debaser

I'm not playing down the seriousness of racism, just the fact that some people are overly sensitive toward terms that have no real perjorative meaning, like oriental. If there is some sort of shame that comes with originating from the east, I could understand the problem. But there is not, so I don't see it as an issue.

I might also add that I have never had any of my oriental friends so much as bat an eye at the word, and most use it in the same context as I do.

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ubertuber

Will: I don't. I think it's total hyperbole.

debaser: I think the term's connotation might be somewhat regional. When I lived in NYC, it was almost common knowledge that Oriental was demeaning. Besides, now that you know, why would you want to risk going around offending people and appearing tactless when there are other words that mean the same thing?

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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

Willravel

Some of my black friends wouldn't give a shit if I used the word nigga, but I don't out of respect to them. I'm not suggesting that oriental is in line with the n word, but it is still derogatory. That's the bottom line.
That's fine. Prove me wrong.

ubertuber

Will, you asked for someone to name one Asian-American politician and 3 movies made in the last 10 years featuring asians w/o martial arts, and one TV show with a main character who is asian.

Within 20 minutes I gave 5 politicians, 3 movies (two more related but not meeting your criteria), 3 TV shows with asian actors playing major recurring parts (not starring, admitted), 1 musician, 1 comedian, 1 newscaster, 4 athletes, and 1 member of the Joint Chiefs.

I think your point was made through hyperbole.

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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

EaseUp

Cho would agree with you, except he chose to shoot them instead.

Perhaps it would be better if our society were less anxious to be offended.

debaser

DING DING DING!

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EaseUp

African describes a continent of origin, not a person. African-American is inherently contradictory.

Willravel

It means an American of African descent. It's not contradictory.

Baraka_Guru

Perhaps it would be better if your society were less offensive to cause anxiety.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

Now, in comparison, imagine white or black actors, politicians, etc. I think you'll find that it's one sided. Also:

- Anna and the King did feature martial arts
- Ang Lee was the FIRST Asian to win an Oscar, which speaks in volumes about my so called hyperbole
- Brokeback Mountain didn't feature one Asian actor

abaya

Who are you to make that call? Are you Asian? If not, then you have no authority to decide what is pejorative or not, for that group. In many places it IS shameful, very much so, to come from the East. If you do not recognize that, then we have no basis for discussion.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ubertuber

Will, why did you write this if it didn't mean anything?

If you were going to make your point regardless, why didn't you start there? I'm still not denying that there is a disproportionately large deficit of Asian people portrayed in our media. I'm just trying to figure out why you are trying to make the point in such a way.

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Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

debaser

Agreed, we have nothing to discuss. I would appreciate if you would let me know where it is shameful to be an oriental though, so I can avoid such places like the plague.

Lucky them.

Don't forget the Chinaman that peed on The Dudes rug. It really tied the room together.

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abaya

Come to Iceland, where Asians of all background get to be called "grjóni" behind their backs, which translates as the Asian equivalent of "nigger" or "wetback." Quite a few Icelanders hate immigrants "contaminating" their country here, and the majority of the factory workers and domestic workers (immigrants) here are Polish and Asian. You'd better believe the Asians, with their easily-identifable dark hair and different features, are the ones that stick out, and for whom there is an entire political party whose platform is based on trying to get them all "back where they came from." It is quite shameful, at the moment, to be an Asian residing in Iceland.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Willravel

I couldn't think of more than a few in the past 10 years. I don't really watch ER, I've not seen Brokeback, or Geisha.

Are you really going to disagree that Asians (or minorities in general) are underrepresented in media and government?

debaser

That is a real pity, my opinion of Icelanders has dropped a few notches. Of course the only thing I held them in high esteem for in the first place was hot springs and Björk, but I may need to reconsider...

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Infinite_Loser

Words are words; They have no power over you unless you let them.

With that being said, I don't see what the big debate is here. If someone wants to call me a nigger, then more power to them. It doesn't affect me in any way, shape or form.

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

Willravel

You're speaking on behalf of yourself. If I, being white, were to walk up to a black person on the street and call them the n word, how do you think they'd take it?

Words have power and racism is alive. As long as those facts remain, racist language will exist and effect people.

Kpax

This stuff DOES happen, but if it were really the driving force behind Cho's rage, he would've mentioned it.

Do you know what angers me the most? Americans treat everybody like crap who is a minority, but Americans are also the most traveling of students in the world. What? So they expect to treat people with xenophobia and contempt, but then be welcomed with arms wide open in foreign lands? Sad to say, they actually are welcomed quite hospitably, despite.

I'm American, but I'm a minority American, and I have never seen imrovements in society. Instead, the government has paid the media to say that things are better, and paint that picture, and have Martin Luther King Day and other such type observances, so that when someone DOES complain of racism and being treated like crap, people simply accuse them of being arbitrary and "playing the race card," and no action is taken.

Xell101

Words have the power they're given. He'd take it like he'll have himself take it.

I tend to become a big caustic gorilla without realizing it, I'm trying not to, so bear with me but I'm really not following you on the importance of representation. Your whole viewpoint seems odd to me. Am I underestimating the prevalence of racism, resultantly underestimating what's requisite to induce proper cultural relevance, and wrong in assuming that most applications of corrective measures are inefficiently addressing the issues for which race is a false front (socioeconomic? Race! etc.) so as to enable greater extraction of votes and ratings? I also imagine that most of what goes on regarding race relations in the media are so superficial as to actually retard the solving of problems as it's all so divisive and angry.

I was watching PBS and I saw a little short that appeared intended to show how unreasonable racism is, as it basically outlined the path of cotton from a farm in Africa to the robes of clansmen, but it seemed more divisive and contrived than anything else. Factoring in that I usually get rude responses I figure I'm quite sorely missing the point on a lot. Given that I still can't get a good mental construct of what the opposing view point is and that my introduction to politics was a hardline libertarian radio talk show host when I was 12 some discourse would be downright useful as I'm practically built to scratch my head on these issues and ask, "Are we on different teams?" and then go be inconsistent.

Menoman

What he said was true, they only have power if you let them. He spoke on behalf of himself, to him words do not have power, to me they do not have power either.

I think that is basically proof that words don't have power unless you allow them. If they really did they would effect people the same way.


Racism is alive true, not to the extent people like sharpton and jackson would like you to believe though.

The kid was a introvert, basically never spoke unless he was forced to. If he was black they'd have told him to go to africa. If he was white you can tell him go back to the trailer park.

Kids are kids, it's too bad they are little fucks, I was one too, I got teased just as much as the next guy, and I teased just as much as the next guy.



Anyway, like 5 minutes after this happened I knew there would be threads/news articles/ debates about this. Could video games be at fault? or violent movies? What else can we throw on there? Racism?

The kid was fucked up in the head, there were 100s of warning signs that he was not mentally stable. Not all people are born with a good head on their shoulders, and anyone forced into the kind of mental illness this kid had, was not all there in the first place.


Thats what you get for listening to Bjork ya fuckin occidental

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debaser

You made coffee come out of my nose.

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FoolThemAll

LOL, there's the one artist I like that unites the rest of my family together. Unites them in utter hatred, that is.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Val_1

When I was younger I foolishly thought that racism and bigotry would be a thing of the past by the time I grew to manhood. Now it seems that the problem only gets worse, tacking huge strides backwards. Bigotries that I once thought to be a thing of the past, such as antisemitism, are rearing their heads once again.

I have come to believe that bigotry may be in our genes. An individuals dislike of any particular race or nationality isn't, of course. But, foreign ideas or people may bring up feelings of uneasiness in people. In would be a person's culture and upbringing that would shape their interpretations of the feelings; who we see as being a part of our tribe (“us”) and who we see as not being not a part of our tribe (“them”). Just a thought.

The oriental/Asian debate is confusing. I rejected the term “Asian” for awhile (I have since come around). I do realize that “Oriental” is old fashioned and verboten because of the historically negative connotations that it holds. But, I rejected changing because : 1) The term Oriental has never had any negative connotation to me, so I really didn't understand that it appeared negative to others. 2) “Asian” is a poor word replacement. Israel is in Asia, but a person of Israeli decent is not referred to as Asian. 3) Replacing a word is too easy and doesn't solve any problems. Removing the negative connotation is the real goal. Replacing the word ignores that goal.

__________________

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.

-Frank Sinatra

mirevolver

That's sadly not something that's specific to Iceland.

In my travels, I've seen racism far worse outside the US than in the US. In Russia people from the causcus region (Chechnya, Georgia) are referred to as "black people", when I first heard a Russian refer to some people as black, I looked around confused until it was pointed out to me that the so called "black people" are only slightly darker than Russians in skin color and have black hair. If you look like you're from the causcus region or the middle east, you're screwed. Every time you turn around there will be a not so friendly Russian police officer wanting to see your documents, and the police officer is at best only slightly corrupt as he comes up with excuses to why the person's documents aren't up to standards.

