&#8220;Trigger warnings,&#8221; classroom devices once used to warn students of potentially controversial or offensive language, are now considered oppressive and violent speech, according to Brandeis University, because the word &#8220;triggered&#8221; is connected to gun violence.
Trigger warnings have largely fallen out of favor, reported Reason Magazine&#8217;s Robby Soave, but the words &#8220;trigger warning,&#8221; which used to regularly appear on class syllabi and in front of classical literature and ahead of controversial topics of discussion. They, at one time, trended alongside &#8220;safe spaces&#8221; as effective methods of protecting largely far-left college students from being exposed to moderate or right-leaning ideas.
Now, Soave noted, according to Brandeis University&#8217;s &#8220;Violent Language&#8221; guide, the words &#8220;trigger warnings&#8221; are not just out of favor, they are part of the controversial subject matter they once alerted students to.
Brandeis&#8217; list is designed to bring attention to what the school calls, &#8220;violent language &#8221; including &#8220;explicitly or implicitly violent expressions and metaphors that are used casually and unintentionally. &#8220;Trigger warnings&#8221; are but one example that can be &#8220;easily replaced by saying something more direct,&#8221; the school instructed.
&#8220;The word &#8216;trigger&#8217; has connections to guns for many people; we can give the same heads-up using language less connected to violence,&#8221; the school&#8217;s Prevention, Advocacy &amp; Resource Center noted.
Instead, teachers and students should use the term &#8220;content note&#8221; or &#8220;drop-in.&#8221;
&#8220;Also on the list is &#8216;rule of thumb,&#8217; (which does not have offensive origins, despite the list&#8217;s assertion), &#8216;killing it,&#8217; (PARC wants students to say &#8216;great job!&#8217; instead), and &#8216;take a stab&#8217; at something,&#8221; per Reason.
The school also suggests teachers and students do not use phrases like &#8220;off the reservation,&#8221; which the University says &#8220;has a harmful history rooted in the violent removal of indigenous people from their land and the potential consequences for someone that left the reservation.&#8221;
Trigger warnings fell out of favor several years ago, close on the heels of a study from Clinical Psychological Science, which said the terms do not work to effectively warn students who could suffer an emotional reaction to presented material and, in some cases, could make students more anxious.
&#8220;Trigger warnings don’t help students, and they might even hurt those grappling with serious trauma. That’s the upshot of a new study on trigger warnings published in Clinical Psychological Science,&#8221; according to Inside Higher Ed. &#8220;Concerned about the use of trigger warnings absent clear evidence of their effectiveness, the authors conducted a series of experiments on 1,394 people, a mix of first-year psychology students at Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand, and internet users.&#8221;
&#8220;A &#8216;mini meta-analysis&#8217; of the experiments revealed that trigger warnings didn’t make any difference. Subjects who saw them, compared with those who did not, judged the videos to be similarly negative, felt similarly negative, experienced similarly frequent intrusive thoughts and avoidance, and comprehended subsequent material similarly well,&#8221; the outlet said.

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‘Trigger Warnings’ Are Now ‘Triggering,’ ‘Violent’ Language, Brandeis University Says

