# WTF is the stupid outrage over "Oriental" about? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 22, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163 "2014-10-22T17:47:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/201 "2014-10-31T05:08:47Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > 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. Both “Oriental” and “Asian” derive from words referring to where the sun rises (of course, it does rise there, though it also rises elsewhere). If someone already made this point, I apologize for the redundancy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/202 "2014-10-31T07:11:45Z")
> [@AppallingGael](#): > > Both “Oriental” and “Asian” derive from words referring to where the sun rises The etymology of Asia isn’t that certain. It may be that, it may be something else entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/203 "2014-10-31T07:34:46Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s part and parcel of the whole indigenous rights movement. Are you aware that there are, in fact, two separate indigenous independence movements in Japan? And there doesn’t have to be consensus in the minorities, IMO. Just enough of a grouping that we know it’s not just crazies/radicals. I’m fuzzy on the Ainu. (I had not known the term frankly, but wiki tells me I guessed correctly that they were from Hokkaido.) My trigger point is different from yours, but I wouldn’t demand consensus from the whole group either. I would evaluate the specific claims made. One complication is that I’m highly dubious about separatist movements inside democracies. > [@](#): > > Are these any different than the same challenges for any other immigrant group? I mean, seriously, what separates the Hmong immigrant experience from, say, the Sudanese, other than how the two groups are perceived racially? What separates the Hmong/Chinese grouping from the Sudanese/Kenyan/Nigerian one is… how the groups are perceived racially. But that isn’t a trivial consideration, alas. Race is a sociological construct mostly defined by the group’s adversaries IMHO. Unpleasant and embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/204 "2014-10-31T15:25:39Z")
You can’t expect someone to know 190+ countries or hundreds of ethnicities. It’s perfectly fine to say “That person looks East Asian” rather than (Han Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Zhuang Chinese, Korean, Hmong, etc.) It’s perfectly fine to say “That person looks white” rather than (Irish, Slovak, German, Albanian, Croatian, Scandinavian, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/205 "2014-11-01T04:38:53Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > You can’t expect someone to know 190+ countries or hundreds of ethnicities. No-one’s asking for that. > [@](#): > > It’s perfectly fine to say “That person looks East Asian” rather than (Han Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Zhuang Chinese, Korean, Hmong, etc.) > > It’s perfectly fine to say “That person looks white” rather than (Irish, Slovak, German, Albanian, Croatian, Scandinavian, etc.) Why would you have to? And how frequently might you get it wrong? And what shallow superficialities are you using to group people by “looks”? No, it’s not “perfectly fine”, history has shown it’s anything but. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/206 "2014-11-01T14:18:02Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > There are many more ethnic minorities in Japan besides the Ainu. Okinawans ( Ryukyuans) for instance are not the same ethnicity as main island Japanese (and are way more numerous than the Ainu). Zainichi Koreans are also more numerous. Yes, the term “Japanese” \*is \*used to mean the ethnicity of main island Japanese. This is not, however, correct. It marginalizes the Ryukyuans, the Ainu, the Zainichi, and all the other minority ethnicities of Japan. It confuses nationality with ethnicity. There’s a better word for what you mean by “Japanese”, and I’ve already used it in this thread. “Yamato” is the majority Japanese ethnicity (the same way people usually really mean “Han” when they say “Chinese”) FWIW, Zainichi Koreans do not consider themselves Japanese. I think most Okinawans wouldn’t consider themselves a separate ethnicity, either. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/207 "2014-11-01T17:54:49Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No-one’s asking for that. > Why would you have to? And how frequently might you get it wrong? And what shallow superficialities are you using to group people by “looks”? > > No, it’s not “perfectly fine”, history has shown it’s anything but. At this point I’m gonna call you out for your ignorance of American culture. You seem to think that there are no significant commonalities among the experiences of folks from east Asia who come to the US, or for that matter among African Americans, ferchrissakes. You’re operating from a highly theoretical position that is divorced from the realities of racist dynamics in the US, and your theory offers no useful guidance to navigating these matters. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/208 "2014-11-01T18:03:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > And you would have missed the “African American” who was raised in a non-segregated British school. Or the White person raised in a mixed-race Dutch school. I just wanna call out this specific bit of nonsense. This was in response to my saying–with some emphasis added: > [@me](#): > > Yesterday I went to hear some folks talk about the experience of desegregating schools in my town. Lots of the folks speaking were African American, and two were white. In that context, categorizing the speakers by race was absolutely appropriate, because their experiences were signficantly shaped by their race. So, no: I wouldn’t have missed the African American who was raised in a non-segregated British school, because every African American on that panel **went to a school in my town**. They talked extensively about their experiences in those schools, because that was the point of the panel. Nor would I have missed a white person from a Dutch school, for exactly the same reason. Your theory about race depends on looking for rare examples and using those rare examples to discredit conversations about social trends and commonalities. It reminds me of a radical gender theorist I heard some decades ago who suggested gender was a myth, based on transgender folks, folks with XXY chromosomes, etc. A poor theory of race may take two forms: it may paint everyone with the same brush (“All black people are…”), or it may deny that there is any relevant social construction of race (“There is no such thing as a black person in any context.”) The former is far more harmful, absolutely–but the latter, which you come perilously close to, is simply incorrect. > [@](#): > > Like I said, it’s lazy classification - and in your case, I fail to see why you need to categorize them at all - you’re already presupposing that all the African-Americans have a shared experience, and the Whites have a different one, before you’ve even heard them speak. That’s the very _definition_ of prejudice. Bullshit. I presumed no such thing: I went to the panel to hear about their experiences. The commonalities I’m describing **are the ones the panelists talked about**. You’re bordering on delusional here. > [@](#): > > The appropriate level of granularity there is the individual, I’d think. I mean, what if some of the A-As were bused, some weren’t, and others went to a desegregated private school that one of the Whites also went to. And the other White guy was homeschooled, but so were two of the Blacks. How does your way help find those sorts of commonalities or differences. Better to let each person speak for themselves, I’d think. Ooh, ooh, what if one of the white students was secretly a hamster dressed up as a human being? You can imagine any sort of outre scenario you want–but your scenarios **are not what actually happened**. Insisting that we can find no experiences that are commonly experienced by black Americans, no matter how narrowly we define the group, disables all conversations about our nation’s racial history. It is, in fact, a favorite tool of modern-day racists, who insist they don’t see race and that therefore there is no problem with race in our country. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/209 "2014-11-01T20:08:06Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > FWIW, Zainichi Koreans do not consider themselves Japanese. That’s kind of my point. > [@](#): > > I think most Okinawans wouldn’t consider themselves a separate ethnicity, either. They [definitely](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_people) are. [Some of them](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_independence_movement) would prefer they weren’t the same nationality, either. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/210 "2014-11-01T21:54:06Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s kind of my point. I mean they don’t consider either their nationality or ethnicity to be Japanese. They consider themselves Korean in both respects. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/211 "2014-11-02T08:47:24Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > I mean they don’t consider either their nationality or ethnicity to be Japanese. They consider themselves Korean in both respects. This is true of the older ones, but my understanding is that younger Zainichi are increasingly taking up Japanese citizenship since the requirement for having a Japanese name for citizenship was dropped. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/212 "2014-11-02T15:47:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I just wanna call out this specific bit of nonsense. This was in response to my saying–with some emphasis added:[snip] You can imagine any sort of outre scenario you want–but your scenarios **are not what actually happened**. If you can’t understand that I was pointing out that your parochial experience isn’t universal, I don’t know how to help you. Yes, I understand that you know everyone in your town, and so there were no surprises for you in this meeting. Nevertheless, you went into it with the expectation that the blacks were going to be talking about a shared black experience, the whites about a shared white experience. And it played out for you that way. Good for you. Doesn’t always work out that way. > [@](#): > > Insisting that we can find no experiences that are commonly experienced by black Americans, no matter how narrowly we define the group, disables all conversations about our nation’s racial history. I’m not arguing against the existence of shared experiences, I’m arguing against making the assumption that that shared experience applies to everyone based just on the colour of their skin. > [@](#): > > It is, in fact, a favorite tool of modern-day racists, who insist they don’t see race and that therefore there is no problem with race in our country. I’m _not_ saying race as a social construct _doesn’t exist_. I’m saying we should _work towards_ it not existing, by making a conscious effort at not grouping people on racial lines in our thoughts and our conversations. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/213 "2014-11-02T15:57:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > If you can’t understand that I was pointing out that your parochial experience isn’t universal, I don’t know how to help you. You certainly don’t know how to help me–at least we agree on that much. The problem was that I wasn’t talking about some universal experience. I was talking about a specific experience and what happened in that context. > [@](#): > > Yes, I understand that you know everyone in your town This is too stupid for words. You know better than to engage in petulant hyperbole. > [@](#): > > and so there were no surprises for you in this meeting. Nevertheless, you went into it with the expectation that the blacks were going to be talking about a shared black experience, the whites about a shared white experience. And it played out for you that way. Good for you. Doesn’t always work out that way. Of course it doesn’t–that’s why I never said that it does. Again, you’re so married to theory that you have to engage in hyperbolic universalities, **including accusing others of talking in universalities when they explicitly aren’t**. > [@](#): > > I’m not arguing against the existence of shared experiences, I’m arguing against making the assumption that that shared experience applies to everyone based just on the colour of their skin. If that’s what you’re arguing, you shouldn’t be arguing with me. I never said that. Never will. > [@](#): > > I’m _not_ saying race as a social construct _doesn’t exist_. I’m saying we should _work towards_ it not existing, by making a conscious effort at not grouping people on racial lines in our thoughts and our conversations. We shouldn’t make such groupings, **except when we’re discussing how racism has affected people along racial lines**. That’s the time it’s appropriate to engage in such groupings, and even then we need to understand that not everybody of a particular skin tone/ethnicity/cultural background experiences racism in an identical way. We have to take a nuanced approach to the issue. Willful colorblindness will keep the problem from ever being solved. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/214 "2014-11-02T16:23:34Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > there were no surprises for you in this meeting. Also, this is some willful ignorant bullshit. Do you want to know if there were any surprises for me in this meeting? Howzabout you ask me if there were? You might learn that there were surprises, but they weren’t the sort you desperately hope I found (surprise! One of the white speakers was secretly an woman with albinism from the Ainu culture and was impersonating a local high school student–what does THAT tell you about race, smart guy?) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/215 "2014-11-02T17:55:55Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > You certainly don’t know how to help me–at least we agree on that much. The problem was that I wasn’t talking about some universal experience. I was talking about a specific experience and what happened in that context. And I was telling you that your specific experience doesn’t have universal application. It’s not as if I thought there was a British black guy at the meeting. It’s that there could have been. > [@](#): > > This is too stupid for words. You know better than to engage in petulant hyperbole. How can there be no surprises about what groupings people fall into, then, if you don’t know everyone? > [@](#): > > Of course it doesn’t–that’s why I never said that it does. Again, you’re so married to theory that you have to engage in hyperbolic universalities, **including accusing others of talking in universalities when they explicitly aren’t**. It should by pretty clear tou you that I wasn’t talking about your singular experience in-and-of-itself. > [@](#): > > If that’s what you’re arguing, you shouldn’t be arguing with me. I never said that. Never will. That’s certainly the implication behind your “their experiences were signficantly shaped by their race.”[sic] - that everyone at that meeting of that race would have a shared experience. Not that they did (which we agree was the case), but that that they _necessarily_ would. > [@](#): > > We shouldn’t make such groupings, **except when we’re discussing how racism has affected people along racial lines**. That’s the time it’s appropriate to engage in such groupings, and even then we need to understand that not everybody of a particular skin tone/ethnicity/cultural background experiences racism in an identical way. So if it comes to racism, we should, but yet you acknowledge there are exceptions. And those don’t count because…? > [@](#): > > We have to take a nuanced approach to the issue. But apparently approaching every individual as an individual is _too_ nuanced? > [@](#): > > Willful colorblindness will keep the problem from ever being solved. There’s a difference between wilful colourblindness, and consciously choosing to not group people by their skin colour without insight into their individual experiences. I’m happy to examine past experiences of any individual, but you don’t gain as much as you lose by making assumptions about individuals and their experiences. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Also, this is some willful ignorant bullshit. Do you want to know if there were any surprises for me in this meeting? Howzabout you ask me if there were? I don’t need to ask you, because _you already told me_ there were no surprises there for you (in regards the subject of this discussion), in your first post on the subject, when you said the grouping you’d assigned to them was appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/216 "2014-11-02T20:33:36Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > And I was telling you that your specific experience doesn’t have universal application. It’s not as if I thought there was a British black guy at the meeting. It’s that there could have been. So what? What the hell is your point that there “could have been”? That’s totally beside the point. > [@](#): > > How can there be no surprises about what groupings people fall into, then, if you don’t know everyone? NOBODY SAID THERE COULD BE NO SURPRISES. You made that up. If they’d invited a black British dude, I would indeed have been surprised. But they did not. > [@](#): > > That’s certainly the implication behind your “their experiences were signficantly shaped by their race.”[sic] - that everyone at that meeting of that race would have a shared experience. Not that they did (which we agree was the case), but that that they _necessarily_ would. Nonsense. It’s probably true that greater than 95% of African Americans who went to high school in this town in 1970 had some similar experiences based on their race. The fact that there might have been a tiny minority of African Americans who didn’t have any particular experience in no way makes it impossible to discuss commonalities among experiences. You seem to think that extreme examples make it impossible to have any sort of discussion. > [@](#): > > So if it comes to racism, we should, but yet you acknowledge there are exceptions. And those don’t count because…? For the same reason that I can say that a chair is something you sit on, despite the existence of dollhouse chairs. If a single exception negates the ability to use a generality in discussion, then language itself dissolves. > [@](#): > > But apparently approaching every individual as an individual is _too_ nuanced? In some circumstances, of course it is. Otherwise, society literally collapses. Can I not talk about what Republicans are doing? Can I not talk about how Google employees behave? Can I not talk about what women experience walking down the street? Can I not talk about the insane pedantry of Dopers? We talk about such things acknowledging exceptions. > [@](#): > > I don’t need to ask you, because _you already told me_ there were no surprises there for you (in regards the subject of this discussion), in your first post on the subject, when you said the grouping you’d assigned to them was appropriate. You made this up. I said no such thing. Here’s what I said: > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Yesterday I went to hear some folks talk about the experience of desegregating schools in my town. Lots of the folks speaking were African American, and two were white. In that context, categorizing the speakers by race was absolutely appropriate, because their experiences were signficantly shaped by their race. I could also have categorized them in other ways–by gender, by neighborhood, by age (within a few years of one another)–but **in that context** the appropriate level of granularity was their perceived race at the time of desegregation. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/217 "2014-11-03T01:24:51Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > 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? I want to be called God-Emperor Doom, Protector of the Pluton Belt. I assume you will oblige me. e\_e ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/218 "2014-11-03T01:41:53Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > One of my grandmothers used it. She was born in 1918. She also used terms like schvatzer and coloreds. That’s how outdated and inappropriate it sounds to my ears. I get what you’re saying, but that’s sort of condemning by association. > [@Octarine](#): > > To me, it’s not an outright racial slur, but it’s a red flag that the person saying it might hold other beliefs. It’s a very old term, so if the person using it isn’t wrinkled and in a wheelchair, I’d assume it was a conscious choice and intentionally provocative. This is kind of how I understand it. I think this attitude is probably something I picked up from California-produced media, since it seems the forbidding of the word comes from there. When someone outside the USA uses the term, I have to remember that it’s still the normal term in much of the Anglosphere. > [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Same here. > > The obvious answer is the