I know, I know….horrible blogpost title.
Apparently the PC police are out with their pitchforks and torches (actually, most Americans don’t care- just the pc police hammering out their indignation on keyboards, like mine) over Senator Hatch’s use of an “antiquated” term for Asia, deemed “offensive” by those looking to be offended:
WASHINGTON — Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called Asia “the Orient” while speaking on the Senate floor late Tuesday — an outdated term considered offensive to Asians.
Really? What Asians? Which Asians? I’m Oriental. A Siamese single, to be precise. I don’t take offense to the term, “the Orient” or to anyone who should call me “Oriental” instead of using the current census bureau checkbox label of “Asian/Pacific Islander” (I can’t wait for that one to be antiquated; or deemed no longer “politically correct”).
“I believe there are honest, good people on that side of the aisle who want to make this right and make up for what happened here today,” Hatch said. “And I sure hope it’s so because, my gosh, to put this nation’s foreign policy — especially in the Orient in particular — to put it on hold when we could be building relationships in these countries like never before and at the same time, spurring on international trade like never before … It’s a matter of great concern to me.
Hatch is not the first politician to use the term. Vice President Joe Biden called the late Singaporean president Lee Kwan Yew “the wisest man in the Orient” in a speech in September.
Glad HuffPo chose to make mention of that. But as is typical, many don’t bother to read beyond headlines. So I’ve been reading a lot of comments by people feigning outrage and indignation at further evidence of Republican bigotry and “old white man” ageism. Aside from Hatch and Biden’s usage of an antiquated term, what about Harry Reid’s characterization of President Obama’s speaking pattern as “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Even though he was trying to speak in a complimentary fashion, the context in which Reid said what he said is far more egregious as far as racism goes.
Remember earlier this year when the actor Benedict Cumberbatch was publicly shamed into offering a public apology after using the term “colored”? So where’s the indignation over the NAACP which to this day hasn’t removed/updated the “C” in its title to “get with the times” and meet the moral standards of the PC umbrage brigade?
Should “Orient” be replaced in the Christmas Carol, “We Three King of Orient Are”? Because it’s somehow colloquial and offensive by today’s “sensibilities”?
Is it “black” nowadays? Or is it “African-American”? Most black Americans do not come from “Africa”. I have a friend who is white who was born and raised in South Africa. She is an “African-American” in the “truest” sense of the term.
The term “Orient” and “Oriental” evokes in some, exoticism, western imperialism, “the other”…
Some express offense because it “homogenizes”. Well what the devil does “Asian”, do? Why should that be any more acceptable? Or referring to “the West”? Is there anything offensive to Hong Kong or the Philippines being referred to as “the Pearl of the Orient”? How about if it’s referenced that way by Filipinos themselves? Does it matter that I spelled “Filipinos” with an “F” rather than with a “P”?
From the online Oxford dictionary when used offensively:
“The term Oriental, denoting a person from East Asia, is regarded as offensive by many Asians, especially Asian Americans. It has many associations with European imperialism in Asia. Therefore, it has an out-of-date feel and tends to be associated with a rather offensive stereotype of the people and their customs as inscrutable and exotic. Asian and more specific terms such as East Asian, Chinese, and Japanese are preferred. See also Asian (usage).”
In their purest form, “Orient” comes from the Latin and refers to the sun rising in the east; just as “Occitan” refers to where the sun sets- in the west.
A bit of Wiki history on how the term has evolved into a pejorative:
In 1978, Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said published his influential and controversial book, Orientalism; he used the term to describe a pervasive Western tradition, both academic and artistic, of prejudiced outsider interpretations of the Arab and Muslim worlds, shaped by the attitudes of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries.
~~~ American English
In the United States, “Oriental” is often considered an antiquated, pejorative, and disparaging term. John Kuo Wei Tchen, director of the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute at New York University, said the basic critique of the term developed in the 1970s. Tchen has said: “With the anti-war movement in the ’60s and early ’70s, many Asian Americans identified the term ‘Oriental’ with a Western process of racializing Asians as forever opposite ‘others’.”[7] In a press release related to legislation aimed at removing the term “oriental” from official documents of the State of New York, Governor David Paterson said: “The word ‘oriental’ does not describe ethnic origin, background or even race; in fact, it has deep and demeaning historical roots”.[8]
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
If some people worked as hard to repair and maintain relationships as they do to get their own feelings hurt, we could solve many, many of societies problems.
“Orient” and “oriental” pejorative terms? Oh, please. My Nisei mom uses both terms. Even a few relatives from that side of the family continue to use “orient” and “oriental” in making reference to East Asia, and Japanese, Chinese and Korean people. A Vietnamese friend asked me one time what part of the orient my mom came from. I answered my mom was born and raised in Hawaii, her parents, my grandma and grandpa, emigrating to Hawaii from Japan.