Brandeis University

Days before the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death, an assistant dean of Graduate Student Affairs at Brandeis University, who is white, wrote on Instagram that “all white people are racist” and that she hated “whiteness.” Kate Slater, a self-described “racial justice scholar and educator,” wrote, “Yes, all White people are racist in that all White people have been conditioned in a society where one&#8217;s racial identity determines life experiences/outcomes and Whiteness is the norm and the default. That includes me! I don&#8217;t hate white people — I hate whiteness.”
Slater defended Critical Race Theory, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9622455/White-Brandeis-University-official-says-hates-whiteness.html">writing</a>:
<blockquote>&#8220;Debates&#8221; about Critical Race Theory are often straw men about whether or not systemic racism is real, and no number of statistics or facts that I could offer up are going to convince people to “see” systemic racism if they don’t want to. Yes, all White people are racist in that all White people have been conditioned in a society where one&#8217;s racial identity determines life experiences/outcomes and Whiteness is the norm and the default. That includes me! I don&#8217;t hate white people — I hate whiteness. To distinguish between the two, please feel free to watch my recent live “What Is Whiteness?” CRT does not create oppression. It names oppression that already exists.</blockquote>
In another Instagram post, Slater wrote:
<blockquote>For all white folkx, I invite you to take a moment today and reflect on the past year — a year of “racial reckoning.” How have you been paying attention, interrupting, and holding yourself accountable? How will you commit and recommit to racial justice, to disrupting and divesting from whiteness, and to building a more equitable world that’s free of racial subjugation?</blockquote>
In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85e3XlHJvIw">virtual speech</a> hosted by the University of New Hampshire, Slater announced her pronouns were “she and hers,” adding, “the most important aspect of my personality identity for purposes of this conversation is that I am a white woman.” She acknowledged, “I do want to put out the big caveat that I’m in no way shape or form an expert on the history of race and racism. … I don’t believe that it’s possible for a white person to be an expert in race and racism. I don’t think we can be an expert in something that we enact versus something that we experience.”
She added, “White people need to sit back and shut up right now. … Your own opinions right now as white people do not matter, quite frankly. You have not experienced racism. You represent the oppressor. So do not for one hot minute think that your voice or your journey or your story outweighs the experience of people who have actually experienced racism. Do not presume you know better. Do not presume even that you know different.”

‘All White People Are Racist … I Hate Whiteness’: University Official, Who Is White, Goes On ‘Anti-Racist’ Tirade

Critical Race Theory

Racism

Whiteness

A <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2020/october/elections-chasalow-music.html">website representing Brandeis University</a> highlighted an anti-gun song by a music professor who stated, “It is crystal clear that gun rights and white supremacy are intertwined.”  The website breathlessly stated, “This professor used music to address some of America&#8217;s most pressing issues.”
As <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=16031">Campus Reform</a> reported, Professor Eric Chasalow wrote a preamble above the recording of the song in which he began, “The history of our obsession with guns in the U.S. is long. Feelings about it run so deep that rational discussion about the horrific violence the obsession causes has been impossible. I chose a traditional folk genre to signify that long history and wrote a text that is purposely without a specific reference to any time period, remote or present.”
“The urgency that rises with each horrific incident recedes almost immediately, normalizing violence as something we are all supposed to accept for the sake of the rights of a minority to live without even reasonable restrictions,” he continued, then bemoaned his own “racial privilege&#8221;: “I find this intolerable, even from my position of both economic and racial privilege. It is our communities of color that suffer most from our glorification of guns. It is crystal clear that gun rights and white supremacy are intertwined.”
He attacked gun rights supporters, “The deeply entrenched, well-financed gun-rights movement is, at its core, a fear-driven reactionary institution for maintaining our racist and classist power structure. So the insanity I sing of in this song is about much more than unbridled gun ownership. It is about ever-present violence fueled by fear, greed and hate.”
The song’s lyrics, in the long tradition of heavy-handed lyrics for leftist anthems, read:
<blockquote>John William was a very fine tailor
John William never hurt no one
John William was nothin’ but your neighbor
Til the day that he got a gun
Feelin’ fear and rage because they said so
Couldn’t say where it would stop
Always said he’d never have to use it
But everybody wants to take their shot
All that hatred blowing through the country
All that hate can’t be contained
Every hate just calling for another
When did life become hate for gain
It’s a story older than the ages
Hatred calling from the mountaintops
All those neighbors angry at another
All this insanity has got to stop
Every gun just calling for another
Calling out from the mountaintop
Calling out like the only true religion
This insanity has got to stop
John saw them bowing down to dollars
Calling citizens to take their shot
It’s your right to murder one another
Everybody wants to take their shot
John William was a very fine tailor
John William was a very fine shot didn’t think about his brother
Took aim didn’t think about his brother
This insanity has got to stop
This insanity has got to stop
This insanity has got to stop</blockquote>

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Brandeis University

‘Trigger Warnings’ Are Now ‘Triggering,’ ‘Violent’ Language, Brandeis University Says

‘All White People Are Racist … I Hate Whiteness’: University Official, Who Is White, Goes On ‘Anti-Racist’ Tirade

Brandeis U Website Pushes Prof’s Anti-Gun Song. Prof: ‘Crystal Clear That Gun Rights And White Supremacy Are Intertwined’