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Is oriental racist? Alternatives?

MrKittyLuver said:
Sacramento, CA is all of stateside? Isn't this sample size just a little small to be that definitive? Isn't the fact that it shows up in hyper-socially-conscious California AT ALL a bit of an indicator that maybe it isn't as bad as people are trying to make it out to be?
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The TripAdvisor search was set to 'local'. Asia was about as local as it found there. I din't scroll through all the local hits; not needed. YMMV. Try it, hey?

Meanwhile, many well-known names of Native American tribes have an interesting origin. White explorers / ethnographers / troops move into an area with a translator / guide from somewhere nearby. Asked to name newly-encountered aborigines, the guide says something like, "Ah, those dog-fuckers!" So the Uto-Aztec rendition of Dog-Fuckers is officially applied.

For many epithets, see http://maledicta.com
 
SolarRay said:
Related: This came through the wire the other day. Pretty girl propaganda posters from China. Because, you know, "The fragrance of rice floats a thousand miles. Everybody becomes a hero!" ...
https://chineseposters.net/themes/women.php
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Now ain't that interesting ?

Those posters remind me of others seen in the world at one time or another.
"We are proud to participate in the industrialization of the nation, 1954"

Does she remind anyone of Rosie the Riveter ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Riveter
Or one of her compatriots, like "Wendy the Welder" ?

"The vegetables are green, the cucumbers plumb, the yield is abundant, 1959"
Shouldn't that be 'plump' ?


"Chairman Mao gives us a happy life, 1954"
I seem to recall that Mao did not want more than one child per family ?
 
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Sir Victor said:
"splain" is from "I Love Lucy" and it is offensive to Cubans, shame on you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMj9Fm4SBq8
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Nope. "splain" is a straightforward contraction of "explain", and it's been part of the language since at least 1821.

"Mansplain" entered the language shortly after Rebecca Solnit's Men Explain Things To Me; I don't know if anybody's tracked down its first appearance, but Occam's Razor suggests it's more likely to be the obvious contraction of "men explain" than a reference to a 1950s TV show. Especially since the use in ILL is about a woman explaining to a man, which is not the point of "mansplaining".

German uses a parallel formation: Herrklärung = Herr ("gentleman") + Erklärung ("explanation"). So it makes sense even in a language that doesn't have ILL as a reference point.
 
Mansplaining

The equivalent for a woman doing that, which I suppose I am now, is femlightening, or to offer femlightenment
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Victor
"splain" is from "I Love Lucy" and it is offensive to Cubans, shame on you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMj9Fm4SBq8

MelissaBaby said:
Oh please. That's just nonsense.
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'Splain, the abbreviated form, shows up in stories in the 1800s, usually in phonetic renderings of a person’s accent. Our earliest example comes from 1821: "One fellow, who applied for a license, being asked if he could read, replied, 'Mother reads, and I spounds and splains!'" (from an unnamed English paper quoted in the Gettysburg Compiler, 15 Aug. 1821). It’s a straight rendering of explain for much of its life, including in the iconic TV show of the 1950s, "I Love Lucy," where Desi Arnez’s character, Ricky, would often ask his wife to 'splain.
 
Alice_Rosaleen said:
The equivalent for a woman doing that, which I suppose I am now, is femlightening, or to offer femlightenment
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HAHAHA, that's fantastic 'Femlightenment'.


[1930s voice] "Please Travis, it was nothing, I swear. You must understand."

Travis held his wine glass up to his eye, twisting it to catch the firelight.

"Please, Hilda. Femlighten me."
 
KindofHere said:
Here's the thing about it being 'nonsense.' Who is it nonsense to?

Now this isn't about I Love Lucy but this is the same scenario.

Apu: The Racist Caricature

Now, I think that's nonsense, but I'm not from South Asia, so who is to say what is nonsense when you don't identify with those being offended?
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One person, who died before I was born, playing an ethnic stereotype, used a part of a word in his act, so I should be ashamed to use a portmanteau (a pre-existing portmanteau, not one I coined) that contains that same part of a word, in a completely separate context?

Yeah, that's fucking nonsense.
 
KindofHere said:
There is a bigger picture to this. It is: How easily people can get offended and if you can get offended by whatever offends you, so can they, and if you want people to accept what offends you, accept what offends them.

(You not being you, just you in general).
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if we lived in an egalitarian society, I'd agree with you. But we don't. Our language has been weaponized against marginalized groups for generations.
 
KindofHere said:
You're too extreme for me on this subject, but if it works for you, it works for you.
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I don't think I'm extreme about it at all.

I'm still amazed that "words matter" seems to be considered a fringe opinion on the Author's Hangout.
 
KindofHere said:
Mansplaining/Fema-whatever, are those euphemisms for, "You're being a dick" and "You're being a cunt"? Otherwise those words are too silly to get offended by, even if I know the person wants to offend, they're not up to my standards for real insults.
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Meant to be a lame attempt at humor. Just making up a word.
 
MelissaBaby said:
if we lived in an egalitarian society, I'd agree with you. But we don't. Our language has been weaponized against marginalized groups for generations.
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You're not alone in this. It doesn't take much emotional intelligence to realise that language has power. Christ, if it didn't, Trump would never have risen to power, and no man would ever have gotten laid. Language is the first weapon of war.

Language and communication are the two most powerful tools available to us. To ignore that words can be weaponised is to be wilfully blind to the obvious.
 
KindofHere said:
Some guys/gals on here say 'intent' some say 'weaponized' but the word means nothing tangible until someone puts a purpose to it. Getting offended by hearing a word is childish until you know the intent/weaponization of that word.
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Also true. But I think most people are reasonable about context. It's only a small, vocal minority who take offence across the board.
 
Asian covers about

UghOkay said:
Oriental is considered racist by the Asian community. They don't want to be talked about like a rug. You should just say Asian if you aren't going to go into specifics like Korean-American, etc.
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half the world's population, from execrable to excellent
 
I haven't read every post in this thread, so I'm sure someone has covered this (so what?), but a person can be an Asian, whereas a rug, vase or other artifacts can be Oriental.

A Chinese friend of mine likes to call herself an Ornamental, and I think that's very cute. (please don't tell the feminists)
 
No, the term refers to "from the Orient"; simple as that: anything else read into that is something that does not follow.
 
Nurek said:
No, the term refers to "from the Orient"; simple as that: anything else read into that is something that does not follow.
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