More Racism - the subtler, gentler, kind

[Nukelavee]

No, you're going to excuse being a dick on the internet for some other real life issue you have. I mean, you coulda just left the last line off, and let me think, meh, Dante isn't so bad, but, no, you had to try for one more insult.

See? We can bond over things like being a dick. Soon we can all be one big happy species! We shall be a shining example to all!

It makes me tingle to know we've connected like this.

[Galactus]

Likewise, mature people generally refrain from saying things that are known to be offensive without having to have someone write a dissertation on why it's offensive. And apologize when they slip up.

Exactly. Whether or not a word is offensive in its roots, or even offensive in the mainstream of language of wherever you're talking is really besides the point: It's just fucking common courtesy to refrain from calling someone something they consider offensive.

[TerraPrime]

Shall we leave the word oriental alone now?

Sure, since you are apparently unable to defend adequately your word choice in this thread, it would be rude of us to continue to rub that in your face.

Let's move on to a different word.

Do you call black people "niggers"? It's a fundamentally American word, after all, popularized in its offensiveness in American culture. Do you reject that linguistic imperialism, as well? When you see your dark-skinned friends in Northern England, do you call them that word? When you run across a black-skinned stranger, do you address them using that word? When you talk to internet people who self-identify as black or African-American or African, do you refer to them using that word? If not, why not? Why accept one form of linguistic imperialism, and reject another? Or do you demand that they justify why they find that word offensive to you first, before you think about whether curb your language to subject yourself to American linguistic imperialism?

[Minaku]

I'm trying to make sense of this here. Sorry if I'm not following the line of logic. Okay, Str8 says that in his dialect of English the usage of Oriental is inoffensive (so you are an Occidental). This thread is however about an American incident involving an Asian-American. Str8 continues to defend his usage of Oriental despite MinDonner explicitly pointing out that it's an American issue so his particular subset of English doesn't belong here. Str8 counters by saying but oh, because it's not offensive to me it can't be offensive to anyone else.

Am I getting this right? Did Str8 just tell us his argument is irrelevant and then use said irrelevant argument as a defense for his irrelevant argument?

[Sci-2]

Am I getting this right? Did Str8 just tell us his argument is irrelevant and then use said irrelevant argument as a defense for his irrelevant argument?

In his defense I do believe he mentioned having a second cousin whose girlfriend's brother has a roommate who is half-Asian.

[Minaku]

Sorry, I think I'm being oversensitive.

[Young Wolf]

I dunno...maybe you guys were right before. Maybe some people do think it's ok to be racist towards people Asian folk. I'm fucking baffled and I'm at the point where I no longer feel like wasting breath with these two idiots. I'm putting them both in the idiot racist box and leaving them there.

[str8 outta Old Town]

Sure, since you are apparently unable to defend adequately your word choice in this thread, it would be rude of us to continue to rub that in your face.

Let's move on to a different word.

Do you call black people "niggers"? It's a fundamentally American word, after all, popularized in its offensiveness in American culture. Do you reject that linguistic imperialism, as well? When you see your dark-skinned friends in Northern England, do you call them that word? When you run across a black-skinned stranger, do you address them using that word? When you talk to internet people who self-identify as black or African-American or African, do you refer to them using that word? If not, why not? Why accept one form of linguistic imperialism, and reject another? Or do you demand that they justify why they find that word offensive to you first, before you think about whether curb your language to subject yourself to American linguistic imperialism?

Right. Next time you have a dig about this I will respond. But I'd just like it recorded here that when the next wave of "why don't you just drop it man?" posts come in, it is Typical Woman, and nobody else who wants this topic to continually revist the validity of "oriental" as an adjective to describe people.

[Minaku]

Right. Next time you have a dig about this I will respond. But I'd just like it recorded here that when the next wave of "why don't you just drop it man?" posts come in, it is Typical Woman, and nobody else who wants this phrase to continually revist the validity of "oriental" as an adjective to describe people.

I do not understand what you are saying.

But, if I'm interpreting this correctly, Terra is not the only person who has an issue with the word Oriental. I do. Dante does. And I'm sure plenty of other Asians do as well. I'm a person, not a thing; I'm from the Occident, not the Orient. So please fucking stop telling all of us where we are REALLY from.

[str8 outta Old Town]

I do not understand what you are saying.

But, if I'm interpreting this correctly, Terra is not the only person who has an issue with the word Oriental. I do. Dante does. And I'm sure plenty of other Asians do as well. I'm a person, not a thing; I'm from the Occident, not the Orient. So please fucking stop telling all of us where we are REALLY from.

So you are from Asia but not the oriental part of it?

