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U.S. Politics: This DOO-DOO Is Bananas


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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7 minutes ago, Raja said:

I stick to referring by income level, as done so by the WHO, so low to middle income is fine with me. Of course, this is just one person's opinion from the 'third world'. The term is absolutely demeaning to me, and @Fez can turn their nose and not call it demeaning, but it is unfortunately a term generally used by people from the '1st world' to talk down to people like me and where I'm from. And that is a view shared by *many*. It's totally Fez's choice to ignore that though and not try and introspect as to how language about other countries is used ( Imo, it's not too far from Trump's thinking re: shithole countries etc)

When I got accepted to Brown, I got an invitation to a week-earlier orientation just for non-white kids. It was called the "Third World Transition Program." Ostensibly to prepare non-white, possibly-disadvantaged kids for life at an elite mostly-white mostly-rich institution. There was a "Third World Center" on campus for minority students to hang out. I couldn't fucking believe it.

They had some stupid rationale for why an orientation program that included black kids from New York and international students from Singapore alike was "Third World." I went to the damn orientation, because an early week on campus was not to be passed up, but I resented the time spent in actual orientation activities and I never spent any time at the Third World Center.

 

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Honestly, 3rd world isn't really the thing there - it's basically the sort of thing in places with little to no governmental process or history of transitions of power. Some developed nations really suck at this too (see: Hungary) and some developing nations rock at it (see: Costa Rica). 

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8 minutes ago, DMC said:

There were objections to "Low Income" as well.  Anyway, I agree Third World is the least desirable.  My point was there doesn't seem to be any consensus on the most preferred alternative.  I try to remain conscientious of it in lectures, but I believe I most frequently use developing nations.

Yeah, there isn't a consensus but there are alternatives, as you state. I think it would be difficult to find a consensus given the number of people we're talking about, but I gravitate towards using income levels or more recently stating the specific countries I'm talking about ( though the latter isn't always easy to do for me, and I'm still working on that).

 

9 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

When I got accepted to Brown, I got an invitation to a week-earlier orientation just for non-white kids. It was called the "Third World Transition Program." Ostensibly to prepare non-white, possibly-disadvantaged kids for life at an elite mostly-white mostly-rich institution. There was a "Third World Center" on campus for minority students to hang out. I couldn't fucking believe it.

Dude. What the fuck. At Michigan we had the international center, which was fine, but your example is emblematic of people not thinking through things we say. I swear people in the US/ UK are surprised that I'm brown and can speak English without a Russel peters accent

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1 minute ago, Raja said:

more recently stating the specific countries I'm talking about ( though the latter isn't always easy to do for me, and I'm still working on that).

Certainly agreed, when that's possible.  What I'm referring to in lectures is broad comparisons when it's not.

17 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I love that sweet time when there are two US politics threads open and I am just double-fisting and slamming as much politics into my brain as I can.   The glory!

You just reminded me I haven't started drinking yet which...is amazing, all things considered.

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