necoandjeff wrote:


> The reason why certain words come to conjure up
> certain images is sometimes difficult to trace. But the negative image that
> is conjured up in the minds of many out here (and I don't think this is
> confined to California by any means) when someone uses the word "Oriental"
> is unmistakable. What I want to know is what someone gains from continuing
> to use a word that some people may consider offensive?

Freedom of choice? There does come a point where you start to say 
"enough changing my language every day to suit the hysteria of choice." 
I don't say Oriental, but not because I think is is offensive: I just 
have lived my adult life in the southwest, where "Asian" is the term of 
choice. If someone decides tomorrow that "Asian" has a bad history 
because it merges multiple cultures together and encourages us to think 
of Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and China as one homogenous group, proposing 
some new alternative word in its place, my answer will be "screw that. I 
have called them Asian my entire life, never meant any harm by it, and I 
will continue to do so."

Some words have a pretty strong history. There may be people that used 
chink, jap, gook, slant, and the like in an purely innocent fashion, but 
the number was insignificantly small (with the apparent exception of the 
UK, where "jap" seems to be considered a harmless abbreviation). I think 
the argument against them is strong. The argument against "Oriental" 
seems to be more a case of fashion, like the on-again/off-again 
correctness of "black" vs. "African-American." I can't even picture 
someone using "Oriental" as a hateful slur: there are too many 
one-syllable choices for the hateful to use.

KWW