My guest lecturer gig got cancelled over a single word

I spent 40 minutes prepping a talk on local water rights for a community college class, but they pulled the plug after I quoted an old rancher saying 'wetback,' and it hit me that my whole idea of 'just telling it like it is' was actually just me being careless with words in a room full of people who didn't ask for that.

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charles_coleman24d ago

That bit about "telling it like it is" being careless really hit home. I had a similar wake up call a few years back when I was talking to a group of high school kids about local history and I made a joke about a town official that I thought was pretty harmless. A kid in the front row looked uncomfortable and I realized I was the adult in the room, and my job was to teach, not to get laughs at someone else's expense. After that I started running my talk by a friend who has a different background than me, just to catch anything that might land wrong. It's a pain in the ass sometimes, but it's saved me from doing that again, and honestly the talks are better for it.