[TrueMetis]

So you are from Asia but not the oriental part of it?

You do know you don't have to be from Asia to be Asian right? Though this could explain a lot about why you think the way you do.

[str8 outta Old Town]

You do know you don't have to be from Asia to be Asian right? Though this could explain a lot about why you think the way you do.

That was my point.

[TrueMetis]

That was my point.

Then you made it badly.

[Minaku]

So you are from Asia but not the oriental part of it?

The Oriental part of it is all of it, but if we want to get super technical, it's the Middle East that's the Orient. Your move.

[Tyrellius]

Almost nothing to do with this thread but there wasn't one of our bi-yearly yellow fever threads up yet. (Can't wait to read your replies in that one str 8! :thumbsup:)

Asian/white > all

(BTW TP - you're the top google search result for Daikon of Asian Beauty)

[str8 outta Old Town]

The Oriental part of it is all of it, but if we want to get super technical, it's the Middle East that's the Orient. Your move.

Not in modern British usage, but fair point.

What I was saying was that most probably you are not from the Orient, but you most probably aren't from Asia either, so attacking the term oriental because you were born and brought up in Vancouver/Missouri/whatever, doesn't make sense if you still say Asian.

[Minaku]

Not in modern British usage, but fair point.

What I was saying was that most probably you are not from the Orient, but you most probably aren't from Asia either, so attacking the term oriental because you were born and brought up in Vancouver/Missouri/whatever, doesn't make sense if you still say Asian.

My phenotype is most commonly expressed in East Asian countries, leading many to believe I was born there. Oriental carries with it the nasty connotations of imperialism and colonialism. See also: Edward Said's Orientalism.

Asian lacks those associations, so we use Asian instead. Because we are not curios, rugs, or any other object from the Orient. We are not mysterious and inscrutable. Stop using words that bring up images of smoky opium dens and wispy beards.

This CANNOT be the first time this has been explained to you. Frankly, given your history in this thread, I don't even know why I bothered.

[str8 outta Old Town]

My phenotype is most commonly expressed in East Asian countries, leading many to believe I was born there. Oriental carries with it the nasty connotations of imperialism and colonialism. See also: Edward Said's Orientalism.

Asian lacks those associations, so we use Asian instead. Because we are not curios, rugs, or any other object from the Orient. We are not mysterious and inscrutable. Stop using words that bring up images of smoky opium dens and wispy beards.

This CANNOT be the first time this has been explained to you. Frankly, given your history in this thread, I don't even know why I bothered.

Glad you brought up Said, I've got Orientalism sitting on a bookshelf about 4 metres from the head of me. He focuses more on the Muslim world, and his thesis of otherness and inferiority in European perceptions of other cultures is about 75% correct. I think he over supposes a unified European mindset, and underestimates the differences in how various regions existed in the European imagination, and doesn't quite nail how that evolved over time, and the influences which caused those changes. Still, a very good book.

I'd say that the argument you just made is more relevant, but when I hear the word Orient, I don't get images of opium dens or incscrutability. The British experience and understanding of East Asia is different, given our more intimate connection to it, through the modern colony at Hong Kong and the occupation of Malaya which lasted up to the '60s. Not that colonialism was a good thing, but I think that "the Orient" in America was always a much more unreal place which was imagined rather than directly experienced, whereas for us it was a real place with lots of interesting people to be exploited.

[Galactus]

My phenotype is most commonly expressed in East Asian countries, leading many to believe I was born there. Oriental carries with it the nasty connotations of imperialism and colonialism. See also: Edward Said's

Orientalism

.

... Which rather underlines the point: Said's book is entirely concerned with the middle-east, and mostly arabs at that. East Asia just isn't a part of his discussion. The kind of orientalistics that Said describes just didn't happen in East Asia, it was largely a middle-eastern and to a lesser extent south-asian thing.

[DanteGabriel]

Not in modern British usage, but fair point.

What I was saying was that most probably you are not from the Orient, but you most probably aren't from Asia either, so attacking the term oriental because you were born and brought up in Vancouver/Missouri/whatever, doesn't make sense if you still say Asian.

The whole modern British useage thing is something you may not want to get into, since we have had to take it at your word that "Oriental" is still an acceptable term for East Asians in whatever part of Britain you're from, and in fact earlier in this thread you were contradicted in that by another British person. In fact, I just don't buy that "Oriental" is accepted parlance where you are -- I'm going to just chalk this up to ignorance, and I do not believe that there is some backwards region of Britain where this musty colonialist word is still accepted.

Oh, and I'm an Asian who was born in Asia. So just let me know, according to whatever horseshit metric you're using at the moment, whether or not I get to have an opinion on the appropriateness of the term.