I actually think it is an interesting linguistic/cultural question, and came into this thread in the hopes that it would be answered.
Any shrillness in my post is due to the fact that the OP, who originally posed the question in such a way as to make it seem like a legitimate inquiry, later turned it into a nasty gripe about those oversensitive Orientals and their manipulative attempts at engendering white guilt in an innocent red-blooded American who just wanted to get to keep using a perfectly good word with not a thing wrong with it. It was that attitude that I found fault with, not the original question as it was asked. If anybody has the facts in response to the historical/linguistic/cultural question, I hope they’ll post them. But I don’t expect them to shed any additional light on the, “why aren’t I allowed to use this term now, dammit” question, which, to me (as to Esprix and others, is settled by the simple fact that the people to whom you wish to refer prefer not to be called that.
(And by the way, Dangerosa, I agree about the quaintness allowance to be made for older people.)
OK, OK. There seems to be a large misunderstanding going on here. Apparently that are a substantial group of PC soap-boxers who smell an insurgent pro-Oriental, anti-Asian uprising. Not so. Speaking for myself I’ve tried to make it clear that I have no problem with referring to the folks in question as Asian (other than the vagueness of the term), but am intensely curious as to why the term is “outdated”. How did it get to be “outdated” if it was never considered derisive or offensive in the first place? “Groovy” is an outdated term; no one is going around slapping clueless hippies on the hands for continuing to use it.
The soap-boxers have made numerous analogies to slang terms for other races, but seem to have missed the point altogether that, although Oriental is to Asians as Kraut is to Germans or Nigger is to Africans, ALL of the other slang terms have definite and clear negative connotations, whereas to the best of my knowledge Oriental has never been considered either offensive or condescending. As the person who began this thread, as far as I’m concerned that is the sole question remaining unanswered
Is it possible that you have read that “attitude” problem based on your own pre-conceived ideas about this issue, or PC in general? Because I didn’t read it that way - certainly it wasn’t at all worded the way you describe it above. Here is the original:
Note that the “hand slapping” in this thread is coming from a self-appointed third party, who feels the need to inform people, and “help” people, while at the same time asserting that what the OP thinks or wants is irrelevant.
The “they” looking for something to bitch about isn’t necessarily the group in question, it’s usually some self-appointed “spokesperson for correct speech”. Speaking for myself, this is the part of PC I have a problem with.
If that doesn’t merit a distinction in your mind, so be it. I don’t agree. I don’t see how it’s stupid, clueless, crass, or racist to question why I am doing - or not doing - anything I am asked to do by anyone else. Especially a third party.
But as the same might be true for my reading an “attitude” in Blowero’s posts - even the one prior to my posting at all - this was probably reflected in my subsequent responses on this thread. I apologise for any undue “shrillness” on my part to anyone reading along here.
In review, it’s obvious that Blowero (in particular) had no interest in why, how, or when in the first place:
"I don’t see the significance of getting hung up on what “Asian” used to mean; it has now supplanted Oriental as the word of choice. Simply use it as you would have used Oriental 30 years ago."
"‘Asian’ has been in use in the U.S. for at least 20 years; sorry you missed it. If you are so resistant to change, perhaps you would be more comfortable calling them “Mongols”."
"You are inventing ambiguity when there is none."
"You are hung up on what you want to call them, when the considerate thing to do would be to go by what they want to be called."
For some reason, this lack of interest must be shared by everyone, or it’s a problem for… Blowero??? The “So, what’s your point/problem?” attitude quotes are on display in this thread. I say, what’s the point of someone contributing to this thread if the question posed by the OP (and a few others) is of no significance to him/her. If anyone sees racist or hate speech in this thread I can only suggest they report the post in question. Otherwise, why isn’t this a valid topic for debate?
