwelcome environment for us Black students.
No matter what way you look at this, the word was said multiple times today in three different instances and has deeply affected us. In light of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the recent and continued collective protests and social awakening across the nation, we cannot let this stand."
The group called for an immediate remedy to the situation, which they got from USC's Charmin-soft dean, Geoff Garrett, who deeply apologized for the "disturbing episode that has caused such anguish and trauma" and announced that a new instructor would immediately take over the class.
Because the guy used a Chinese word.
In a statement to Campus Reform, USC said Patton "agreed to take a short term pause while we are reviewing to better understand the situation and to take any appropriate next steps."