Some need to get their heads out of the PC gutter.
It’s a crazy world. Blacks don’t want to be called black and then you see them with signs “Black Lives Matter”. They don’t like the N word, listen to a hip hop song by a black and see if they like the word. They sure don’t like ‘colored’ but they will belong to the NAACP. So now I’m hearing Orientals don’t like oriental. Well suppose they’re from Japan and you refer to them as Chinese to avoid that horrible Oriental word. Is that worse? Would they rather be oriental than Chinese? Well, I’m an American. My parents and all my grand parents were born in America, so that makes me a native of America. Not an Indian(native)American. Don’t ask me if I’m British American or Irish American or German American. I’m American. I’m a white person. Those are facts. Black persons, born in America are black people and they’re Americans. Those are facts. People should use the correct terminology and not get their feelings hurt if someone accidentally calls them something incorrectly.
@Redteam: I have to insist that you refer to me as an English-Irish-Dutch-German-American or I will burn down your bakery. Or something.
I have grown tired if all the ‘petty’ people and those with huge chips on their shoulders…the negativity in America today is thicker than the smoldering and smoke from a raging fire….
Life is wayyy too short.
Last year I went to a local store at the Oriental Market, and, near the Oriental Trading Company, I bought an Oriental carpet from a nice Oreintal family business.
It is quite nice, raw silk with a wonderfully trippy Saruk (Oriental) pattern.
(What Oriental drugs do they do when they design and weave these things?)
The rug reminded me of the time when I stayed at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok.
Tonight I’m having Oriental Chicken Salad for dinner.
Frankly, if Edward Said is (was, isn’t he dead?) against the use of the term, ”Oriental,” then I am FOR its use. He was a PC progenitor and revisionist historian of the most fictional manner.
(Obama liked him, however.)
Point made!
If Oriental is such an antiquated term, then what about Caucasians? Come on now, how many of us came really are from Caucasus? Calling all “whites” “Caucasians” would be like calling all Blacks “Ethiopians”, or all of Oriental descent “Japanese” (Note, don’t do the later on the streets of China, it could get you killed.).
It is all the rage these days, taking offense for others. Has a legitimate ‘Asian’ actually taken offense and complained to Senator Hatch about his use of this term? Where is the Asian community and the street marches and protests demanding he be removed from office? No, it is probably some liberal of non-Asian background stirring the pot once again so that no front of society goes unscathed in their efforts to fundamentally transform America. Good f’ng grief! Get a life and a real job instead of being a professional grievance monger.
@Ditto:
If that friend has become an American then she is American of African descent. Why do so many go through contortions to figure out why they’re NOT Americans. If that person retains citizenship of both countries then she is both African and American, there is not such as thing as an African-American. America is a big enough country to stand on it’s on. You can be an American without a qualifier. Trying to think of a good comparison. Okay say you have a blue wall in your living room and you decide to paint it red. Do you then have a blue-red wall or a red wall? Or a formerly blue-red wall? I’ll go with ‘red wall’.
I think Loretta Sanchez just beat this for racial insensitivity.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/05/17/video-loretta-sanchez-seems-to-be-as-in-tune-with-native-american-sensibilities-as-liz-warren/
OUCH!
She didn’t!
Oh, yes, she did!
Now, what rock has she been living under for a decade or more?
This is difficult for me to understand. To me, “oriental” is a beautiful word, conjuring up romantic images of a trip on the Orient Express, silk, spices, exotic food, and fascinating people and customs. But I guess everyone needs to have a chip on his shoulder these days. If you’re not a victim, you won’t get a spot at the trough.
@Bill:
Bill sorry to be so late responding to this, but for some reason it came up in my mail and I knew right away that I hadn’t fully responded. So, here goes.
First, how do you know that you have any English or Irish or Dutch or German blood? just because some distant relative was from one of those countries doesn’t mean that it actually changed their blood. For example, if you had a grandfather that was an Israelie, English, Spanish and he moved to Germany, his blood would not likely change to German, so even though he lived there, does not mean you are ‘German’. And you do know that at some point your ancestors lineage began in Africa, so you will always have to include ‘African’ in your bloodline (Though I’m not sure it was actually known as ‘Africa’ back at the time your ancestors were there) so to be absolutely correct, if you just say you are Pangaean, that would cover all of those in one word. Got that? After all, we’re all “Pangaean” under the skin.
Hope you found that entertaining.
@Jeff:
Do you realize what is looking for a spot at the trough?