<hijack> Blowero I have no interest in “entertaining” you. If you want to get your rocks off ridiculing someone for disagreeing with you, that is your problem. Thanks for correcting my illogical/logical error, but the rest of it (your last post) is continuing the crap, IMO. If you don’t think responding to a cite snipped in mid-sentence (disregarding the explanatory text that precedes or follows) is quoting out of context, there’s no point arguing/deconstructing the rest. The bottom line is: You’re not interested in understanding what I’m saying. I accept that now, okay? I’m sorry I replied to you in the first place.
<back to the OP>
Originally, I didn’t cite the Washington state bill as a reflection of the Senator’s motives - as I said before, it was to cite the fact that “many Asians”, among other constituents, were unaware it was offensive.
But I’d like to note something else now, regarding my question about tangible benefits: Asian-Americans are not currently being oppressed or institutionally discriminated against. Yes or no? The point here is, what tangible benefit did they receive by the passage of this bill, which really only changes the wording of certain govt docs that might apply? I still say, it was a gesture, and nothing more. If a gesture like this - in the time when they were facing discrimination - would have been beneficial is another question.
In general, what I’m asking is: Do these terminology substitutions effect change, or reflect change, or…??? Did the substitution of Negro to Black to African-American make any measurable difference in institutionalised racism?
Again, I’m not arguing against courtesy, and frankly, this subject never comes up in my life, other than on the internet. I’m asking the people who are “advocating courtesy” here to try to see the distinction being made in the questions.
I don’t refer to “my Asian friends” or “my Black friends”, etc. I certainly don’t address them that way either - I call them by name. One of my oldest friends is Chinese-American (but in NYC we don’t tend to use the hyphen American informally). We’re the same age (39), and we know each other since the fourth grade. This question has never come up. I don’t really have a reason to use “Oriental” or any generalised term for people beyond country specific, or even region specific (I don’t speak Chinese, but I can hear the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin). I still hear “Oriental” being used, either by older people, or in reference to objects.
I said I agree that it’s out-dated (for people), but it honestly never occured to me that it was also offensive. Why would we still be using it for objects if it was? Does an out-dated term automatically become offensive after a certain time, even if it was never used as a slur?
"…although Oriental is to Asians as Kraut is to Germans or Nigger is to Africans, ALL of the other slang terms have definite and clear negative connotations, whereas to the best of my knowledge Oriental has never been considered either offensive or condescending. As the person who began this thread, as far as I’m concerned that is the sole question remaining unanswered."
Do you think “Negro” is in the same category as “Oriental” or not? I don’t remember the change-over firsthand - by the time I was old enough to think about it, “Black” was a done deal. Was “Negro” used as a slur before, or did it only become one at some point afterwards?
OK, obviously I did not get that message from your later posts. Although you threw in some declaimers along those lines, phrases like:
and
and
sort of tended to obscure your point for me. I confess to having made a hasty reading of the post that contained those phrases and to have mischaracterized your attitude as a result in my subsequent post. I apologize.
I would like to point out to annaplurabelle that the post from which the above excerpts were pulled is the one that I mischaracterized, not the one she excerpted with the bit about the handslapping and the needing something to bitch about and whatnot.
Now for the source of my continuing frustration . . .
In fact, some of us at least have been trying to make the point that Oriental is NOT to Asians “as Nigger is to Africans.” It is completely true that no one is likely to attempt to insult or degrade an Asian person by shouting, “You Oriental!” Partly no doubt because it’s unwieldly and partly perhaps because it is an adjective that doesn’t make a particularly compelling substantive. You’d have to go to Chink or Jap or slope or something to get closer to the N-word if that’s the effect aimed at. This is the difference between a racial slur and an outdated, but somewhat offensive, term.
That is beyond disengenuous. From the very second post in this thread, you have received your answer as to why Oriental is considered offensive and condescending. It is a Eurocentric term that is freighted with the concept of the exotic but inferior other. As Roger_Mexico pointed out, complete with cites, the term Oriental derives from the Latin word for the East. To whom is Asia “the East”?? To Europeans. It is “Westerners” who originally christened (so to speak) Asia the Orient, and then built up around it a whole fantasy of otherness, that is about as damaging as such fantasies usually are.
