Our dog has a thing about some men - specifically she hates Japanese, Chinese, Korean men - might be the dark hair, we’re not sure. So I would say that she hates “Asian” men. A friend would say the dog hates “Oriental” men.
Is one term more p/c than the other? I would hate to be offending anyone …
Use Asian. There is nothing technically wrong with “Oriental” - it just means eastern, but it is considered a bit racist these days. Just like there’s nothing technically wrong with “Negro” but you wouldn’t use it.
“Oriental” is definitely considered offensive. “Asian” is better, but usually the new standard is to call someone by their specific ethnicity (that is, if you don’t just call them by their NAME). Are you or your dog King of the Hill fans by any chance?
Then, it further depends on what part of the world you’re in. In the UK, people of Indian ethnicity are referred to as ‘Asian’, which sounded odd at first to my Australian ears - although it is actually correct. I don’t know how it goes in North America.
My wife is not offended by the term “Oriental” but she says it’s perceived as archaic and colonialistic – and somewhat patronizing. She would prefer to be called “Japanese-American” if she must be called anything, but will settle for “Asian.”
And of course, in the U.S. we can’t call the Indians, Indians because we’d get them all confused with the American Indians, who would prefer to be called “Native Americans.”
Yeah, the first time I heard that, my mind went “WTF?” - I’d been taught that the Indian people are not the same “race” as the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Mongolians, SE Asians, etc. I always thought of them as the same “race” as me (a whitey from Nordic descent). I just call Indian people…“Indian.” I was even more confused when I heard that some (ignorant) people consider Indian people…black.
Oh, well. I’m not out to insult anyone, at least not on the basis of their skin color, ethnic group, etc. When I heard that “Oriental” was offensive, I stopped using it.
Nope, latest info is that they now find that term patronizing, and prefer to be called by their tribe name; if that name is not known, then they prefer just “Indian.” Yes, it’s confusing. But does it matter whether you can tell which one people mean - really?
Well…kind of…if you’re one of those people. I mean, I’ve had many the case where I’ve told someone “I’m Indian” and they’ve said, “Oh really? What tribe?”
I guess what I was trying to say is, should it matter in terms of how the person is regarded. I didn’t mean to trivialize your (or anyone’s) ethnicity.
The trouble with identifying their country of origin is that you have to be able to differentiate between the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. I certainly can’t, so I use Asian if I need to describe someone’s race. Better, I think, than using “Chinese” as a catchall.
Jesus! I think correcting your racist dog is a thousand times more important than figuring out the PC way to describe its brand of racism! If this isn’t a textbook example of something or other…
Asian is less specific, since not all Asians are Orientals. The latter term is indeed considered offensive by some though, for reasons that I consider to be ridiculous.