In Germany, racism has been on the rise (particulary in the former East Germany) and the Turkish immigrants are getting the brunt of it. More and more often, I see graffitti in Germany that says, "Deutschland für die Deutsche!" (Germany for Germans!) If you ask a German how he or she feels about the Turkish immigrants, you will get a very watered down version of the extent of the racist attitude, but that's mainly because the Germans are still very sensitive about sounding racist because of their huge historical racism scar. On the other hand, I've been in Germany hanging out in stores run by Turks and generally found them to be nice people only looking to make a life for themselves and their family that is better than what they had in Turkey.

From my experience abroad, I would place the US among the least racist countries. Are we perfect? No, no country is. But are we more sensitive to racial issues than other countries? Absolutely

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Aside from my great plans to become the future dictator of the moon, I have little interest in political discussions.

Baraka_Guru

Yes, but you could almost call Israelis "oriental," considering the fact that their territory is situated in the Orient:




Words and connotations are two parts of the same thing:




I'm feeling visual tonight.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Val_1

Well, Set the Way Back Machine to 1652. How old is that map? Yes, the Middle East was considered the Orient once, but I think it refers to Eastern Asian as of late.

__________________

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.

-Frank Sinatra

Baraka_Guru

This is my point. The meaning of the word has changed over the years. Language does that. It discards certain meanings, while retaining others.

You can expand the definition of "the Orient" to include the problem of "Orientalism" and it's Euro-centric pejorative meaning (i.e. colonialism and European empire). This is a bad thing. As I hinted at earlier, it would be like hoity-toity Britons referring to Americans as backward uncultured colonials, and, let's face it, the British do have a much richer history and deep tradition of culture than Americans do. It's a matter of etiquette and sociability that those Americans simply lack.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

debaser

I'll step out in front of the bus here:

Why is Euro-centrism and colonialism automaticaly assumed to be a bad thing? It was a phase of our (europeans and decendants) cultural growth. Was Mongol expansionism a bad thing? What about Apache raiding on nieghboring tribes? Surely the domination of the Oyo empire was a travesty, and I think we can all condemn in the strongest possible terms the ecological policies of the Maoi while we are at it.

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abaya

Yes, and guess what makes the US more sensitive to racial issues... BEING SENSITIVE about this kind of stuff. Race, class, ethnicity, what have you. Some people think it's unnecessary political correctness... but why not err on the side of caution and just plain ol' being considerate, instead of persisting deliberately in being insensitive, boorish, and perpetuating ignorance? That is my question. What is so wrong with being sensitive (I am not talking about being OVER sensitive, but simply being aware of other people's perceptions of things, and the role of power and that big bad word, "hegemony")?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

roachboy

nice debaser:

colonialism was just a phase of euro-development, in the way that the extermination of native americans was a phase in american development, the genocide of the armenians was a phase in the turkish nationalist project and the holocaust was a phase in the unfolding of german-ness----all aspects of shouldering the white man's burden i guess, accepting the unintended consequences of showing backward elements what civilization looks like.

and the history of white men who heroically shouldered that burden is made up entirely of folk who had "toughened up" in the face of racist discourse--yup--they sure didnt allow themselves to imagine that their particular forms of racism were in any way problematic and they too could look to just the kind of absurd pseudo-history of domination that you outline in no. 69 and arrive at the same conclusion: we are toughened up and racism is only a problem that affects the weak and unmanly---our forms of colonialism are ok because we are more efficient at domination than were, say, the mongols. see, we care about the environment and all the things it includes, even those backward elements many many many of whom will have to die as a function of the bildungsroman of euro-boys that has been visited upon them. it is obvious that these backward elements only have importance as occaisons for the Long Manly March of european "civilization": why folk who were pressganged into working and often dying for european need for industrial raw materials should have been grateful for the chance they got to participate in a Historical Narrative of Consequence, to be rescued from the Historical Obscurity that they otherwise would have been born into, lived through and died in. "we" did "them" a favor. where is the fucking gratitude? why didnt these backward elements ever seem to understand that they only matter--hell, they only exist---to the extent that they have had the great good fortune to be assimilated into History.

where is the gratitude?
where is the "thank you for allowing us to matter?"
it's always the same: we give and give and give and what do we get?
we give them jesus, we give them jobs in those nice mines, in those nice rubber plantations, in those nice colonial export-oriented agricultural formations we were beneficient enough to develop and bestow upon them...and are they grateful? hell no: backward elements continue to confuse colonialism with a form of domination.

what is to be done?
maybe kutz was right: exterminate the brutes.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

abaya

RB gets a big-ass from me... nicely done.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

debaser

Are you seriously comparing colonialism with genocide? Wow. I thought we were just testing the waters of moral relativism here, not sinking to the bottom like a rock.