I’m having trouble understanding what additional answer you require.
I’m not sure who your self-appointed third-party is here (blowero?), but I would ask you to note that the quote you excerpt predated any conceivable “hand-slapping” within this thread. The OP himself in this, the fourth post to the thread, introduces the notion of political correctness into the thread and here, without foundation, seems to imply that anybody who suggests replacing the term Oriental with the term Asian is motivated solely by their need to have something to bitch about. Thus, the OP begins the hijacking of his own thread.
As for that, I can only refer you back to SAustin’s own words:
I’m assuming you’d acknowledge that in this particular case, your third-party argument doesn’t hold up.
Having dealt already with the third-party issue, let me just clarify the rest. At no point did I suggest that questioning is a stupid, clueless, crass or racist activity. I merely pointed out that using a term that a large number of people have identified as at least mildly offensive will cause these people to think you either clueless or insensitive. I have no problem either with your asking why such a term is considered offensive or with your continuing to use the term once you’ve been told. I was just pointing out that the law of cause and effect has not yet been suspended as far as I know.
Upon preview, I find that the entire previous paragraph is misleading, because it gives the mistaken impression that I specifically meant to address annaplurabelle with my earlier comments. So I’d like to here add the disclaimer that the “you” in that last paragraph doesn’t really mean anyone in particular.
Following Esprix’s contention that PC is Plain Courtesy, and involves calling people what they wish to be called, I must now inform you all that the correct way to identify my ethnic group is not Caucasian, which we hate because many of us have never been NEAR the Caucasus mountains, but
Sex-God, King of the Universe
Please refer to me by this term. You might say, “Evil Captor is a Sex God, King of the Universe,” and apparently quite proud of it."
Any use of any other terms to identify my ethnic origins constitutes OPPRESSION, and anybody who doesn’t use my preferred term is a RACIST BLOWHARD!
"I’m assuming you’d acknowledge that in this particular case, your third-party argument doesn’t hold up."
Well, you left out this part of my argument:
I didn’t want to speak for the OP, and I’d rather not comment further right now on the OP’s personal experience. I was attempting to explain my perception of what was meant (by the OP’s initial remarks and other replies before I posted). Also, if you go back and read my posts, you’ll see my own personal experience (with the term) differs. Is my writing really that unclear? Maybe I’m addressing too many different questions at once - I’ll try for more clarity (and less “heat”).
"I merely pointed out that using a term that a large number of people have identified as at least mildly offensive will cause these people to think you either clueless or insensitive. I have no problem either with your asking why such a term is considered offensive or with your continuing to use the term once you’ve been told."
Yes, I realise this wasn’t directed at me in particular. But I never considered this to be part of the debate, or in question by the majority here so far (did I miss someone who advocated using it against the wishes of an addressee?). The “continuing to use it” part seems uncalled for considering no one who has posted has even suggested that. May we dispense with the need for disclaimers about personal courtesy? (I’m posting this one last time so I can refer to it if it comes up yet again).
**"That is beyond disengenuous. From the very second post in this thread, you have received your answer as to why Oriental is considered offensive and condescending. It is a Eurocentric term that is freighted with the concept of the exotic but inferior other. As Roger_Mexico pointed out, complete with cites, the term Oriental derives from the Latin word for the East. To whom is Asia “the East”?? To Europeans. It is “Westerners” who originally christened (so to speak) Asia the Orient, and then built up around it a whole fantasy of otherness, that is about as damaging as such fantasies usually are.
I’m having trouble understanding what additional answer you require."**
Are you seriously claiming that a cite about Orientalism by Said is an undebatable proof that the term “Oriental” is (in either personal or public discourse) offensive? I’m not pretending to be some great intellect here, but Said is one academic literary critic, and his thesis has been criticised and questioned by some of his peers, on many levels. Would I have to be an “expert” to question it myself? Well, if I’m going to be labelled a clueless boob, I may as well give the punters their pound of flesh…
First of all, I’m not sure I see a connection between the term as it had been used in US, and Said’s focus:
“The book completely neglects China, Japan, and South East Asia, and it has very little to say about India. Although purporting to be a study of how the West treats all of the East, the book focuses almost entirely upon the Middle East. Its generalizations about “the Orient” therefore repeat the very Orientalism it attacks in other texts!”
