Based on your recollection of this uncited thread, did those Dopers say that they would demand that others stop using it, or just that they, themselves, have enough discomfort with the phrase to remove it from their own vocabulary?
And understandably so. They grew up being told that it was no longer appropriate. Not by their parents and grandparents mind you. But by well-meaning white people.
So, “these people” are liars - to what end, exactly, do you think “these people” tell these lies?
Nope. I’ve told you your fist keeps hitting me in the nose, but you won’t accept it; you keep demanding to see the bruise.
Nitpick: BU is what locals call Boston University, a well-known institution in the same area of Brandeis University. Brandeis was just called Brandeis. Same number of shorthand syllables but a different institution altogether from Boston University. Both fine schools with many illustrious alumni.
That’s not what she says - she gives a good rationale for why the term is offensive to her, and “White people told me so” is not it.
Nor is Grace Meng a White person, either.
I stand corrected: Brandeis.
I think @DemonTree rather alludes to the keyboard study’s basic point in post #146.
[With luck, DemonTree, you’ll see that my singling you out in this case isn’t meant to be done at your expense]
I have a neighbor who’s a millennial and has done quite well in tech. I’m 2+ decades older than he. Each time I see him he seems to have a new ‘hip’ handshake with which to greet me.
Which I never know, and always laugh about with no malice intended. I neither have easy access to, nor interest in, staying current on The Hip New Handshake Du Jour.
But I could if I wanted to, and I would if my gaffes were causing anybody any harm.
Some of these changes and accommodations are harder for some than for others. I think the keyboard study gives us some insight into that.
Rather than admit that the change is harder, though, and ask for a wee bit of patience and grace, some decry the whole thing as utter nonsense to be shat on forcefully and with great jubilation, and used to gain votes in elections.
Among numerous other malign uses …
They want to help people - even if those people didn’t ask for that help - and they want to show what good people they are, and get to feel the rosy glow of virtue.
I believe in their good intentions. But good intentions don’t guarantee you don’t do harm, do they?
Right, the persecution complex, I know. But that’s the whole thing is to get over that, and realize that not everything is about you.
To avoid misunderstanding, would you be kind enough to quote the passage in the article where she provides her rational? Thank you.
No, it’s not about me, it’s about the 80% of Americans who hate PC culture.
Anytime you want to stop your nose punching…
Brandeis University, not Boston University.
It would be a lot quicker just to type “virtue signaling” rather than dance around the term. So you think “these people” lie about their perceived offense in order to virtue signal, do I have that right?
Sorry, of course I meant the general you. Those who feel persecuted by someone asking them to no longer use a certain phrase or expression in a particular context.
There will always be those how insist on making it all about them, and how much they resent being asked to be a slightly better person.
rationale, and it’s in more than one place, but this is the primary one:
cringe-inducing and pretty sinister at its base, meant to box one group away for another’s comfort. To him, it’s neutral, neither bad nor good. But when I hear the term, it brings up that cartoonish “Kung Fu Fighting” melody and caricatures of grinning Asian men with ponytails and buckteeth.
Nothing there about White people saying anything, it’s all about the feelings the word evokes in her.
She also says
scholars and activists alike turned away from words like it and “Negro” in favor of self-appointed terms like “Asian,” “Asian-American,” “black” and “African-American.”
which implies she sees it as self-directed change.
Agreed. She’s talking about her personal experience because Asians have a history of being a discriminated minority in America.
I beg to differ. The majority of “scholars and activists” in America remain majority white. And certainly whiter when the move away from the term “Oriental” began. Dispute that if you like. But you’ll be wrong.
Also, the article I linked does talk about “white guilt” so my claim was not entirely without basis.
But those can’t be the portion of scholars and activists she’s talking about:
self-appointed terms like “Asian,” “Asian-American,” “black” and “African-American.”
What is “self” referring to there, if not the groups delineated by the terms following?
There is that number again, in reality at most one can say that just about 57% in the US, (less in European countries) with the right wing making the bulk of that number.
Incidentally, from the same group of polls made there, being concerned a bit about political correctness does not mean that people oppose change, most Americans do realize that “Our country will be better in the future if it is open to changes regarding traditions and ways of life” (60%).
There are also more Americans (and people in other countries) where most people do think that many are ignoring or missing that discrimination is still here. (61%)
Forgive me because I don’t want this to come across as being culturally insensitive, but for a while in America, African-American was the catch all term for Black Americans. Until it started to decline for legitimately good reasons. Not all Black Americans wanted to be called African-American. In fact, it seems that a large proportion did not. It was well meaning non-black Americans that helped popularize the term “African-American”. Am I mistaken?
All that to say, I take her use of “self-appointed” in this context with a dash of salt.