Europeans were nowhere near as efficient as the Mongols. I would ask you what gives you the right to pass smug judgement on one particular group while ignoring far more hienous acts that had gone before. Or is your soapbox standing on a belief that white people should know better than the poor noble savages that we unfairly and brutaly forced ourselves upon (which was a matter of self interest, not racism, by the way).

Blah, blah blah. You read a bit into my post didn't you? Again, what is the difference between Europeans doing it and someone else doing it. Because Europeans were the last in a long line you feel more comfortable spitting your bile at them? Sad.
Crossing the Tigris on a causeway of books.
Zipping up his pants in Nanking.
A musket for every able bodied man.
we give them Itzamna, we give them jobs in those nice mines, in those nice rubber plantations, in those nice colonial export-oriented agricultural formations we were beneficient enough to develop and bestow upon them...and are they grateful? hell no: backward elements continue to confuse colonialism with a form of domination.

Yawn.
Wow, you really got the point of my post...

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Willravel

They are often joined at the hip.
He's a history professor. Just fyi.

debaser

Thats cool. My math teacher in 6th grade insisted that a kilometer was longer than a mile.

If he would like to enlighten me as to how the "europeans" (who are actually made up of many distinct cultures) are somehow more efficient at dominating other cultures than the mongols (arguably the best in history), I would love to hear it.

Don't confuse being trite with being educated.

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Willravel

Are you sure you didn't just misunderstand? I mean it's been a few years...

The_Jazz

debaser, I think you're confusing military with cultural domination. With the possible exception of the Chinese, the Mongols left the cultures alone when they invaded.

The all-time masters of domination, in my opinion, were the Romans who basically assimilated (or tried to) every culture that they defeated on the battlefield. They basically just expanded their pantheon of gods to include whatever local ones were around and accepted the newly-defeated into the fold. Then they made them economically dependent and wore away at the cultural edifices that way.

The Mongols were a bunch of highly mobile archers that basically swept back and forth across Asia. The fact that Russia isn't significantly Mongol-influenced despite being ruled by the Mongols for 300 or so years basically disproves your entire point.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Ourcrazymodern?

IT IS JUST US HERE PEOPLE: "DEBATING" SUCH A CONCEPT AS RACISM ENCOURAGES THOSE WHO MIGHT OPPRESS US BY USING IT TO FURTHER THEIR AGENDAS. I HATE HATE, AND HAVING TO DO IT AT ALL.

I hate those who would do it.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

debaser

You bring up an interesting point. Was colonialism cultural or military domination? I would say that it was a bit of both. As I noted above, colonization was driven by greed, not racism. I would put to you that it took varying guises (both cultural and military) dependant upon location and situation, but most of all dependent on profitt. The French, British, and Dutch did not colonize America to assimilate its population, they did it for the enourmous amount of wealth they could aquire.

That being said, you can point to many Mongol influences in Russia, from the prominance of Moscow (perhaps just coincidence) to the superb Cossak cavalry, to the Russians continued blame of the Mongols for their "second class" status in Europe. I would say that they influenced the areas they were in as much as any "bunch of highly mobile archers that basically swept back and forth across Asia" could have.

Very sure, it's one of those things that is burned into the mind...

PS And hey, I'm not that old...

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The_Jazz

The Cossaks are generally seen as a product of the geography rather than an outright copy of the Mongols. The Ukraine is a calvaryman's dream, much the same as Mongolia. There's also the note that the Mongols were so successful because of their mounts, as were the Cossaks, but the horse stock was at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of size and use.

Moscow rose to prominence because of Ivan III, who was the one who threw off the Mongol shakle, not because the Mongolians willed it. They recognized Kiev as the capital of "Russia", such as it was.

Russia as a part of the "East" is more a question of geography than anything else, especially when you realize that the Russia of the 17th Century had borders well east of anything today.

To get back on track here, colonialism is military AND cultural. It must have both to fit the definition. There's also the issue of time, as seen by the fact that 200 years of British rule left an indelible mark on India whereas 50 years of British rule did virtually nothing for Palestine.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo