The term Oriental is based on the direction you had to go to get there – from England. And that’s why it is not a preferred term – why should these people define themselves by where they are in relation to England, or Europe? I live in a place where, I guess, most people are white (barely) i.e. California, and it is a lot cheaper for me to get to those “oriental” places by going west. “Asian” just means “from Asia” which is not in relation to someplace else. It’s just being polite.
I think its now universally disfavored when applied to a person. Not so much in other contexts, although perhaps that’s starting to change - I’m not sure. We still have the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
or as I’ve heard “Oriental is for rugs, Asian is for people”
But I don’t think that’s sufficient explanation for why its offensive. Nobody has a problem being part of “the West”, and so far as I know talking about the “Far East” is not seen as problematic.
Well, why is a term that literally just means “black” offensive? I don’t think there’s some calculus of offense, where you can logically determine how offensive a word is, just based on its etymology. Two words can have exactly the same denotation, while varying wildly in their connotation, for no reason beyond that’s the way that people use them.
Part of the issue is the historical baggage associated with the term. It has connotations of colonialism and makes Asians seem exotic or different. The usage is tainted with racism.
“Far East” is the same idea, but it isn’t usually used about people. “Oriental” has a history of being used to denote the exotic and far away, again making the people noteworthy not because of who they are in themselves, but how foreigners (English or Europeans) view them. Or what @Sunny_Daze said.
No, but you can based on its usage history. If one low-status group has been repeatedly stigmatized by those in power by the use of a word, that word (no matter its origin) and perhaps its close relations, becomes anathema, and remains so even when the disparity in power and status has lessened to a degree.
I find myself surprised that this stuff still needs to be explained. Frankly I think that people who don’t understand these distinctions also don’t understand about how power differences can affect your attitudes and language.
Sure, but if the reason “oriental” is offensive is because it references location relative to some implicitly privileged location, we should also disfavor terms like “Middle East” and “Far East” even when applied to places. Those places are people’s homes.
Erm… but I challenged you when you were mistakenly trying to explain why the word is offensive by reference to etymology and the logic of the denotative meaning, rather than the real reason (which I can now see we obviously agree on) that “oriental” has a particular association in historical usage with prejudice and stereotyping, a connotation that is not shared by expressions with similar denotative meaning.
Same here. Just keep up the best you can, no one will shun you if you accidentally use an out of date term. It’s continuing to use the out of date term when you know you shouldn’t that’s the problem.
However, some new terms are badly thought out. As far as I know, there was no great demand for the word Latinx. You just know that shortly racists are going to be calling people “tinx”, and they won’t be using it nicely. I mean, it already rhymes with “chinks”, which has been popular for ever. It’s like the word was chosen because it had a built in shorthand insult.
On the lighter side, I’m totally behind the actress or singer that said we can’t call extraterrestrials aliens because it’s an insult. It’s moved right to the top of my list of things to change in my language usage.
Are you actually hearing people say Latinx so that it rhymes with “inks”?
I think LatinX was thought out, it’s just it was thought out by a very small group of people advocating for more gender inclusive language and it might not reflect the wants or desires of the majority. While I wouldn’t describe it as the norm now, it seems to be gaining in popularity. Maybe by 2050, LatinX will have replaced Latino in the common lexicon. Or maybe by 2050 we’ll have kids asking their grandparents what a LatinX was. I have a few non-binary or genderqueer friends, and a few of them want to be rid of the concept of gender itself never mind gendered language but I don’t think that’s a realistic goal nor is it something most people desire.
I’ve heard some people pronounce it Latinx so it rhymes with minx. If you’ve never heard it pronounced it’s not immediately obvious how it’s suppose to sound.
Yep, I’ve heard people say it. If you never heard it pronounced before in English I think most people would pronounce it that way. Especially if you use a lower case x like you did rather than the uppercase X that Odesio did. Words that end in x where the x is pronounced ex generally are proceeded by a vowel, like latex. Proceeded by a consonant you get minx, lynx etc. And since this is a fairly new word and seemingly not very wide spread right now, most people have probably never heard it in the wild. How many people in rural Idaho ever use this word in their daily speech? And the US has a lot of rural Idahos in it.
But my point wasn’t how someone pronounces the word, it’s that part of the word fits in so nicely with “chinks”, it’s bound to come up sooner or later.
This is a better way to put it than I did. The only thing I have a quibble with is the gaining popularity part. I think the gain in popularity is mostly by people that speak publicly, like activists, politicians, celebrities and newscasters. For the general public I don’t think it’s increased much at all.
The thing is, if you want a gender neutral word to flourish, you need a good part of the public to be okay with the word or it’s going to be relegated to a checkmark on official forms, and have no real acceptance otherwise.
This is somewhat timely. The League of United Latin American Citizens directed staff and board members to drop LatinX from official communication. Latino Civil Rights Organization Drops Latinx