[ SECRET POST #1835 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1835 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



__________________________________________________

02.


__________________________________________________

03.


__________________________________________________

04.


__________________________________________________

05.


__________________________________________________

06.


__________________________________________________

07.


__________________________________________________

08.


__________________________________________________

09.


__________________________________________________

10.


__________________________________________________

11.


__________________________________________________

12.


__________________________________________________

13.


__________________________________________________

14.


__________________________________________________

15.


__________________________________________________

16.


__________________________________________________

17.


__________________________________________________

18.


__________________________________________________

19.


__________________________________________________

20.


__________________________________________________

21.


__________________________________________________

22.




Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 61 secrets from Secret Submission Post #262.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 3 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I guess they're referring to Lady Gaga using "orient" in Born This Way. I don't know about the other thing.

As someone whose first language isn't English, I'd like to ask whether is the term only offensive in America? Or is it offensive in other (English speaking) countries, but only when applied to people?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I'm referring to the use of "orient" and especially "chola" in the lyrics of "Born This Way", with special mention for "drag/queen" as well.

"Chola" is used mostly used in the U.S. as a slur toward Hispanic/Latina women, but "orient" is considered offensive in many English-speaking countries, with special regard to the United States and United Kingdom because of their historical track records in East Asia.

[(Anonymous)]

It's offensive where people are offended by it.

[(Anonymous)]

Orient is a weird case. I've encountered people who are really offended by it, but then again I also know people that identify as Oriental and are actually quite miffed at the idea that some people consider it offensive.

[(Anonymous)]

Asian chick here. I don't it's offensive. It sounds weird as hell applying it to people (I think of oriental = a rug or or something), but I never considered it a slur.

[(Anonymous)]

That's mostly what I'd heard but I stay away from it because it sounds so fifties racist to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Nope, in the UK Orient isn't offensive. Although it is usually used for food/products from Asia, I've heard it used to describe people and no-one's been offended.

[imnotasquirrel.livejournal.com]

I'm Asian-American and I find it offensive, although it's not on par with, say, "chink." IMO it's like the Asian version of "negro", i.e. words that used to be considered acceptable but then fell out of favor because of their racist implications. "Chink" otoh would be more on par with the n-word, i.e. both are straight-up slurs.

And yeah, I've heard people defending Lady Gaga's use of the word "orient" because it's supposedly not offensive in the UK - which I can't comment on since I'm not from there, but I've heard disagreement about whether it is or isn't - but even if that's true, then it doesn't even apply here because Lady Gaga's American.

[(Anonymous)]

it's like the Asian version of "negro"

This is always what I've told people when someone is asking me about why 'oriental' is/can be an offensive term. I was recently talking to my mother about what acceptable terms were acceptable for black people in the 1960s, and Negro was the most common one that cropped up. I can't think of anyone calling her that nowadays, but if you look at material from that time, that's what was used.

[imnotasquirrel.livejournal.com]

OT/tangential: I remember getting a new edition/printing of The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder a few years ago. One of the characters is black, and "black" was how they described her in the edition of the book that I first read. Imagine my surprise when I cracked open this new edition and saw that they had removed all references to "black" and replaced them with "Negro." Wut. I'm guessing that they just reverted back to the first edition text (originally published in the 1960s - there're also some Asian characters who are referred to as being oriental). I wonder if it was a conscious decision or just something that slipped through. Seems like a pretty big mistake for it to be the latter, though.

[(Anonymous)]

You have to remember that, not only does the word "oriental" seem less offensive in the UK than the US, its continued use reflects a different need. In the UK, someone being "Asian" suggests they are from the Indian subcontinent, from where we have had a lot of immigration in the last 50 years. I have to really concentrate to remember that, when Americans say 'Asian', they mean China/Japan general area. The association with 'Asian' being related to the Indian subcontinent is very strong, such that calling an Oriental person 'Asian' just feels as wrong as calling a native Swede 'Asian'.

Even when people have a feeling that 'Oriental' might not fly anymore, you can see people in the UK really struggling to express what they mean when 'Oriental' is the word they need. There doesn't seem to be a handy alternative.

[imnotasquirrel.livejournal.com]

I'm aware of the associations in the UK. What's wrong with "East Asian"? Seems pretty handy to me. In the US, we say "South Asian" (for example) if we want to specify that we're not talking about East Asian people. Or, alternately, you could just say what they are exactly - Chinese, Japanese, Korean. No need to lump us all together if you know our exact ethnicity, we're not homogeneous or a monolith. I really don't believe that "Oriental" is the only handy expression available.

But even so, like I said, that's not relevant here because Lady Gaga is American, not British. And since you replied to my comment about The Egypt Game, I'll point out that TEG is an American publication as well. So what flies in the UK is not a defense here.