Biased? Hypocritical? Flawed?
“Orientalism is an orientalist text several times over, and in two ways commits the major errors involved with the idea of the Other: First, it assumes that such projection and its harmful political consequences are something that only the West does to the East rather than something all societies do to one another. (I am surely not the only teacher who has had heard Asian-American students returning from their parent’s country of origin exclaim, “Everything Said says the West does to the East, the East does to the West!”)”
“For many scholars, one of Orientalism’s most offensive claims was its dramatic assertion that no European or American scholar could “know” the Orient and that, moreover, all scholarly attempts to do so (except Said’s own) always constituted acts of oppression. In a single dramatic move, which had great appeal for many, Said committed the greatest single scholarly sin: he silenced others by preventing them from taking part in the debate.”
Want more on Said? click
“It is not difficult to show that each of his three main claims about Orientalism is seriously flawed.”
“In fact, Said’s whole attempt to identify Oriental Studies as a cause of imperialism does not deserve to be taken seriously.”
“The final component of Said’s thesis, the allegedly false essentialism of Orientalism, not only contradicts his own methodological assumptions, but is a curious argument in itself. Going back to the origins of a culture to examine its founding principles is hardly something to be condemned.”
“In other words, rather than being necessarily ethnocentric and racist, Oriental Studies was one of the first fields within European scholarship to overcome such prejudices and to open the Western mind to the whole of humanity.”
Sorry Roger.
I don’t know if anyone is interested in continuing with pomo discourse. I’m more curious about the mechanics/politics of terminology changes into the vernacular of the teeming masses.
This is a trivial distinction at best. The word “Asian” is a perfectly acceptable substitute for any usage for which “Oriental” may have been used in the past. In modern usage, it means the same thing, only minus the negative connotations. The ambiguity you imply is not an issue at all in the U.S. - people from the Middle East are called “Middle Easterners”, and people from India are called “Indians”. “Asian” is not overbroad because it simply is not commonly used to refer to people of Middle Eastern descent. The historical usage is irrelevant, because it does not match modern usage in the United States.
Utter nonsense. I said nothing of the sort. You don’t seem very interested in my point (only your strawman characterization), but I will repeat it anyway: It’s not that I wish to forbid discussion of the etymology; I am merely pointing out that the etymology should not be used as a JUSTIFICATION for continuing to use the word “Oriental” in spite of people’s wishes to the contrary.
What the hell are you talking about now? Who accused you of hate speech?
I believe Aholibah has already pointed out how the OP got the ball rolling as far as this debate exceeding the boundaries of a purely etymological discussion. It quickly turned into a diatribe against those awful “PC” people; your false protests to the contrary notwithstanding.
In spite of your continued disclaimers that you are only interested in discussing the origin of the term, you have, and continue to, post commentary that exceeds those bounds:
How exactly does that comment answer why, how, or when “Asian” came into use?
How do any of those points address why, how, or when “Asian” came into use?
Again, simply an argument that you believe the change from “Oriental” to “Asian” is ineffective; it has nothing to do with the narrow topic of how it came about that you keep shrilly insisting everyone stick to.
Yet another argument as to your perceived ineffectiveness of the change, rather than its origin.
Here you appear to be arguing that discouraging the use of “Oriental” is somehow an affront to free-speech, although I am somewhat perplexed as to how you could come to such a conclusion. At any rate, it’s most certainly not sticking to your self-proclaimed boundaries of discussion.
Shall I go on, or is that enough?
Don’t know what you’re talking about; please reference the quote in question, or withdraw your accusation.
