VileOrb:
The person (a cambodian female) who most emphatically expressed her objection to “oriental” said to me, “Rugs are oriental. People are asian.”
Rugs may be oriental and people may be oriental; but, of the two, only people can be programmed. 
This goes for both majorities and minorities, or both the dominant and the subordinate. Now, computers. . .well, they can be more easily reprogrammed or programmed to function according to the particular task.
It annoys me when perfectly normal words take on negative connotations because then you have to search for another word, which may not be as clear.
Well, even if such a word gets used differently, whether in a negative sense or not, there’s still the resultant problem of finding a new or different one for the original meaning you used it for. I guess ‘gay’, in its original meaning, wasn’t too bad a loss, since it wasn’t used all the much commonly for its original meaning. (I never really figured out why I’m supposed to say ‘gay and lesbian’ though. Doesn’t ‘gay’ suffice for those otherwise assigned to either sex?)
One that I have lost track of is “mongoloid” which last I heard had been dropped in favor of “a person with Downs Syndrome” or something like that.
Well, since I don’t hear this term used much these days for a person with Down’s disease, I’m thinking it may be OK to use it in discrete contexts, where it’s clear that no one is trying to make any tie-ins by using it. (It’s one more demerit for MDs that this term ever got started or perpetuated as denoting disease (not too say that Han Chinese necessarily appreciate the term).)
My preference to the word “colored” is the positive connotations that word has for me aside from any identification to a race. I think that a problem with “white” and “black” is their literary connection to “good” and “evil”. I do not think that “colored” is more appropriate for one race or another.
So. . .as long as the connotations are positive the word is OK. . .even though it distinguish anything. . .and therefore serves no purpose. Yes, none of us are polar bears.
*“Asian” does not appear to be thought out.
I don’t know **how[/b it sneaked in there, as a substitute for oriental as referring to “mongoloid” peoples, during the last couple decades. (The China lobby in Washington? )
Perhaps someone intentionally chose a very neutral word.
The problem, though, is not its neutrality, but rather its scope. Did those switching terms here – minorities (?), US federal govt. (?) – really intend to include South Asians, Central Asians and Near Easterners in a common term? I never know what the racial/ethnic, mostly official use of the term is supposed to mean – and sometimes it apparently is allowed to include “Pacific Islanders”, presumably only of more-or-less aboriginal ancestry. . .except maybe Australian “Aborigines”, because their island is big enough to get called a continent (which is unfair to disorganized minorities). (Well, not a big immigrational problem in the US. )
If I were choosing, I would go for something more positive. Is there nowhere in the rich poetry of the east a word meaning “Beautiful People” that would be ponounceable by westerners? Or “strong people” or “powerful people” or even “civilized people”?
Now wait a minute! That’s exactly the thing that makes things go screwy. (And the Chinese and Japanese people, if any Asians, aren’t the most apt to get that screwy right away.) If those presently in the minority in the US (Is that what we’re talking about?) all are to pick whatever in one of their languages (which language being another point of decision, decision, decision) means ‘beautiful people’, then, well ,gee, guess what the present majority should be found to need to do: “Hi, Beautiful! Yeah, you’re one of us Cocky-Asians (no, I guess that’s spelled Caucasians) who speaks English, and in English, ‘beautiful’ means ‘beautiful’. . .well, so maybe the French dumped the first syllable on us (but the English didn’t steal it. . .and we politely camouflaged (God, more French) it in pronunciation.).” I think we ought to stick to neutral words, but not colors or geographical terms, at least, not those of the latter type that extend beyond the territory of the presumed homeland of the intended designees.
(An aside, as to beauty, and maybe Caucasian skulls, during most of my (male Euro-American (?)) grade-school schooling, the three girls in my classes that appeared to me to be the prettiest were Chinese-Americans. I think other observers of them would’ve agreed. Didn’t check what their bare skulls looked like.)
(I mention the pronunciation thing because we Americans rudely expect everyone to speak our language and somehow get away with it.
Well, in most of the world, most people are less accommodative to your not speaking their language than we are here. However, given where education, commerce and technology stand today, English commands, regardless of the country you want to associate this language with.
However,. . .that is not to say that China couldn’t totally change that. At first glance, you might wonder how that could help but come about. . .but then you see how responses of the small, tight, single, near-totalitarian leadership, which is traditional there, in respect to the Falun Gong, says, can lead to serious instabilities that could well prevent such global power/dominant-race change, with resultant language change, to occur.
Guilty as charged,
What, exactly, were the charges anyway?
but I don’t know how to do anything about it except on a personal level.)
Well, in respect to curing the ills of the world, even as agreed upon (?) by the sum of its humanity, you’re immediately up against two enigmae:
-
The direct antagonism of the ethic of the noble savage vs. that of civilized man – monumental achievement vs. broad-spectrum charity.
-
The pros and cons of social engineering (relate to your “thought out”) vs. social evolution (what the masses and their leaders compromise on).
I think all this pride of minority races and ethnicities (which probably doesn’t, without extra stimulation, overwhelm the majority of any minority) should take second-fiddle priority in respect to reasonable beneficial integration into the society which does the most to accommodate their welfare. After all, most individuals of racial/ethnic minorities in the US are here, because of worse treatment by their cohorts back home or in an earlier time, than they are currently or have been in their present physical and social milieu. This is only to stick pins in the pride thing, not to foment anti-accommodative discrimination.
Yue Han:
Unfortunately, the Chinese for some reason gave the name “Meiguo” the the US; meiguoren means American.
At what date did they make this appelation? And what segment of Chinese society originated this term? Perhaps those who invented it saw the US as great opportunity. I guess some who made it to CA-US during the gold rush, made out reasonably well, under rather extreme hardship, but many fell into some very bad hands here. Clearly some of their offspring did pretty well, although I didn’t realize, until much later, that persons of Chinese extraction couldn’t officially own land in this state until some time in the 1950s.
Of course, even if ‘meiguo’ wasn’t already taken, what would the Japanese, Koreans and Southeast Asians have to say about naming the overall “racial” group with a name from the language of the “middle country”? How similar, even, is that name pronounced in Mandarin and Cantonese? An