A green Toad as a JP exclusive character rumor

[thecrimsonflash]

16 minutes ago, Johann said:

"Jap" is definitely a slur. "Oriental" is generally considered offensive due to how it lumps Asian cultures together, often to fetishize or exoticize them.

I don't know you at all and I don't mean to suggest anything negative about you, but bear in mind that the "my best friends are X" argument is a bad one-- it's using your friends as a shield from criticism, and carries the implication that you think you get a free pass. Again, I don't mean to imply anything about you, but keep that in mind.

To refer to someone as racist is hardly a mere "criticism" and referring to the term as such only serves to devalue it, racist is a label that holds a great deal of weight and makes many negative assumptions about an individual in a moral context and in turn should not be thrown about without any thought, and to use the term with no thought may also only serve to produce more racists, with some just deciding to own it after having it be used so much, if you use a label enough it may very well stick and make someone into the very same monster that you swore to shame them away from being. An excellent way to create an atheist is to tell them every day that they are going to hell.

[XRay]

49 minutes ago, Johann said:

"Oriental" is generally considered offensive due to how it lumps Asian cultures together, often to fetishize or exoticize them.

When did it get that negative connotation though? And why is "Asian" free of negative connotation, when "Asian" basically lumps everyone with ancestry from that entire continent together too?

Oriental as a word sounds more fancy than Asian, but I am not sure about it having more fetishism/exoticism. "Oriental porn" turned up about 11 million search results while "Asian porn" got 143 million on Google. If anything, Asian seems to be more boner inducing than oriental.

[Johann]

I don't expect this thread to last very long at this point, so I'll say what I can.

2 minutes ago, thecrimsonflash said:

To refer to someone as racist is hardly a mere "criticism" and referring to the term as such only serves to devalue it, racist is a label that holds a great deal of weight and makes many negative assumptions about an individual in a moral context and in turn should not be thrown about without any thought, and to use the term with no thought may also only serve to produce more racists, with some just deciding to own it after having it be used so much, if you use a label enough it may very well stick and make someone into the very same monster that you swore to shame them away from being. An excellent way to create an atheist is to tell them every day that they are going to hell.

While calling someone a racist is rather strong language and shouldn't be done lightly, criticizing their behavior as being racist in nature (whether or not they are aware that it is) is how people become aware that something they are doing is problematic. Using the "my friends are X" defense is a misguided because it doesn't exempt you from doing things that are racist (particularly actions that may seem benign or are subconscious).

Calling someone a racist doesn't make them become a racist, I don't know why you think that's a thing. The atheist going to hell analogy isn't even comparable.

16 minutes ago, XRay said:

When did it get that negative connotation though? And why is "Asian" free of negative connotation, when "Asian" basically lumps everyone with ancestry from that entire continent together too?

Oriental as a word sounds more fancy than Asian, but I am not sure about it having more fetishism/exoticism. "Oriental porn" turned up about 11 million search results while "Asian porn" got 143 million on Google. If anything, Asian seems to be more boner inducing than oriental.

It became a negative thing pretty much as soon as the Western world (the Occident, meaning west) began exoticizing the Eastern world (Orient means east). Consider Asian stereotypes like submissive women, which have been perpetuated in Western culture for hundreds of years. I'm not sure how much you know about the early film industry, but it was extremely common to use make-up to make a white person "Oriental" for a role (yellowface), despite there being actual people from Asian countries who could play those roles. Early Hollywood is just one example of this, but the racism towards Asian people was much more explicit than it is today when "Oriental" was in the common language.

Is the term "Asian" free of negative connotation when used that way? I would say it's not, because Asian people as whole are still heavily stereotyped in media, and the exoticism and fetishism is still a thing. Basically same problem, similar reasons, new language for the modern day.

[Interdimensional Observer]

27 minutes ago, XRay said:

Oriental as a word sounds more fancy than Asian, but I am not sure about it having more fetishism/exoticism

The Orient was the common parlance of the late 1700s to early 1900s, the end of the era including the American Fu Manchu Chinese stereotype. The era of "Oriental despotism", of countries without histories, without cultures of any value, of excess lust, decadence, and harems.

Edward Said wrote a long, well known in academia, and controversial (partly over his evidence, focus only on the Middle East), book on Orientalism called well... Orientalism. "Oriental Studies" is a valid academic field, but beyond this specific use, it isn't really encouraged to be used in a serious context.

A classic example of unabashed racist and exotic Orientalism is this painting called The Snake Charmer (warning- includes non-genital nudity- but it is a classical piece of art) from the art genre appropriately called "Orientalist".

Nobody is sitting on a chair or even a pillow. They sit on a cold floor, which looks aged and ruined like the walls- symbolic of the decadence and ruin that is Oriental civilization. Everyone is an old man- also a sign of the death of the Orient. And while the date is 1880 when it was made, it is timeless in setting, you would never know it was 1880, because the Orient is ahistorical and never progresses. And then you have the snake charmer themselves in the middle- an overly exotic practice. And then you have the snake charmer himself- a nude young boy holding a snake in suggestive pose. That makes no sense and reeks of pedophilia, a sign of the immorality of the Orient. The artist Jean-Leon Jerome got away with the pedophilia only because it was set in not-Europe, where morality is of a higher, more tasteful standard. 

 

And with this hopefully clarifying explanation, I think this topic has gotten out of hand. @eclipse, I believe you have grounds to lock it.

[eclipse]

. . .the fuck is going on?

Eh, a lock's a lock, and why was this even a topic to begin with?

EDIT: So, is "Jap" racist?  In America, hell yes.  Please read up on sentiments during World War 2, and keep in mind that there are those who experienced it and are still alive.  If you're not from America?  Guess what, there's a giant chunk of SF that is American.

Signed,
Someone whose family had to live through that shit, yet somehow dodged the internment camps

Also, if I see people who posted in this topic use the term "Jap" and claim there's nothing wrong with it, it's an automatic suspension.  I will not put up with that crap.

Edited April 8, 2018 by eclipse