# Why is "Jap" offensive?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [September 20, 2013, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281 "2013-09-20T03:38:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/41 "2013-09-20T17:01:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Jap is a generational thing. I have no problem using it in context to their WWII. I have relatives that fought them. I know the atrocities their soldiers committed. The captured women they put in their soldiers brothels. Japs and Nazis are grouped together forever. They earned that title by their own deeds.
>
> Modern day, I certainly use German or Japanese. But if I’m specifically discussing WWII they are japs and Nazis. Himmler and Goering are Nazis. Homma is a Jap convicted of war crimes just like Goering. But these terms only apply to the WWII governments and the soldiers that fought my father’s generation. I have uncles that fought in the Pacific.
> [Bataan Death March - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March)
This is 100% bullshit. “Nazi” refers to a member of the National Socialist Party, and is a fair descriptor for the Germans who led their country in WWII. “Jap” refers to any person of Japanese descent, and is in no way limited to the particular Japanese soldiers you’re talking about above. Even (giving you the benefit of the doubt) if you don’t mean to use the term as a racist epithet, the people who hear it might not make the same distinction that you do.
If you do mean to use it as a racist epithet, well then carry on.
---
### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/42 "2013-09-20T17:06:59Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Not that I ever heard (and I’ve never heard the phrase “don’t Jap out on us.”)
Well, this was attested to me by someone who grew up on the west coast in the '40s and '50s. And who, sixty years later, was ashamed to have participated.
---
### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/43 "2013-09-20T17:14:10Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> Besides their attacking us and the propaganda, well, the more you learn about Japanese atrocities during the war, the more you ought to get up, take a walk and think about something else, like, forever. Many thousands of our boys died fighting them, after which we firebombed their cities and then nuked them- twice. Once the news of that got home, people threw parades to celebrate. Then, their kids starved and Americans mostly didn’t care.
Not to excuse any of what they did, but none of which was particularly different than what happened with Germany during the war. The Nazis were infamously responsible for horrible atrocities, the deaths of large numbers of GIs, etc.
Even prior to the war, there had been a sense of racial superiority toward East Asians, which is clearly seen in the US propaganda against the Japanese versus the propaganda against the Nazis, which didn’t use racial features.
I suspect another major difference was that the US was familiar enough with Germany to understand the problem was with the Nazis, rather than the German people in general, but didn’t understand the Japanese to the same degree. It was never “we must kill the ultranationalists in Japan.” It was “Kill Japs, Kill Japs, Kill Japs.”
---
### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/44 "2013-09-20T17:16:26Z")
Nazis were Nazis.
The equivalent slur for Germans in general was kraut.
---
### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/45 "2013-09-20T17:23:04Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> You actually told a citizen of Pakistan that he was using the wrong term for people from his own country? :eek:
It’s legitimate when the word they are using doesn’t exist in English (at least not in standard dictionaries). The correct form of the nationality, at least in American English, is Pakistani.
From Merriam-Webster:
[Pakistani](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pakistani)
> [@](#):
>
> Pa·ki·stan geographical name \ˈpa-ki-ˌstan, ˌpä-ki-ˈstän\
>
> Definition of PAKISTAN
>
> country S Asia originally comprising an E division & a W division; a dominion 1947–56, an Islamic republic since 1956, & a member of the Commonwealth of Nations 1956–72; formed from parts of former British India; ∗ Islamabad area 307,373 square miles (796,096 square kilometers), pop 153,047,500 — see east pakistan, west pakistan
> — \*\*Pa·ki·stani \*\* adjective or noun
[Pakistanian](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pakistanian)
> [@](#):
>
> The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above.
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Thats like correcting a black person for referring to themselves as African-American. 😛 A black person has every right to use any term they want for their own ethnic group.
There’s a major difference, since the word African-American is actually a legitimate English word.
If you are going to make up a new word for your ethnic group, it has to have a general level of acceptance in the language before you can fault others for not using it.
---
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/46 "2013-09-20T17:24:00Z")
Also the very limited scope of the Japanese war crime prosecution bothers many people. Germany is still pursuing and prosecuting 90 year old men for WWII atrocities. Japanese have been protected from further prosecution since the 50’s or 60’s? I can’t recall the date.
It’s a very, very sensitive subject even today in China. They suffered the brunt of the atrocities and most of those soldiers were never identified or prosecuted. Read historical accounts of the Rape of Nanking. Turns my stomach thinking some of those men are still alive today.
Germany deserves a lot of credit for trying to prosecute war criminals before they die comfortably of old age.
> **[Nanjing Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre)**
>
> The Nanjing Massacre (simplified Chinese: 南京大屠杀; traditional Chinese: 南京大屠殺; pinyin: Nánjīng Dàtúshā, Japanese: 南京大虐殺, romanized: Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as Nanking\[note 2\]) was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanking in the Second Sino-Japanese War, by the Imperial Japanese Army. Beginning on December 13, 1937, the massacre lasted six weeks. The perpetrators The Japanes...
---
### Author:  [@MegaBee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MegaBee)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/47 "2013-09-20T17:26:19Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> There was also the verb “to Jap” someone, meaning to sneakily take them by surprise or blindside them, as at Pearl Harbor. I used to hear it when I was a kid in the 1950s, but it seems to have died out now.
This just made me recall a piece of slang that we used as kids in the 70s: jap slap. It lost popularity before I realized it was offensive.
---
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/48 "2013-09-20T17:31:07Z")
Maybe in a couple more generations WWII will be dull and dry history. All whitewashed and politically neutral history. It’ll be like reading about the pillaging of villages by the Vikings. Murders and rapes happened then too. The horrors of that violence has been lost by the distance in time.
---
### Author:  [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/49 "2013-09-20T17:32:33Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> [Chinaman,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)) from Wiki.
Well, that wiki is just plain wrong, because “Chinaman” is not parallel with “Englishman, Frenchman, and Irishman”. “Chineseman” would be. However, it would be parallel with “Indiaman”, but that term refers to a ship, not a person. Are there any cases in common English that are actually parallel to “Chinaman”? Probably, but I can’t think of any.
> [@SanVito](#):
>
> Words become offensive because of how they are used, not because of how the letters are assembled.
Bingo.
---
### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/50 "2013-09-20T17:58:11Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Also the very limited scope of the Japanese war crime prosecution bothers many people. Germany is still pursuing and prosecuting 90 year old men for WWII atrocities. Japanese have been protected from further prosecution since the 50’s or 60’s? I can’t recall the date.
>
> It’s a very, very sensitive subject even today in China. They suffered the brunt of the atrocities and most of those soldiers were never identified or prosecuted. Read historical accounts of the Rape of Nanking. Turns my stomach thinking some of those men are still alive today.
>
> Germany deserves a lot of credit for trying to prosecute war criminals before they die comfortably of old age.
>
> [Nanjing Massacre - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre)
Which still doesn’t give you a pass on racial slurs.
From [a previous post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15820123&postcount=289)on the subject.
> [@me](#):
>
> For the long-forgotten OP, the question is why the Japanese were so cruel in WWII.
>
> The quick answer is the Japanese militarism which became increasingly strong through the 1920s and then into the 30s and then the war. Bushido has a little to do with it as Christianity does to the Westboro folks, it was hijacked to service a more evil purpose. This is evidenced by the normal treatment of POWs by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese war. It was only in the 30s that the army became so cruel. With universal conscription, the army drilled compliance into a populous which wasn’t that long out of a feudal system.
>
> The structure of the Meiji Constitution created a structure which allowed militarism to develop unchecked by the civilian government. The Ministers of War (Army) and Navy had to be active duty officers, and the prime minister had to resign if he could not fill a cabinet, so he was at the mercy of the armed forces. The general staffs of the army and navy were independent of the respective ministries, and like the ministers, they reported not to the Prime Minister but directly to the emperor.
>
> The ultra-nationalists attempted a number of coups, assassinated many government leaders and even threatened admirals who opposed them, ultimately unilaterally starting the war in China which lead to war with the Allies.
>
> There is no doubt that the acts of the Japanese during the war were despicable. One searches in vain for words to adequately describe the unspeakable horrors.
>
> The question is then why the Japanese didn’t develop the same sense of collective guilt which the Germans did after WWII. Many people point to this and try to make comparison, but there were large, material differences between the situations concerning the two Axis nations.
>
> More German people were more involved in the rise of Nazism, which was a political party that received a plurality of votes, did enjoy the support of sizable percentage of the people. Hitler’s ascension to power in the early 30s was famously cheered on by large crowds of tens or hundreds of thousands. More Germans were active participants in the anti-Jewish laws and agreed with the Nazis that the Jews were a major problem which needed to be solved (although fewer knew about the death camps). The brutality occurred not in some far distant land but its own neighborhoods and its victim included its own citizens.
>
> In contrast, in Japan the militarism was centered on the army and members of the non-elected ruling oligarchy. The violence occurred overseas, mostly out of view and knowledge of the average civilian. No one was rounded in the streets of Tokyo and political parties were suppressed rather than serve as an instrument of gathering public support. Political leaders did not spew hate-filled diatribes to cheering crowds.
>
> There were major differences between how the wars ended and the timing and most importantly of how the Allies approached the issue. The land war on the European continent exposed the worst of Germany’s secrets to the world. The camps still stood and evidence of the massacres were there for all to see. Not only were they visible, but the Allies had enacted a wide-spread campaign of to rid Germany of Nazis and their sympathizers, forcibly bringing the atrocities to everyone’s attention. It was Allied pressure which was the impetious for the laws which ultimately banned the denial of the Hollicost.