OP should put the Oriental rug in the living room to make his wife happy and he can put his My Little Pony Rainbow Dash rug in his hobby room. I’m glad that’s resolved! > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Language evolves. I hear “Asian” referring to those from East Asia and Japan, but not Persians, Indians, Pakistanis or Bengalis. Though all those groups are from countries within Asia. Orientals, as I understood it, would refer to the same countries that “Asians” refers to today in popular US usage (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc.). Which means it’s purely a conceptual substitution for “Oriental” and the euphemism treadmill would take “Asian” into slur territory too–if being a slanty-eyed yellow-skinned Mongoloid were still seen as a bad thing. > [@](#): > > To my ears, oriental is now a little like “Colored”, an antiquated term. I’m not happy with the term Asian (as I understand it), since it seems to cheat the Indian subcontinent. But whadya going to do? > > What’s the usage in South Africa? [Indian South Africans - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_South_African) Complex. But “Asian” appears to mean “from Asia” there. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/219 "2014-11-03T02:16:46Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Oh come on. Whatever fight there may have been has long been resolved- “Oriental,” for better or for worse, is not longer in use. Maybe that’s dumb, maybe it’s not, but it happened decades ago and it’s time to get over it. I don’t know that there was a fight. _In California specifically,_ there developed a stereotype of old white people who used the term, and “Asian” became preferred. In much of the English-speaking world, “Oriental” is still a fancy way of saying “Eastern,” and is at least a better term logically than “Asian” for Archipelagic Far Easterners like Filipinos and Japanese, who are, after all, seas away from Asia. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > You shouldn’t spout racist stereotypes. And when you’re called on it, you shouldn’t freak out; instead, you should check yourself and see how you can act better next time. You strike me here as like an overeager young student missing the point. Septimus is talking about different ways of seeing as a way of getting past local cultural programming, and you shoot up your hand like an excitable eight-year-old and say, “But stereotyping is wrong!” > [@mage-girl](#): > > I pretty much exclusively use “Asian” rather than “Oriental”, but I’m sure I didn’t always. Now, if only I can teach my mom to pick up on the visual differences between people of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese ancestry. I know it’s kind of tricky, but you really don’t want to get some of those switched around. _There are visual differences between Korean and Japanese people?_ > [@](#): > > On a related note, I have been informed by my more-politically-correct friends that describing someone’s looks as “exotic” is rather offensive. > > I don’t–how–are we supposed to describe anyone anymore, without hurting someone’s feelings? 😕 I guess you don’t? Then you may hurt the feelings of someone who wants you to compliment their “exotic” looks? You can’t please everybody. > [@Ravenman](#): > > I wasn’t aware that scientists frequently do things where they proudly state that they haven’t paid attention to previous research because who has time to read anymore these days? > > The reason what you’re doing is unreasonable is that you’re acting like Fox News. You see a couple trigger words, fire off some half-assed opinion, and come up with bullshit reasons why you shouldn’t care about things like “context” or “facts.” Hey, you try parsing the words and sentences of mere homunculi when you’re coextensive with time and space! > [@DrDeth](#): > > _Every_racial term is considered by some to be derogatory,. I knew a young black woman, who got irate when called “Black”: " I am _not_ black, I am a lovely shade of mocha!" > > So, saying “xxxx is considered by some to be derogatory” is weak sauce indeed. > > Thus, we cant use: > Balck > African American > Negro (pretty dated, but there’ still the UNCF) > or any term. Nor can refusing to acknowledge someone’s blackness be assumed to always be a safely inoffensive move. (It may be usually, and I certainly tried to do it for years, but some people are very into their racial identity.) So you just cope with the randomness of people. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163/220 "2014-11-03T02:31:01Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > No non-American contributer thought the term was racist. I think I mentioned that I am out-of-touch with American opinion. For almost all of the past 20 years I’ve lived in … wait for it … East Asia. Perhaps this will help explain why I might be ignorant of offenses known “since at least the late 1990s” > > And I don’t deliberately use racist slurs. Would any of the people who think I’m racist deign to read #26 and see if my usage was so bad _in its context_? > > You guessed right! My wife is East Asian, my kids half-so. > > In this thread we learn, once again, that Dopers are eager to see “racism” where it doesn’t exist. And OP wins the thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-is-the-stupid-outrage-over-oriental-about/702163.md?page=12)