WTF is the stupid outrage over "Oriental" about?

The BBQ Pit
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May I start a thread in BBQ Pit instead?

First, Wikipedia offers an even weaker claim than Colibri:

Dictionaries are divided, but some allow the word:

I don’t always intend to give offense, and will try to avoid the word “oriental”, at least with some people in some parts of the Internet, but please don’t take offense if I forget. I spent six decades not knowing the word was offensive and old habits die hard.

(Parenthetical questions: If “discrimination against Chinese and Japanese” is the reason that some people in some parts of the U.S. consider “oriental” offensive, do they also consider “Chinese” and “Japanese” offensive? What’s the correlation with considering “niggardly” offensive? And if I were to use … gasp … a dictionary to guess what “native American” means I might decide that I am one, but I’m afraid any alternative term to denote aboriginal Americans would be considered by some to be offensive.)

This all seems silly to me. I knew a white guy whose mother was American and father from North Africa, but people were horrified when he called himself “African-American.” Conversely, that term is sometimes used for Negroes (can we even use that term?) who have never been to America! :smack:

I’ve used the term inadvertantly and been reprimanded.

Well, not really “reprimanded.” This post by Mr. Bright seems less reproachful than cryptic (though stupid might be the description I’d choose). I asked him what he meant:

In 99% of your posts, Mr. Bright, I find myself thinking "Why does he call himself “Not all that Bright? He seems very intelligent to me.” But then I see the above.

If you don’t even know why the term is offensive, Brightboi, just shut the fuck up!

And recently we see

I doubt you’re so fucking stupid as to not know what the term means. If your intended meaning is “Please avoid this term which some people consider offensive” why not say that? Or did you and Mr. Brightboi go to the same seminar about Feigned Horror and Recreational Outrage at Silly Political-correctisms?

Finally a voice of sanity! Thank you, bob++.

Welcome to post-rational America, Bob. White cops murder blacks in cold blood and many people applaud, but refer to orientals as “orientals” and you’ll be banished. :smack:

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Reminder: Friday is Acupuncture and [del]Oriental[/del] Asian Medicine Day, if that sort of thing bangs your qi gong.

Yes, there is no justice in Amerika. :dubious::smack:

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The same reason that some people consider Jap, Chinaman, or chink to be offensive: these words were used in a derogatory manner for a period of time towards a group and now it conjures up connections with those times and mores.

The real question is, why would you want to defend your use of that word if other people feel, legitimately, that its offensive? How much does it harm you to just call someone what they want to be called?

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So you can’t even fucking read English? I said I don’t want to give offense and use the term inadvertantly.

But since you’re so holier-than-me, give me a cite for Chinese or Japanese taking offense at the term “oriental.”

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Dude, oriental is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.

In all seriousness, I thought it was more of an antiquated term used by baby boomers and not so much offensive. Like referring to the negros or Mussulmen.

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To be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time reading what you wrote since this is the Pit and I don’t feel I need to be as thorough, so I read your thread title, skimmed your post, and assumed you are one of those people who want to say Oriental and hate all things politically correct. Assume my response is towards that person. If you’re not that person, ignore it

By the way, I’m not apologizing because I think many times, it is useful to save time and make such assumptions. Given your thread title and parts of the post I actually read, I believe it was a very reasonable assumption to make, not at all presumptive, and I feel no regret at having done it and will continue to skim through such topics in the future. That said, if I was wrong, and given your reaction it seems like I was, I will just retract what I said since you are not the target of my ire. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with how I decided to respond to your post, I make this post by way of explanation, not excuse or as a request for forgiveness

The end.

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Things are oriental. People are Asian. At least that’s what I was taught, speaking as one of those people. But frankly, I don’t really give a shit.

Of course, at least through grade 5 my brother and I represented a full 40% of all the Asian people at our elementary school, including faculty, and during that time, I was sure we were white.

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Lots of Asian people don’t find the term offensive, but some do. If you are in the SF Bay Area and use the term, you will likely be treated the same as if you used the term “colored” or “negro”.

You did want a cite, here’s from wiki:

From theOxford Dictionary:

Call people what they want to be called. Or not.

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For the record, “oriental” is considered a Euro-centric word, that is, it describes something respecting it’s relationship to the once-dominant European cultures (i.e. you get there by heading east from Europe). Well, you don’t get to East Asia (which is a correct geographic description) by heading east from most places any more. And harking back to a time when everything was Euro-centric, when Europe did its best to impose its culture and values on the rest of the world because they were “better” and “more civilized”, might be considered condescending or belittling, even by people who are not directly referenced by the term.

That said, you shouldn’t be jumped on for using the word if you didn’t understand this background. It is very rude to point out and ridicule other people’s mistakes; at most the distinction should be pointed out gently and in an “Oh, by the way” sort of tone.

On preview, I see that Bone has beat me to it, but I will let my remarks stand nonetheless.

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Well, can we all at least agree that “Chinaman” is out of the question?

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I still don’t know what "Oriental Flavor"Maruchan Ramen are supposed to be. Shrimp I get. Chicken I get. Oriental…wtf? It’s still tasty.

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I thought musselmen were the guys who worked on the Chesapeake Bay . . .

[sub]I loved me some Bertha’s Mussels back in the day**

I’m still trying to not use oriental to refer to people, but it’s tough. My Taiwanese roommate never corrected me back in the day (1980-81). He even used the term to refer to himself and others from that region.

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Dog.

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If I may paraphrase:

RNATB: I don’t really understand why it’s offensive, but I get that it is.

septimus: You’re stupid.

…dafuq?

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And similarly assume my rudish response was against the poster you might have been, not the one you are. :smiley:

I think my irritation was as much against the cryptic, sanctimonious and oh-so-very-very-precious comments like

rather than against the politically-correctism itself.

Which segues into:

I can’t be arsed to google “dafuq” but whatever it means, I’m rubber and you’re glue. :smiley:

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I think the San Francisco Bay Area reference is on point. I grew up in the Bay Area in the 1970’s, and I knew in elementary school that oriental was an inappropriate racial slur. We were also taught a lot about the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII, as well as about Japanese culture in general (or at least we wrote haiku and made carp kites for children’s day). It was only as an adult that I learned that oriental was not considered a slur by all English speakers.

Conversely, I’ve only recently been training myself not to use “spaz” which has no context of bigotry for me, but is considered to be a serious slur in the UK.

“dafuq” is an alternate way of saying WTF.

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Your willful ignorance here is so obnoxious, lazy, arrogant, and stupid that it almost deserves its own Pit thread.

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L.A. isn’t that different from San Francisco in that respect.

It’s not an outright slur. It’s more like using “colored” instead of “black” or “African-American”. But using it would definitely cause odd looks around here.

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Didn’t read the rest of this thread but wanted to say that I was raised (38yr old American Male) that Oriental referred to “objects from east Asia” like carpets and food. Asian referred to the people.

Now I’ll go back and see if others were told the same thing.

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Also, septimus? I like you, I enjoy your posts. But when someone tells you that something you said was offensive, the right response is not a drunken rant about how was I supposed to know, I didn’t mean anything, what is the world coming to. The right response is, “Oh, sorry–thanks for the heads-up!”

And if you’re really curious about why folks find it offensive, a good way to find out is a polite question.