>
> In Japan, however, the war took several months longer, and the Japanese army was not overrun in areas where they had committed many of their atrocities. Even by then, there were concerns over the Soviet Union, and at least partly due to this the US Army participated in the cover-up of Unit 731. China’s attention was immediately distracted by its civil war. A critical part of the puzzle is that the US cooped the emperor in changing the nation, and was complicit in the cover-up of his responsibility. With the vast majority of the problem stemming from the then disbanded military, GHQ did not conduct an extensive propaganda campaign to impose a collective guilt on the Japanese population
>
> Japanese intellectuals were highly critical of the militarism and successfully fought displays of the flag and the national anthem at school graduations for years, to take one example.
>
> Timing is everything. With the successful cover-up of the worst of the civilian atrocities, including the Rape of Nanking, the Comfort Women and Unit 731 until decades later, when the news did come out, the shock value was considerably less. Less people could directly relate.
>
> This is not an apology for the actions of the Japanese. Note my repeated use of words such as “atrocities.” Nor it is an excuse for the lack of earlier, clearer apologies and an honest approach to history.
>
> It is, however, my opinion on why comparisons to Germany are not as black and white as some would think or claim.
As for the reason that there have been continued prosecutions of Nazi war criminals is the simple fact that they fled after WWII, where the Japanese largely did not.
IIRC, there really wasn’t a huge difference in numbers of people prosecuted.
---
### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/51 "2013-09-20T17:58:42Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Thats like correcting a black person for referring to themselves as African-American. 😛 A black person has every right to use any term they want for their own ethnic group.
If a dark-skinned man is born and raised and living to this day in Nigeria as a member of the Igbo tribe, to which all his known ancestors also belonged, referred to himself as an African-American, is he then correct?
---
### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/52 "2013-09-20T18:00:13Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Maybe in a couple more generations WWII will be dull and dry history. All whitewashed and politically neutral history. It’ll be like reading about the pillaging of villages by the Vikings. Murders and rapes happened then too. The horrors of that violence has been lost by the distance in time.
Which still doesn’t give you a pass on racial slurs for now.
---
### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/53 "2013-09-20T18:02:37Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Maybe in a couple more generations WWII will be dull and dry history. All whitewashed and politically neutral history. It’ll be like reading about the pillaging of villages by the Vikings. Murders and rapes happened then too. The horrors of that violence has been lost by the distance in time.
As I like to say when someone brings this up, how about we at least wait until the last victims, like my mom who was in Auschwitz, die before we start clammoring for the importance of this be relegated to dusty history.
---
### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/54 "2013-09-20T18:22:27Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Maybe in a couple more generations WWII will be dull and dry history. All whitewashed and politically neutral history. It’ll be like reading about the pillaging of villages by the Vikings. Murders and rapes happened then too. The horrors of that violence has been lost by the distance in time.
I’m reading a Viking history right now. I don’t think it’s dull or dry. And I don’t think things having happened “long” ago makes them less real.
---
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/55 "2013-09-20T18:32:34Z")
But old history doesn’t stir up anger and passion like recent history.
There was a survivor of the Bataan Death March living 20 miles from my hometown. I never met him but my dad did at his antique car club. My dad’s brother had a steel plate in his head from a shell that exploded on his ship in the Pacific. My dad was too young for WWII. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1949-51 and took pictures of machine gun marks in buildings and other war damage. I heard those war stories growing up. Watched the John Wayne movies.
I didn’t pass this on to my daughters. They studied the war in school. It’s not personal for them.
Modern Japan is a big success story. So much different since the war. My mom drives a Nissan today. 😉 I hope to visit someday.
---
### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/56 "2013-09-20T18:36:09Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> But old history doesn’t stir up anger and passion like recent history.
>
> There was a survivor of the Bataan Death March living 20 miles from my hometown. I never met him but my dad did at his antique car club. My dad’s brother had a steel plate in his head from a shell that exploded on his ship in the Pacific. My dad was too young for WWII. He was stationed at Pearl Harbor in 1949-51 and took pictures of machine gun marks in buildings and other damage. I heard those war stories growing up.
>
> I didn’t pass this on to my daughters. They studied the war in school. It’s not personal for them.
I wonder if the grand kids of Japanese Americans interred in camps found it personal. My kids, looking at my dads tattoo and hearing my parents’ story felt a personal connection. Not just because they care or my parents but because another time or place it could have been them.
---
### Author:  [@48Willys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/48Willys)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/57 "2013-09-20T18:59:18Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Maybe in a couple more generations WWII will be dull and dry history. All whitewashed and politically neutral history. It’ll be like reading about the pillaging of villages by the Vikings. Murders and rapes happened then too. The horrors of that violence has been lost by the distance in time.
Perhaps.
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#):
>
> As I like to say when someone brings this up, how about we at least wait until the last victims, like my mom who was in Auschwitz, die before we start clammoring for the importance of this be relegated to dusty history.
This, My uncle is a statistic of the Bataan Death March. My aunts and uncles who lost their brother will not soon forget, nor will their kids. My brother and my sisters will not forget this atrocity in our life times.
As far as Jap being a slur, you bet it is. However, I find that many of my “Japanese American” friends, as well as some Japanese folks I know, do not find Jap offensive. In fact they often use it themselves.
I often wonder if some folks just enjoy being offended. Sometimes I think that these folks go looking to find something to be offended at. Case-in-point, the Jap road fiasco. If the locals like the name, let it be. I find it offensive that these folks ASSuME that someone else is a raciest, when they are the ones who are racists. Obviously the locals on and near Jap road are not racists. It was outsiders who made a big issue of it. They did not endear themselves to the locals, “Japanese Americans” and all. Get a grip folks.
---
### Author:  [@48Willys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/48Willys)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/58 "2013-09-20T19:22:11Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#):
>
> I wonder if the grand kids of Japanese Americans interred in camps found it personal. My kids, looking at my dads tattoo and hearing my parents’ story felt a personal connection. Not just because they care or my parents but because another time or place it could have been them.
Obviously I can not speak as to all of these grand kids. My “Japanese American” neighbor, who I mowed lawns for as a kid, did not teach hatred toward his fellow Americans, for his internment in a camp, to his kids. It was a part of his life, kind of like what high school he went to. Since the grand parents did not take it personal, neither do the sons, daughters, nor the grand kids.
His family lost all of their property due to the internment. Like many first generation Americans before them, they just carried on. They built up a small business and bought a home for their family. They sent their kids to college, and after the kids were established, they went to college themselves. They both became college professors. It is now Dr. & Dr. Shishito. Note, name changed to protect the innocent.
These are some of the Americans I admire. In many areas of my life, I try to be as much like them as I can.
---
### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/59 "2013-09-20T19:42:24Z")
> [@48Willys](#):
>
> Obviously I can not speak as to all of these grand kids. My “Japanese American” neighbor, who I mowed lawns for as a kid, did not teach hatred toward his fellow Americans, for his internment in a camp, to his kids. It was a part of his life, kind of like what high school he went to. Since the grand parents did not take it personal, neither do the sons, daughters, nor the grand kids.
>
> His family lost all of their property due to the internment. Like many first generation Americans before them, they just carried on. They built up a small business and bought a home for their family. They sent their kids to college, and after the kids were established, they went to college themselves. They both became college professors. It is now Dr. & Dr. Shishito. Note, name changed to protect the innocent.
>
> These are some of the Americans I admire. In many areas of my life, I try to be as much like them as I can.
Happily, we were not taught hatred of Germans (in general), but of the Nazis (and actually, more the Polish people who were my parents neighbors and witnesses to the camps and did nothing). It helped that post-war Germany owned what they did- paid reparations and actually did try to make amends and taught their own history to their own citizens. My parents actually lived in Germany for a short time after the war. What we were taught was to be wary- watch your government- whoever that may be- and fight for the rights of people being marginalized.
But because of the real horrors my parents watched and had happen to them directly- my house growing up was often a scary one. PTSD flashbacks are scary to be in the middle of as a small child, and the treatments were pretty non-existant. The huge extent of the damage done to the survivors made it very difficult to overcome.
So, it wasn’t a choice whether or not the children be “taught” what happened to their parents. They were still living it and so were we. This is a real (though complex) phenomenon- secondary PTSD in children of holocaust. Here is a good summary article. More literature exists. survivorshttp://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2016824,00.html
Like your neighbor, my parents came with nothing (having fought in Israel first, my dad giving up his spot to come to USA right away), built successful a business, had four kids. Two of us are college professors, one just retired as an elementary school principal and one a special ed teacher.
---
### Author:  [@Schism](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schism)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281/60 "2013-09-20T19:47:24Z")
> [@kunilou](#):
>
> Here are a few older threads that address the same question. Check back if you have any further questions.
>
> [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=446375&highlight=Japanese+offensive](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=446375&highlight=Japanese+offensive)
> [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7435959](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7435959)
> [Jap and other 'racial' slurs - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=133115)
> [Jap and other 'racial' slurs - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=133115)
I feel left out. My thread isn’t listed. Boohoo. This subject was one of my first threads. But hey, I get it. I’m a newb.
I was summarily schooled in my thread just as the OP is being in this one.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281.md?page=2)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jap-offensive/669281.md?page=4)