I don’t think so, Coldfire. I think the U.S. is a truly multi-cultural society, and so people are naturally more inclined to be aware of the feelings of other races. It’s true that you aren’t going to hear as much political-correctness in homogenous societies, but that’s only because there’s nobody to take offense.
Now, we’ve had other threads about words like “Oriental”, and I can see the point that some people don’t consider it a slur. But “Jap”? C’mon. Y’all are acting as though you’ve never seen one of those U.S.-produced WWII propaganda films. You’d really have to live on the moon not to know it’s a slur.
Now here you’re absolutely right. I agree 100%. It’s all about WWII, and how the word was used as a slur in the U.S.
It may not be offensive in Dutch, but around these parts (California), it is.
GaWd says he’s never had a problem with it, but I submit that it’s a problem right now. People on this very forum have indicated that they consider “Jap bike” to be offensive. It may not offend one’s buddies at the bike shop, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a slur.
And GaWd, I apologize if I misinterpreted your response as posturing. It sounded that way to me, but I was obviously mistaken.
At any rate, thanks for all those who offered views from other countries. I see that it’s obviously not as forbidden a word in other countries as it is in the U.S., although I still have a hard time seeing how “Jap bike” would be O.K. if “Jap” isn’t. But I’ll take your word for it.
Just a note from an English prospective.
In UK Jap would be nothing like as offensive as Nip. Jap would be seen as no worse than Yank or Limey, and similar to both its use would determine its rudeness.
If I drove a Lotus and you called it a Limey Car that would cause no offense, if you call me a Limey I would consider why you do so, and if you do so in order to try and cause offense to me then I will consider you rude. If you say Limey’s are all effeminate weeklings then I would take offense, but none more than if you said English people are all effeminate weeklings.
From living now in California, I see that in USA the term Jap and Nip carry a similar level of derogatoriness in this part of the world as Nip does in England.
Inter European country based nick-names have little baggage attatched these days, strangely enough only those terms for members of the Axis states of WW2 still seem highly insulting.
If a French person calls me a Jelly Eater, I would not find it offensive, but if they said it to get a ‘rise’ out of me I may give them the ‘rise’ they are after.
Good point, and something I didn’t elaborate upon enough in my last post. I dare say Holland is a multicultural society, too. Not as extremely so as the US, but it’s a lot more diverse than, say, Ireland - to stick with that example. Don’t take my word for it - I’m sure many a EuroDoper will back me up on this. And then there’s the UK - I doubt anyone would claim it’s not a multicultural society. Point is, part of this can be connected to how multicultural a place is, but there’s no denying American PC-ness is a factor too. Again: I do not mean for this to sound condescending, it’s a mere observation from someone who’s spent considerable time in your country, and always enjoys visiting.
As for living under a rock: yojimbo was surprised to find out about “Jap” being a slur. I happen to know yojimbo quite well: he’s hardly a sheltered man. He just didn’t know. It’s possible.
It is a weird dichotomy. I can’t think of any other derogatory terms that would be like this. Perhaps GaWd is right, the fact that Jap is a shortening of the word somehow renders it innocuous when describing bikes in the minds of the biker crowd. It’s not “Jap” + “bike” but basically “Japbike” and the word roots are ignored.
Just remember though, not everybody is a biker and would look at it this way.
nope. “Japanese Import” is way more common, but if “Jap import” is used, it’s understood what it means. It isn’t intended as offensive. that’s really the only usage of it i can think of. I’ve never heard of a Japanese person referred to as a “jap”. At least, not that I remember.
Coldfire, those are good points. Yes, England and Holland are multi-cultural, although they do have histories of being homogenous, whereas the U.S. is truly a melting-pot. But I won’t dispute that a lot of PC-ness exists in the U.S. I most certainly don’t think taking offense at the word Jap is overly PC, though. The word is every bit as bad as “nigger” in the U.S. It’s very similar to calling a Chinese person a “chink”.
But he doesn’t live in the U.S., correct? I wouldn’t imagine that those in other countries would be overly familiar with our WWII propaganda films. I’ve already said a couple of times that I’m not accusing yojimbo of anything. It’d be nice if people would stop implying that I was.
I’m sorry, but I must insist that GaWd is wrong. Bikers may very well use the term, but that doesn’t make it right. I grew up in California and have had many Japanese friends. Believe me when I tell you that they consider that word offensive in any context. If GaWd can show us a significant number of bike shops in San Jose that use the word Jap in their name, or any use of Jap on television, radio, or newspapers (that isn’t used for the purpose of decrying it), I will concede his point. But he’s not going to find that.
In fact, I’d be willing to bet that if you called any San Francisco area radio talk show, and used the words “Jap bike” on the air, their switchboard would be instantly lit up with angry callers.
because, believe it or not, people actuall]y understand the concept of CONTEXT. How hard is it for you to understand? I would never call a Japanese person a Jap. I would never use “jap” to refer to a person. America isn’t the center of the universe, and what might be offensive to you isn’t necessarily offensive to everyone.
Your smart-assedness aside, I find it strange that “jap” would be a horrible slur in the one case, but O.K. in the other. As pointed out by another poster, you wouldn’t say “Nigger bike” or “Chink bike”, would you? And I have said over and over that I understand that things are different in other countries. In fact, that’s why I started this thread. So I don’t know what your last sentence is all about.
because, inspite of thew best effort of people in this thread to explain the concept of context to you, you still don’t get it. I understand why you think it is offensive, but you miss how one context to me is offensive, and another isn’t.
It’s really not helpful to just repeat the word “context” over and over.
You need to lay off the caffeine, dude. I missed nothing. I am not accusing you of racism, so quit getting your panties all in a bunch. How many times do I need to repeat that I understand what all of you are saying about differences in other countries? That was my original question, and I appreciate the answers.
It doesn’t make sense to me, O.K.? That is not equivalent to calling you a racist. Coldfire et al are saying that because it’s short for Japanese, that it IS racist in one context, but not in another. That doesn’t logically follow. It’s like saying, “It starts with a ‘J’, therefore it’s not racist”, or “It has 3 letters, therefore it’s not racist.” The explanation makes no sense, but I said I would take your word for it. Exactly what more do you want from me?
An interesting word to consider in this context is Japanimation, which I think is arguably the most common word using this formulation.
Since it is pronounced with the accent on the second and fourth syllables, I’ll wager that most people see it as a benign portmanteau word. But I have noticed one or two occasions where someone objected to it because they parsed it as jap-animation.
Would anyone agree that this objection is an example of excessive political correctness? Could this word appear, for example, in a newspaper headline without drawing angry letters to the editor?
These are sentences (or derivations thereof) that I hear quite commonly here:
Chinkie (short for ‘Chinese food outlet’) “Pop down the chinkie and get us some fried rice”
Gyp (short for ‘Gypsy’) “remember that real gyppy T-shirt you got for me in Thailand?”
Darkie (I can’t believe this is still used, but it is) “I love tennis. Those two wee darkie girls from America are brilliant”
I remember reading once that Northern Ireland was the least ethnically diverse place in the World. I don’t know how true that really is, but it is fairly certain that we have very little visible minorities and the commonality of such usage above reflects that. It has been estimated the entire ethnic minority population of NI lies at between 10,000 to 20,000 (approx 1.3% of the total population, of which about something like 1% are of Chinese origin).
I have not heard anyone use the word “Jap” recently, but I’m sure it would not bother people in the slightest to do so. There would be very little thought as to the derivation or source of the word or to its underlying meaning. The only shortened word I have heard used in a hateful way and directed towards specific individuals would be “Paki”, but thankfully only very rarely.
Now, I’m not at all attempting to excuse this usage or find reasoning to justify it, but I can only say they it seems to be used mainly by older people. Only the younger generation in NI would baulk at the usage of such words in everyday conversation, and then only those from middle class or well educated backgrounds. I would say that many of the words are used purely because they have entered common parlance or local slang and not meant by the user (in the contexts above) in any (particularly) derogatory or hateful way even if they are conceived as such by listeners.
Most people just don’t think about the history or derivation of the word, it has become ‘just a word’ to use. This of course in no way excuses the usage, but merely attempts to explain it. There certainly isn’t any particular societal stigma against using such words, although this is certainly changing, albeit slowly.
Obviously, my point is this: the mere fact that “Jap” is clearly short for “Japanese” (as well as a slur in some places) means that you can’t completely compare it to calling something a “n***** bike”. “N*****” is a slur, and always is. There’s no country in the world where the word, or its direct translation, can be meant anywhere near positively. However, it has been demonstrated that “Jap” can be used, and is used, in inoffensive ways, such as the biker culture.
It doesn’t mean that it can’t be a slur at the same time - granted. But “Jap bike” is NOT equivalent to “n***** bike”. :rolleyes:
Reading through this, we once again have a ‘Its wrong in America, so it has to be wrong everywhere else’ point of view thrust in our faces. What the hell is so hard to understand here? I’m English, i’m friends with most of the Irish posters here, and not for one second are they being racist about this. ‘Jap’ is routinely used here as a shortening of Japanese, as stated before, Jap import, or Jap version, as in “I got the Jap version of (insert whatever Playstation game) on import, it runs faster and I got it 6 months before it comes out in the UK”
There is no malice intended. I would never go up and say ‘alright Jap’ to someone of that ethnicity, and neither would any of the others mentioned (Yojimbo, Twisty)
Fucking pull your heads out of your arses. Its been explained concisely and clearly and yet you still term it as a racial slur when we’ve explained the context.
Well, in my experisence the slang usage of words doesn’t always follw a logical path.
For example the word “nigger” is racist if I use it, but not it a black person uses it, and that’s using the same word in the same context. Or what about derogatory terms used as pet names, same word, different context.
I was born and raised in London. I’ve frequently heard the word Jap to describ people. As in “he’s a Jap”. It’s been used in exactly the same way as I would say “I’m a Brit” or “Twisty is a Dub”. It’s a shortening of the word cos we’re too lazy to say the whole thing. It’s not meant to be offensive, but it can be made to sound offensive, in the same way as I could insult you by calling you “Sir” even though the word “sir” isn’t offensive in it’s own right.
