Smith College is one of the Seven Sisters, the name given to a group of seven liberal arts colleges in the northeastern United States that are historically women’s colleges. Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College are still women’s colleges; Radcliffe has merged with Harvard, while Vassar now admits male students.
And at Smith College’s School of Social Work the language police have just scored one for their side, by banning the use of the word “field.” You see, a “field” is where black slaves worked. So the word itself, according to professors at the Smith College of Social Work, is “racist.” The story is from early May; the madness is ongoing. “School at Smith College ends use of word ‘field,’ says it has negative connotations with racism, slavery,” by Alexander MacDougall, Daily Hampshire Gazette, May 4, 2023:
The Smith College School of Social Work will no longer use “field” in reference to any aspect of its program, a word the school says may have negative connotations with racism and slavery.
In an email last week, School of Social Work faculty members Katya Cerar, Arianne Napier-White and Marybeth Stratton said the change reflected the school’s stated core principles that call for centering the lived experiences of marginalized communities, among other things.
“We recognize that language is powerful and that phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘fieldwork’ may hold negative associations,” the email said. “While this change may seem small, it is an action among many others, to keep us accountable to our values, to our students and to our Smith SSW community.”
As part of the language changes, most titles at the School of Social Work that contain the word “field,” such as field team or field education, have been altered with the Latin word practicum. Field instructors are now clinical supervisors. It also advises replacing the term “into the field” with “in the internship experience” and the “social work field” as “social work profession.”
Carolyn McDaniel, a spokesperson for Smith College, said in a statement that the change is consistent with the program’s principles of intentional accountability. She also said the change would only apply to the School of Social Work, and not anywhere else on campus.
But if the world “field” smacks of slavery and racism, surely that word shouldn’t be allowed anywhere on the Smith campus. Shouldn’t the School of Social Work now turn its humorless attention to the other students on campus, and make sure that Smith girls studying history, literature, philosophy, fairly useless stuff in the brave new world we are headed toward, get with the program of the enlightened social workers? Will there be a sister-against-sister civil war of the words in placid Northampton? Progress is never easy. But as former President Obama liked to intone, “as Martin Luther King said, the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice.” And what better way for the Smith College School of Social Work to hasten that moral arc’s bending toward justice than by forbidding use of the word “field”? Of course, Obama didn’t realize that, just as he had plagiarized about one-third of his doctoral dissertation, Martin Luther King plagiarized the remark about that “moral arc of the universe” that “bends toward justice” and gave no credit to the man who first uttered that phrase, the famed abolitionist and grandson of Capt. Parker of the Lexington Minutemen, Theodore Parker.
“The school specifically chose the word ‘practicum’ (a course of study that involves the supervised practical application of previously studied theory) to better reflect the experience of faculty and students,” McDaniel said. “Rather than a reactive moment, this is a proactive decision to bring the language of the school’s program more in line with its goals and intentions.”
The Smith program isn’t the first one across the country to adopt the measure. Earlier in the year, the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work also announced it would stop using the word “field.”
In July of 2020, Smith College launched Toward Racial Justice, a plan to address historical inequalities at the institution and improve diversity efforts and representation. The School of Social Work faculty members cited the plan as part of its reasoning behind the change of wordage. “We recognize that adopting a new name for our office can be challenging, and we expect this will take some time, but we hope that you’ll join us in this effort to be intentional and inclusive and to stay open and actively engage with change,” they wrote.
The challenge of change. The change of the challenge. The pressing need to be intentional and inclusive and to stay open and to actively engage. To be holistic. To practice psycho-psychology and interpersonal preference theory. To be square and obey the law of the pack. To care, deeply. To bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice, for chrissake.
The possibilities that flow from that stupendous decision – to ban the word “field” – opens up vistas of confusion never dreamed of. First, think of all the uses of “field” that will have to be eliminated and replaced by something entirely devoid of any hint of either racism or slavery.
Field Work, by the Nobel Prizewinning Irish poet Seamus Heaney, will have to go. How about “Spade Work” as Heaney, a farmer’s son from Northern Ireland, often wrote about digging in the earth, comparing that effort to writing poetry? Oops. No, “spade” will never do, and you know the reason why. Okay, we’ll have to think some more about that one.
Then there’s the sports field – the baseball field, the football field, the soccer field. What to call them now? How about “area,” which will give us “It’s the last half of the ninth, and tension is palpable on Wrigley Area.” I admit it takes some getting used to. But that’s how all revolutions begin, even lexical ones, with that first unsteady step.
“Unified Field Theory” poses problems. My friend Professor Valet Parking, a sometime string-and-thing theorist at MIT, suggests “Unified Thing Theory.” It has an “air of mystery,” he says, “just like everything in subatomic particle physics.” Hmmm. “Unified Thing Theory” – why not? It’s kind of catchy. When I asked my six-year-old grandson what he thought of various possibilities, that’s the one he to which he gave an unqualified “yes!” Out of the mouths of babes. Who am I to argue with a six-year-old’s sense of language?
“Color field painters” — from Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman to Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, and Kenneth Noland, will need to be renamed. How about “color domain painters”? No, that will never do. Think about it, then get back to me with an alternative. What would Clement Greenberg do?
We’ve all been asked, in our youth, by inquisitive friends and relatives, “what ‘field’ are you studying/specializing in/majoring in?” But no longer, according to the attentive ladies of the Smith College School of Social work. We must replace “field” in such inquiries, possibly with “subject,“ as in “what subject are you specializing in”? What “subject” are you “majoring in”? Oops, again an embarrassing error. “Subject” simply won’t do. We can’t have “subjects” because they are, of course, submissive to “rulers.” That puts everyone at once in mind of “master” and “slave.” Can’t have any hint of that. Streng verboten, I’m afraid. What about replacing “field” with nothing at all? It simplifies everything: “What are you studying?” instead of “What field are you studying?” “What do you intend to major in?” instead of “What field do you intend to major in?” “Field” turns out to be unnecessary in this line of questioning. Drop it as de trop.
Once we have eliminated “field,” it is time to move on to the “house slaves” or “house hands” in the plantations of the antebellum south. “House” will have to go. “House of cards,” “house and garden,” “house beautiful,” “The House of Seven Gables,” “The Fall of the House of Ussher,” “haunted house,” “eaten out of house and home,” “bring down the house,” “house of ill repute,” “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” will all have to be rewritten.
Yes, it’s a tall order, to rid our lexicon of “house.” But it’s what enlightened people everywhere are now called upon to do. Start thinking about those great replacements now. The monstrous regiment of women at the Smith College School of Social Work are waiting, and they won’t wait forever.
GFF says
Yeah, but is it thingummy or thingamy of dreams?
Enough…..
GFF says
Yeah, but is it thingummy or thingamy of dreams?
The old ‘F’ word was so easy. A new f-word perhaps, a little facile I know.
PMK says
Let baseball get back to tis roots. If field offends them, refer to it as the pasture.
House? Full house will have to go. Poker will need to find a new term.
My forty+ year old dictionary has over twenty definitions for field. The first is a place of open or cleared ground, esp. suitable for pasture or tillage.
Newsflash to Smith College: all of humanity has worked in a field, at one time or another. Slavery and agriculture are not inseparable.
The word field is used in tech, optics (field of vision), science (field magnet) and in many other contexts. Get over yourselves. Your self-righteousness is sickening.
Jerome from Layton says
Your last paragraph beat me to it. Small loss, I don’t recall Smith having any reputation in Technology or Engineering.
Phil Copson says
“The monstrous regiment of women at the Smith College School of Social Work are waiting, and they won’t wait forever.”
—————————————————————————————————————————-
While they are waiting, could they not usefully correct the implicit neo-colonialist white supremacist connotations of their own college – “The Smith College School of Social Work”? After all, if anyone were asked “What profession is most associated with the word “Smith””, 99% of people would undoubtedly reply “Blacksmith” – so that will have to go.
And if “fields” are irredeemably associated with slave labour, then “Colleges” and “Schools” are surely forever tainted by the fact that earlier generations of black Americans didn’t attend them in the same proportions as white Americans – those words will have to go too, for fear of causing offence.
Their description of their own activities as “Social Work” plainly means that they regard the activities of others as being “Anti-Social” – which surely means that they are being both discriminatory and judgemental? That leaves us with the words “The” and “of” – and soon a new war on the definite article and prepositions will claim those too.
So who exactly are these women – and by what right do they presume to be able to identify and represent the interests of black Americans better than they can for themselves?
A quick glance at the Internerd shows us that Carolyn McDaniel and Katya Cerar are both middle-aged white women – are they not simply exhibiting this much talked-of “White saviour complex”?
Arianne Napier-White is definitely black, but by her own admission is evidently “black-identifying-as-Napier-White.” (Although if related – however improbably – to General Sir Charles James Napier who as a Lieutenant-Colonel commanded the British Army’s102nd Regiment during the American War of Independence, she could lay claim to a whole different level of anti-Americanism…)
No picture popped up of Marybeth Stratton, but to judge from her bio’s “she/her” pronouns, she is every bit as daft and self-indulgent as the rest of this covey of restless women with too much time on their hands and nothing useful to do.
somehistory says
+ nice comment
Phil Copson says
Thank you – (I’m just channelling my inner “Victor Meldrew”….)
somehistory says
You are welcome. I’m not I know who ‘Meldrew” is. A little twinge in my brain says I’ve heard the name before. Is it a character from a book? Guess I can look it up. :0
Arch says
One suggestion, change covey to coven.
Phil Copson says
But is “coven” the correct group-noun for an assembly of social workers? And, if not – “witch” word should we use?