Well damn! Someone who actually understands why I asked the question in the first place! I apologize if the sarcasm of my later posts led anyone to believe I objected to refraining from the use of the word oriental: I knew this would be an excuse for PC folk (ie. not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs) to jump on their soap boxes and loudly proclaim their moral superiority without in any way answering the question, so I thought I would pre-empt that with a little sharp humor. I stand corrected. Obviously I haven’t been on these boards long enough.
Since the discussion has disintegrated into whether or not the Asians in question have the “right” to be called Asians, which was always beside the point as intended, hopefully we can steer this back onto the issue at hand: assuming no cultural biases are associated with the term Oriental, why change it to water down the specificness of the original moniker in favor of a term that describes any of a multitude of peoples with dissimilar heritage from all across one of (the???) largest continent in the world? On a related note, would it be considered demeaning for a Russian or Indian to refer to, say, a Chinese person as “Asian” at the obvious exclusion of themselves? Once again, inquiring minds…
I’m 50 years old and I’m being referred to as belonging to a group that is old and quaint? Cool. (grin)
I just want to go on record to say that this is completely new information to me. Of course, I’m “old”. And I live in the midwest with relatively small Asian population. And being far from the coasts, we’re the last to adopt the latest trends. Yet I would not come to the conclusion that I live under a rock. I consider myself quite well informed.
Even so, I had no idea that the term Oriental was no longer considered proper. No idea. But, with a carefree shrug, I can change. I have no problem using the term Asian, especially if it is the preferred term by the Asians themselves.
To the point of the OP however, I’ve read this entire thread and still am confused about why the term Oriental fell out of favor. (If I missed it somewhere, well, my memory isn’t what it used to be, you know, age related troubles) (Do I sound a bit defensive? Hmmm. Could be because my youngest is heading off to college. How is that possible? )
I’m jealous, Algernon. I have to wait a whole year until I can be quaint. For now I’m still a pain in the ass.
Folks, what does “pomo” mean? In this typeface it looks like “porno” but it is obviously not that interesting.
Yeah, about ten years ago I first heard that “Oriental” was considered offensive by some people. As “Asian” is two fewer syllables, at least in Midwestern US English, it was an easy shift. I assume, though I have no cites, that its quaintness smacks of Victorian imperialism. Fine, no problem. I suspect that some of the funny looks people get for using it are not because people are insulted but because they haven’t heard it in years. Some might not even know what it means, like they don’t know that Siamese cats were originally from the country we call Thailand these days.
I think white folk should be called “honkies,” though I may be in the minority there. As an educated, middle-class, white male I’m comfortable enough in my inborn masterhood in this culture (great big ) that I don’t much care WHAT people call me.
BTW, from what I’m finding on the web it looks like people who live in Asia didn’t get the memo that Orient and Oriental are offensive, either. Otherwise somebody might’ve changed the name of Orient Thai Airlines, for instance.
I believe the range of service of an airline would fall under “places”, not “people”.
Even so, from what I understand, the usage may differ in countries other than the U.S.; I think I recall British dopers in another thread saying that their usage of “Asian” is different than ours.
For those of you who, as several of you claim, are honestly interested in why “Asian” is preferred, and aren’t here just to sneer at people for being so darn “PC”, here’s some info:
From soc.culture.asian.american:
This, interestingly enough, is from a GM Corp. website:
Um, no. I believe we all acknowledge that you use Asian, not Oriental. But thanks for painting us all with that broad brush anyway. Really locks down your side of the story. :rolleyes:
I couldn’t say. Perhaps the next generation of Asian-Americans decided they wanted a break from their “Oriental” parents (and the stereotypes and baggage that comes along with it) to forge a new community identity for themselves. But if you’re looking for the minutes from the National Asian-American Ruling Council Meeting, you’re not going to find them, because there is no such beast. Somewhere along the line the term was coined, used, and perpetuated.
No one seems to have a problem with that except you. Isn’t that interesting?
Oh, and Evil Captor, we’ll let you know when you’re funny, and for the record, it hasn’t happened yet. But thanks for trying. :rolleyes:
