{"id":4921,"date":"2016-05-26T15:59:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T20:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4921"},"modified":"2016-05-26T16:07:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T21:07:48","slug":"use-and-mention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4921","title":{"rendered":"Use and mention"},"content":{"rendered":"

This seems like an obvious case of the use\/mention distinction.\u00c2\u00a0Here <\/a>is Dick Gregory<\/a>, actor and civil rights activist, on the students who objected to the Dean recommending his work.<\/p>\n

As a lifelong champion of civil rights and a firm believer in fighting for what is right, I applaud our young people for the various protests they have undertaken in recent years, such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Recently, the young brothers and sisters of MRC Student Coalition at Matteo Ricci College, Seattle University, have taken up such a fight based on curriculum concerns. This protest, however, has become personal for me, since it is in part centered on my autobiography entitled Nigger<\/em>, and the fact that some students became offended when Jodi Kelly, dean of Matteo Ricci College, recommended Nigger<\/em> to a student to read.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s the context<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The charge has appeared in several accounts of a tense meeting between the students and the Reverend Stephen Sundborg, president of the university, who urged the students to abandon their demand for the resignation of Jodi Kelly, dean of the university’s Matteo Ricci College, which offers degrees in the humanities. Several accounts state that the word was used by Kelly not to refer to the student or any individual, but to describe the book Nigger<\/a><\/em>, the autobiography of Dick Gregory, the civil rights activist and biographer.<\/strong> On Gregory’s own website, he describes what he told his mother about the title of the book: that whenever she heard the name of his work, “you’ll know they’re advertising my book.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s just not that difficult. The Dean mentioned, but didn’t use, the key term. Nor does it appear the kind of mention that’s really just a sneaky way of using the term indirectly (which is how my friend’s kids learned to swear and get away with it).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This seems like an obvious case of the use\/mention distinction.\u00c2\u00a0Here is Dick Gregory, actor and civil rights activist, on the students who objected to the Dean recommending his work. As a lifelong champion of civil rights and a firm believer in fighting for what is right, I applaud our young people for the various protests … Continue reading Use and mention<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2034,2033],"class_list":["post-4921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-dick-gregory","tag-usemention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4921"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4923,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921\/revisions\/4923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}