If I am Japanese and want to use the the Jap as my nickname… is there anything wrong with it?.. Same goes for all the other ‘racial’ terms.
To me… it makes no differnce… as long as they are not saying the term Jap racially against me I do not care. If people call me stupid in a joking matter… I do not care, if they say I am stupid as an insult… I will take it as an insult. I was more offended that someone would not let me call myself Jap even when I am Japanese.
The reason that I ask is because I am on this one message board that the administrator asked to me to ‘fix’ my name or face being kicked off the group. I have used this name for over 3 years and this is the first time I have ever been told this. I use the name EvilJap on at least 20 Mailing Lists and Forums, heck I even have a website www.eviljap.com.
I think that is a different issue from whether there is anything “wrong with” the general use of the name. Put it in a different context. If you were a member of a children’s message board and wanted to use the name KidFucker, can you not see how that would simply be inappropriate, even if you were not, in fact, a pedophile? Same thing … the admins at that message board feel that Eviljap is inappropriate for their environment. Their house, their rules.
There shouldn’t be anything wrong with it, but there is.
While you are in on the joke, and your friends are in on the joke, strangers hearing you and your friends talking about eviljap would not be. Not knowing the background story, you have to see how offensive it could be.
I serverd with a guy that wanted to be called Beano (He was Mexican.). He thought it was funny, but we couldn’t call him that. Either someone would have misunderstood and thought we were making fun of his Mexican roots, or someone would have heard and thought it was OK to make racial jokes.
The second would have been worse.
As for the message board, do you think the administrator would catch it if you changed your user name to “viciousnip”?
Well… the differnence being that a KidFucker, or a pedophile is illegal (or at least I think it is). Being a Jap is not illegal… it is what people feel is “politically correct”. Was it bad for me to be born a Jap?
Anyways… that message board is a general topics boards with no ties to any politcal, childrens or any board special topics board.
The point I was trying to make is that when you are a guest in someone else’s “home,” there is an expectation that you will keep your behavior within the bounds of what your hosts consider acceptable, regardless of your own opinions on the matter. This is why, for example, when I visited the home of my Asian girlfriend in high school, I removed my shoes upon entering.
You have, of course, every right to leave. If you stay, good manners suggests that you have forfeited your right to complain.
I think you have every right to complain if some one it telling you ‘fix’ what you are. I feel that if my relatives were good allowed to be called Japs in camps. I have every right to be allowed to be called a jap myself… or anything I want.
I think that the only ones that are really insulted here are the ones that have some feeling of guilt for what happened years ago.
Anyways… that forums admin has given me till Tues to ‘fix’ the problem of me calling my self a Jap or that he will remove me… I will let you know what happens.
EvilJap
BTW… Is anyone on this forum offended by me calling myself Jap?.. and if so … why?
Meh. I don’t like non-Japanese using the word Jap at all, but as a Caucasian I usually refer to myself as whitey, honkey, cracker, or mongrel, and have a handle on a foreign site that means “stupid westerner” so no, self-directed slurs are obviously not something that bother me.
I can see leenmi’s point. The people there don’t really know if you are really Japanese in real life or you are just taking a pot shot at a racial group. For instance, if I was at that board you were at, and I happened to see your name, I would either think: this bastard is calling us Japs evil, or, as you say, I would think this guy must be Japanese himself.
There’s another board I post on where a friend of mine (who is white) has the username “kill whitey”. Now, I have seen people objecting to his name numerous times, but in reality, his last name is White, hence the username…but most people don’t know that.
I have no problem with anyone calling me a Jap…for some reason it just doesn’t sound as ugly and mean as some other racial slurs I’ve heard towards other groups.
As I always say, the only time it would bother me is if the person placed “stupid fucking” in front of the “Jap”.
“My nickname” was McKraut when I was a teen, as I am German and Irish. In junior year of St. Edmund H.S., I spent a week in detention for writing MCKRAUT on my Iron Maiden denim jacket. Mind you, also (proudly) displayed on this jacket was the number of the beast and FTW. But “McKraut” was offesive.
It can lead to some confusion. A have several friends called Andreas. A few years ago we were a bunch of people that were quite active in the nightlife together. Two of the Andreas’ were part of the crowd. One of them is black and the other is white. It got confusing in conversation and people would go; “You mean your white friend Andreas or your black friend Andreas.” Andreas (the black one) and I had a good laugh at the silliness of the whole thing.
One evening when someone who didn’t really know the black Andreas, but knew of him asked for the umpteenth time. Andreas happened to be standing behind me. So I tapped him on the shoulder and introduced him with a slightly arrogant tone; “No I mean Andreas, my friend the Negro.” Andreas was totally cool and extended his hand and just said “And beyond being white you are?” It had the desired shocking effect and we made it an internal joke from then on presenting each other with race epithets, him saying; “This is my friend Sparc, the Aryan.” Well it was funny for a while, but eventually we had to stop because even if most people understood that we were making fun of racism so many people didn’t and were offended by our flippant use of racial epithet that it just got too irritating to explain the joke.
My conclusion is that although it is totally in your right to call yourself Jap, be ready to explain yourself a little bit more often than you might want to.
The one message board being, of course, the SDMB. Discussion of administrative matters at the SDMB belongs in The BBQ Pit.
Just because it’s in The BBQ Pit doesn’t mean that the issue can’t be discussed with all due decorum.
Hm, I have half a mind to go out and change my name to sissyfag. Aside from the obvious benefits, it would piss hell out of the former proprietor of that name, who I believe is now an arch-conservative post-gay type person. Oh well.
can no one distinguish between ‘eviljap’ and “japs are all evil”?
if somebody wishes to be addressed as anything, let them - unless it is reasonable to assume that some sane, rational person would be offended (yes, it would be possible to come up with a name which I would consider to be plausibly ‘offensive’).
so far, I have not seen anything offensive suggested.
btw, did anyone suggest ‘fixing’ “His4ever”? that comes much closer to :rolleyes: than “eviljap”. imo.
“evilnip”? can we compromise on “evilnip”? “notverypleasantasian”?