A “swarm” of social workers sounds about right, but the word has already been colonised by bees and wasps. Whether or not Carolyn McDaniel and friends are similarly attracted to jam sandwiches and glasses of alcohol, I do not pretend to know, but they certainly exhibit a similar propensity for wantonly spoiling other’s enjoyment, and poking their proboscis in without invitation.
Que Cerar Cerar
But perhaps we are being too hard on social workers, many of whom, I’m told, devote their time to teaching useful crafts to the children of the poor – such as boot-blacking and doffing their caps to gentle-folk? McDaniels, Cerar, Napier-White, and Stratton appear to have moved on from engaging in actual social work – (if they ever did any at all) – to the more congenial and remunerative task of theorising about it instead. (And after all – what else is “an intellectual” but somebody who feels they know more about work than anyone else – but never actually does any?)
“Labore observatore – actio certe non”
A “school of socialists” seems to fit both their views and occupation, but fish have a prior claim. A “quartet of quislings” is possibly a little harsh, and besides – it leaves no room for expansion. A “college of communists” seems both alliterative and apt, but in the end – let us be charitable and agree that the staff of Smith College of Social Work have demonstrated to everyone’s satisfaction that they are no more than a “foregathering of fools”.
somehistory says
One could say “murder of social workers,” except that crows are very intelligent birds. It’s just that these know-it-all women are killing the English language.
somehistory says
What about the woman we read about a few days ago, the one being held captive by a mozlum group which works against the mozlum group for which she worked? She was said to be doing “field work”
My father was a sharecropper; and i and my siblings< along with our mom”
We were not slaves….not Black, either. The owner of the ‘field’ also worked there. He was no slave….and not Black.
This is just more stupidity from those who pretend to set lofty goals and good examples for all of the rest of us lowly class.
somehistory says
My pc deleted part of my comment….after “along with our mom” worked long days in the field.
deze MN bee says
And Turkey has officially changed its name to “Turkeye”.
So, now you know: it’s no longer Turkey, it’s Turkey-Yay!
Turkey is a member of NATO -yay! What? Why? Yay!
Turkey wants to join the European Union and replace the Eiffel Tower with the biggest mosque in the universe called Respect for Islam, Yay!
Turkey wants to join the 21st Century with hijabs intact. Yay!
No more Christmas Turkey. Or else. Yay.
James Lincoln says
I was cleaning out some cabinets the other day and found an old pre-woke Webster’s dictionary.
I decided to keep it – as it may become a collectors item…
Bette says
I was literally thinking of purchasing a couple of pre-woke dictionaries for my daughter and grandson for Christmas presents. A copy of other classics that are being changed as well. I recently took to my grandson and his wife ll of my grandson’s Dr Suess books which are between 20-30 years old. I told them they would be collectors items one day because they are the originals and not the altered copies. The world is insane. And yes, I am white and cropped tobacco when I was 10 in a field of planted tobacco. Where else would one do it?
James Lincoln says
Thanks for your reply, Bette.
somehistory says
I have picked cotton in a “field,” as well as strawberries, pepper, okra, squash, and a lot of other veggies. Also hoed corn, dug for potatoes, etc. in fields.
Played football on a field and softball too.
If we can’t say field, what word should we use?
I bought a copy of “Little Red Hen” published in the 40’s. Just because I like the story, and gave it to my granddaughter. It may not be changed, but one can never tell what will make them go loony these days.
Pray Hard says
Bare Naked Islam has a fantastic video today on slavery by Thomas Sowell. It’s certainly worth a watch.
FIELD! FIELD! FIELD! FIELD! FIELD!
Watto35 says
Of course in some parts of Europe the word ‘coffee’ is now banned. It was common when ordering a coffee in a Spanish speaking country to simply order a ‘negro’ or black coffee. This was found to be rude to non-white persons. There have been attempts in certain areas to invent or manufacture a new word to replace black. Words such as ‘neoblanca’ or ‘novapale’ but these have not really caught on.
Robert Gilman says
Smith is the Alma Mater of my old schoolmate Joyce Richards who enjoyed a romantic relationship with Ted Kaczynski, tthe Unabomber.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3418476/The-love-story-Unabomber-Ted-Kacynzski-teacher-Joy-Richards.html
Tanya Notkoff says
As an unfortunate Alumna with nothing good to say about my Alma Mater, I’m hardly surprised! It is where I had Marx shoved down my throat, and that was in the late 1980s! Further, they hosted Linda Sarsour, and now they wonder why Jew haters have become pervasive…including in Northampton! Don’t get me started on the Women’s Studies Dept signing an anti-Israel, pro-Palestine petition (absurd!)…so yeah, this is just more of Smith College pushing ignorance, something that abounded, even back when I attended.
tom_ says
Better ban “kitchen”. That’s where “women’s work” occurred before the latest enlightenment.