Why does it seem like most racists are more against black people than Asians?

Do you live in a place where there are more African-Americans around? The United States has a long, sad legacy of slavery which still causes a great divide between the descendants of the groups involved, but I suspect that racism against Asians would be more prevalent on the West Coast, where there is more of a history to go along with it.

I live in the UK

I live in Australia and in fact people here are worse to Asians, even though a lot of the families would have been here longer than many of the white families (since the gold rush).

I think you are just making sweeping generalizations based on your limited experience.

Be careful, this is how racism starts.

I think I saw statistics once suggesting that non-Asians (at least in North America) are more trusting of Asians than any other category.

I don’t think that you can generalize.

Different people have different racist feelings.

I’ve found this too (and I live in the UK) perhaps it’s because racists are so stupid they have to insult the people most different. White and “yellow” are more similar than white and black.

Technologically advanced cultures tend to measure the worth of other cultures with the yardstick of technological advancement. Technology has come to equal power, therefore importance. It’s a very chauvinistic and limited perspective, but there it is.

Cultures that seem to be unable or disinclined to get their technological act together strike us (the technological elite) as somehow less fit, and we take a patronizing view at best, a disdainful view at worst. If the people of those cultures happen to look different from us, then we make spurious connections between race and worth. The Spanish and European settlers drew these conclusions about indigenous Americans; Brits and white Americans felt this way about African cultures; Brits also looked at South Asians and Arabs as having once been “advanced”, but having somehow degraded.

All of this fallacious reasoning was considered orthodoxy not so many decades ago in both the US and Europe. They may have lost credibility with more sophisticated thinkers today, but they still have alarming currency at a popular level.

Racism usually happens where there are significant numbers of the particular minority. A few token black families in a community, everyone is ok. 30% of the neighborhood has a particular minority, more chances there will be hostility, or even fear from the majority that the mi ority is going to crowd them out or radically change the community.

As @laureth said, in US we have a long history black and white, that still lives on in some locations. Our southern states have the majority of black people living there, and the most strife still. It is also more obvious the economic and cultural difference in the south. As mentioned above on the west coat there is a very large Asian population, maybe they have more racism there? Texas, Arizona, and southern California have many more Hispanics, especially Mexicans, and prejudice against them is higher in those locations.

Also, blacks tend to be statistically socio-economically at a lower level than Asians, and the biggest differences between people are economics not race, but the two get intertwined. The stereotypes generally in the US have been the Asians are hard working and smart. Your child hanging out with the Asian kid, there would be an assumption the Asian child will be a good influence. Your child hanging around the black kid, the stereotype is they don’t care about school and get mixed up in bad things. All generalizations of course, again having to do with social class in reality. Where I grew up my high school was 40% minorities all kinds, and we were all middle class, race, ethnicity, religion, none of it mattered, we were all friends, no extreme distinct difference between IQ, or acheivement. But we were not 60% white 40% black. The minorities were black, Vietnamese, Hispanic (many different countries) Korean, and more, so we were all kind of one of the many.

I don’t know?? Since you asked maybe you could share your observations with us first??

As far as I’m concerned, racism is for those dumber than a brick! If I don’t like some of the things I see [ just for example ] an inner-city black do, I do NOT generalize those behaviors to any other African-American. You’d be amazed at how quickly thoughts of racsim disappear under fire.

I think maybe because racism with black people has been recognised and highlighted more deeply in society, due to some historic happenings such as the oppression of African Americans in the 1920s, and slavery as @laureth mentioned. I also live in the UK, and have noticed racism towards Asians more than African people.

For the people who live in the UK: do you use Asian to include countries like India? Or, just Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam (countries that previously were called the Orient).

You should seriously watch a bunch of Russell Peters’ comedy standups and his experience with racism. He travels all over the world and has seen a lot.

The long and short of it is that every culture is racist to some degree. White to Black, Asian to Indian, Black to Asian and on and on. I don’t say that in an effort to convince you that it’s ok: I don’t think it’s ok. We need to understand just why these feelings exists so we can rise above them as a society.

I agree with those above referencing slavery in the US. Ebonics is a good example. From my limited understanding, Ebonics is related to retaining some of the sentence structures and syntaxes of African languages mashed up with English vocabulary. When slaves were brought here, they were forced to learn English, and Ebonics evolved from this process.

Many fools still believe that a black man who speaks with such a dialect is somehow stupid or inferior to those who do not. The reality is that this is simply a form of racism. I do believe it’s important for people be taught standard American English so they can have more opportunities to succeed in modern American society. I also believe that people who pass value judgments based on a person’s dialect are equally in need of education.

I don’t know, but racism really takes me from zero to ten thousand.
I’m not very confrontational anymore,but I am quick to call a racist out on their ignorance and generalizations.

@gorillapaws I remember watching one of those court shows on TV, it was either Judge Joe Brown or Judge Mathis, both black, and the defendant was speaking in Ebonics and the judge more or less said to the plaintiff, “your first mistake was doing business with someone speaking in Ebonics and giving you double talk.” I was shocked he said it on TV and that it didn’t make the news media. I agree that any group should be able to speak any dialect or language in their homes and neighborhoods, but they need to know mainstrea, English, and that English needs to be what is taught and spoken in school. That the dialect is derived from African languages being mixed with English is no excuse. Any child born in America should be able to speak, write, and read English well. My niece and nephew both are first language Spanish, but they were raised in America in American schools, and their English is perfect (well as perfect as American teenagers go lol). I have to think the teachers are speaking Ebonics also for people to be walking around talking to everyone using Ebonics, and not adjusting depending on the circumstance. If that is the case I find it dissappointing.

Some black people in Memphis say it is because white people are xenophobic, white people want everyone to coform to the “white way,” I take issue with that statement. We all have to coform to some extent to meet the expectations of various situations. What we wear, how we speak, our hair style, etc.

@JLeslie I agree that we all need to conform, but when was the last time you saw a white American wearing traditional African clothing? The problem is the conforming is uni-directional and it follows the old rules from the slavery days: Black men need to become more like Europeans. If the situation were more equitable, then we would all conform a bit to each other and come together in the center, instead of forcing everyone to conform to a Western European set of norms and culture. In other words, it’s decidedly one-sided.

@gorillapaws

I tend to agree with you. Sometimes ( well, MORE than just sometimes ) people embedded within a culture are unable to see the norms of that culture as just that… cultural norms. There are almost no cultural standards which are part and parcel of human nature ( although HAVING cultural norms does seem to be part of human nature ).

@gorillapaws I agree with you. I think for that to happen black people (please realize I am not talking all black people here, I am going by the stereotypes and generalization that are out there, and especially what I here in the community I live in now, which is much more divisive and racist than anywhere else I have ever lived) need to gain some social standing, again socio-economics. Once they kind of prove themselves, and have some power of their own, they can start wearing what they prefer, because they will already have the respect garnered by their position, and then it will trickle down to the masses. We might say that is a sucky way for it to have to happen, but from what I can tell, this is how it usually works. It does not even have to be some high level executives necesarily. Anybody who makes a name for themselves in an industry, who is sought by reputation would be able to do it, and start a trend.

I compare it to Bill Gates, and internet start-ups. They took the IBM blue suit and threw it in the garbage. They could do it because everyone wanted their genius and products.

When I hear black women complain about hair, I just simply do not agree we are going for a white girl ideal. What is in the media is women with tons of expensive hair extensions and hair processing. Most white women also have a lot of trouble meeting that ideal. The Hispanics, Indians, and Mideasterners have a better shot than a white girl. I do not know one white woman who looks down on or has prejudice towards a black woman for wearing a more natural look. What we criticize is assymetrical dos, and backwards mullets, we criticize it on white women too, look at the flack Kate Gosslyn had. The hair style is more about social class again, no one on 5th Avenue has a hairstyle like that. So in that case, I think the black people are turning it into a race issue, not the whote people. I get the feeling the black people don’t really understand what is in our white heads about hair.

@JLeslie

Hell! I just wish I HAD hair! LOL!

It just ocurred to me that one reason some white people may have more trouble dealing with black people than with Asiatics is that most Asiatics seem to have lifestyle more in accordance with what might be termed a “white lifestyle.” I said “seem.”

@CaptainHarley I’m one of those white girls with thin hair, and now with thyroid trouble it falls out way too much. I have always had to perm, or use lots of products. If I do nothing and just let my hair hang I look ill. I think how much work women, all women, have to do in general to reach cultural norms regarding how we look is annoying. Hair, body, body hair, nails, and on and on.

I also agree with what @tranquilsea said. My Mum is Indian, and unfortunatley, I have seen racism within the family against whites and blacks. It’s not only white people who are racist towards blacks or Asians. Many times, black people and Asian people are too.

Yeah, with what @tranquilsea and @MilkyWay is saying, it’s more like being ethnocentric about your own culture. I want to say that I think the vast majority of Americans are not racist.

Oriental? Nuh, uh.

In Lala land the different Asian groups have prejudices against each other.

I think it depends on where you are and how aware you are of the way racism plays out, and the different forms it takes.

@tinyfaery Why do you say, “nuh uh,” because you prefer the OP use East Asian? If so this is one of the reasons I asked my question about the deifinition of Asian which takes twists and turns over time and varies by country. Most Americans consider Asia to describe Eastern Asian countries, or the areas described by the older term the Orient. When someone says Asia to me I think of the entire continent, including the Middle East, parts of Russia, etc. But, in America we separate out the Middle East in our common usage and description of that part of the world, I would gess many Americans have no idea the Middle east is part of Asia, and many Americans probably think all of Russia is eastern Europe. Oriental was a better (I use the word better lightly, I realize many people find the word offensive) shorthand, better understood by the average person who knows little aout georgraphy.

@CaptainHarley great points.

@JLeslie I disagree with the subtext of your body image argument. I realize all women in modern society have unrealistic, and unhealthy expectations of how they should look placed upon them by society/media etc. In the case of African Americans, there is much more damage and it’s a much more severe situation, to such a significant degree that I think it should be treated as an entirely separate issue. This is an award winning short film documentary on black women and body image that’s only 7 minutes long called ”A Girl Like Me”. If you jump to 3:20 into the film, you’ll see that they recreated the Clark doll test experiments back in 2005 and had a similar findings from the original study even in modern times.

Can someone tell me why Oriental is offensive? I really don’t know.

@wilma oriental refers to objects, and asian refers to people.

Things are oriental. People are Asian.

Jinx

That’s not how the language works here…

Oriental? Offensive? In the UK?

Oriental literally means Eastern, and is commonly used to describe the Eastern part of the Old World, this is also known as Asia.

Asian and Oriental have the same meaning.

It is certainly not offensive in the UK, and noone gives a shit about the euphemism treadmill in the States.

Thank you @gorillapaws and @tinyfaery , I had no idea.
So maybe we both just learned something, me to not describe people as oriental and you may not have known that many people don’t know what you both just told me.
If I had unknowingly used that term, you might have thought me racist when if fact I don’t believe that I am.

Oriental literally describes a geographic region, exactly the same as Asian.

There can be nothing inherently offensive in the meaning of the word, so any interpretation as such is an imagining of the Americans.

Also, any distinction between use to describe people, and use to describe any other objects or concepts from Asia or the Orient, are contrivances of the Americans.

So, apparently there are no Oriental people in the USA, and also no Asian restaurants.

Well, I’ll add that to the long list of utterly contrived race-related faux-pas I have to remember in the USA, and you let the rest of the world carry on as normal with our words that simply mean what they say.

And everybody’s happy.

btw, @OP, most of the racists I’ve met in England, are if not ‘equally’ racist to all races, at least do feel that all the ‘other’ races are a ‘problem’...

I think most of the resentment towards Muslims comes from association with terrorism and hyped up paranoia about Sharia law.

I think most of the resentment towards Black Africans comes from perceived associations with drugs, violent crime and gang culture.

In contrast, the Asians haven’t really got so much guilt attached to them in the racist public consciousness, probably because most racists actually love curry.

This is why it’s so confusing. To some people the distinction is ridiculous, to others it’s important.

I don’t want to offend people, and I also don’t want to be walking on eggshells about every word I might use.
What are we to do?

@The_Idler there’s nothing inherently evil about uttering the syllables that make up the word “nigger”, but the word is evil because it is used to make people feel bad about who they are. If a term makes people feel bad about themselves, then I won’t use it. I agree that the logic behind why someone might be hurt by a particular term is sometimes irrational, but language is inherently irrational anyways—it is simply a set of symbols and sounds that we have collectively assigned meaning to. If that meaning is hurtful then it should be avoided.

@wilma If you are an American, just know that many people will take offense to Oriental used as a moniker to describe people, some won’t. Like anything, you must decide how you want to treat others. Other countries think the word is ok to use, just like some countries think it’s ok to stone women or think Muslim is a race. Who you want to be has nothing to do with the country you live in.

@wilma
Ignore the Americans and their incessant butchering of the language.

But obviously, when in Rome….

———

I wasn’t talking about nigger though, was I @gorillapaws? That word is supposed to be offensive, or at the very least, demeaning.

This offensiveness of ‘Oriental’ is pure contrivance. Pure American contrivance. And it’s a fucking tire to be continually having to learn which are the latest words the Americans have decided are taboo.

If we just accept the use of it as offensive, that means it becomes offensive in the UK as well, and the last thing I want, too, is to be walking on those manufactured egg-shells.

It’s certainly not going to affect how I refer to all my friends in the Chinese Society, but don’t worry I will remember this and check my speech when I’m in the USA.

Or maybe I’ll just say it anyway to get a chance to point out the idiocy of the linguistic contrivances that regularly come out of the American hyper-sensitivity to ‘race issues’.

@The_Idler I think you missed the point of my response. ALL linguistic contrivances are inherently idiotic. The fact that the symbols ‘B’, ‘R’, ‘E’, ‘A’, and ‘D’ represent cooked dough is arbitrary and idiotic, but it’s a convention none-the-less, and it makes possible to communicate ideas. If having to learn that certain linguistic constructions are offensive to some (even if the rationale is totally arbitrary or illogical) can spare people the pain of feeling hurt, then the minor exertion is a worthwhile effort, in my opinion.

Oriental in the “classical” sense of the word was the misconception the Occident carried towards the eastern world in the industrial age and its fallout. These misconceptions served a range of uses from frivolity to intentional misguidance.

The connotation “Orient” typically represented not the real Orient but the white (read superior) conqueror’s view of what the Orient represented for him. That view may or may not have been accurate. More often the latter than the former.

The Orient as it has been used linguistically in history represents nothing more than an illusion and wishful fancy of the white world regarding non-whites.

So, you’re saying that because racist writers once used it, it no longer actually describes the Orient, but the warped imaginings of white-supremacist history writers?

It comes from Latin. It means East. Is there no such thing as “The Orient”? Is there no longer an Eastern part of the great Old World landmass?

@The_Idler The word “nigger” is derived from the latin word for black: “niger.” The problem isn’t the original meaning of the term, but the fact that it is hurtful to people today. If the term “nigger” was historically used in a sense that made black people feel good about themselves then it would be perfectly acceptable.

And to preempt the response that you’re not talking about the word “nigger,” let me clarify that I’m making an “argument by analogy” i.e.

- Here’s a word we universally agree should not be used.
– It is bad because it’s hurtful to some people
– Here is another word that we disagree whether it should be used
– It is also hurtful to some people
– it shares the same property as the one that makes the first word bad
– Therefore this second word should not be used.

I don’t have any problem with using the word “oriental” to describe objects btw, just people.

Growing up as an Asian American, I’ve experienced racism a few times in my life. I think when you’re a member of a “visible” minority group, you really can’t escape it. But I know what you mean when you say it Black people and people from the Middle East seem to experience it more. As bad as this sounds (and I don’t mean to be racist here), these 2 groups are generally more associated with criminal and terrorist activities than Asians. Asians, in general, have a reputation for being hard-working and industrious——they often do well in school and many hold high positions in society as doctors, lawyers, and other professional people. Consequently, they aren’t viewed by the public as “troublemakers”, and hence are less picked on. In addition, Asians on the whole are “better behaved”—-children tend to respect their elders, listen well to authority, and abide by the rules and laws. Because of this, they don’t have as much trouble fitting into mainstream society, and thus are more “accepted”.

But this doesn’t mean Asians do not face racism everyday. They do. A lot comes from jealousy because they do do so well. But just “looking different” breeds irrational hate. You can have a very Americanized Asian like me who was born here, and a non-American white French guy who just emigrated here, and who do you think will get picked on first walking down the street? Most likely me, even though the French guy hardly speaks English and doesn’t know the customs here. It’s only because he’s white that he doesn’t get picked on.

@MRSHINYSHOES how do you feel about the word “Oriental”?

Partly because it’s easier to pretend cultural genocide and economic exploitation aren’t still going on when you can blame the current state of blacks and indigenous folks on some internal failing. Black and indigenous peoples in this country continue to bear the brunt of systemic oppression, so it’s no wonder that these two groups have the most negative stereotypes surrounding them, particularly in terms of industriousness, drug use, and criminality.

@incendiary_dan

industriousness = negative stereotype?

Come again.

Yeah, @MRSHINYSHOES, it seems to me the only crime associated with East Asians in the racist public consciousness in the UK is ‘looking different’...

@gorillapaws Nigger comes from the realm of racialism. The Victorian idea that humans can be neatly categorized just like everything else in the universe. The Victorians had a fetish for categorisation. They also had a fetish for using Latin as a way to aspire to the ‘greatness’ of the Roman Empire, which was idealised at the time as an example of European ‘genius’.

The Black Africans were called Negroid. Thus, ‘nigger’ is fundamentally a child of Victorian pseudo-scientific racialist theory, and so inherently demeaning.

The equivalent term for ‘racially’ European people is Caucasoid, which has no negative connotations, because the ‘scientific’ theory of the Victorians was contrived to justify their domination of the world.

The equivalent term for the East Asian ‘race’ was Mongoloid, which has all the analogous negative connotations as Negroid, due to the same etymological association with Victorian pseudo-scientific racialist theory.

The term Oriental was, until very very very recently, simply a synonym of Eastern. Some people have started disliking its use to describe Oriental people in the USA, because of HOW some Americans use the word, NOT, absolutely NOT, because of what it literally means, or because of its etymology or historical associations.

What shall you do when the American racists stop saying “Those fucking slant-eyed Orientals” and start saying “Those fucking slant-eyed Asians”?

Suddenly decide that another word has become taboo?

Or maybe just realise that Oriental has only ever meant Eastern, and its the racists who are offensive, not an objective and literally true term referring to a geographic area and everything that comes from there.

Negroid and Mongoloid are fundamentally related to racist theory, while Oriental, Occidental, Austral are all geographical descriptions.

When I go to China and Japan, do you think it reasonable to demand that they all stop calling me ‘Occidental’ or ‘foreigner’, and start calling me Man of the West or something equally contrived?

I would never do that though, because I’m not some sort of cunt, who believes the offensiveness of someone’s speech is all about some imagined negative connotations of the completely objective and literally true words they use, rather than what they’re actually saying about me.

@atlantis Negative stereotypes concerning industriousness i.e. the lack of it. Laziness. Sorry if I was unclear.

I don’t care whether the Chinese refer to me as ‘big nose Westerner’, or ‘big nose European’...

It’s not really the geographical part of it that causes offense, know what I mean?

Also, ‘Orient’ has been used to describe ‘East of Europe’ in English since 1300, coming from the Old French which dates at least to the 11th century, obviously they got the word from Latin.

This destroys the idea that the term is inseparably related to Victorian Euro-centric world-views, and the associated history and ideas of Occidental domination, because for the majority of the period between 1300 and now (i.e. the term of use of this word in English), the Occident was a near-insignificant peripheral realm of the Old World, with the Oriental and Islamic worlds being by far the most sophisticated, rich and powerful civilizations, dominating manufacture and trade, and the Europeans mainly being captivated in wonder at how shit they were in comparison.

You won’t find any references to an inherently ‘inferior’ or ‘stagnant’ Orient until the Victorian Era, in fact, you will find quite the opposite.

So, we can see that, though the Victorian historians and theorists have had a great deal of influence on the public perceptions of the nature of the world’s civilizations, they ABSOLUTELY DID NOT invent the word Orient to describe an inferior race or civilization, which is in total contrast Negroid & Mongoloid.

So, I don’t know what ‘classical’ sense of the word @atlantis is talking about.

@JLeslie

You said: “I think how much work women, all women, have to do in general to reach cultural norms regarding how we look is annoying. Hair, body, body hair, nails, and on and on.”

Don’t look at me! I didn’t do it! LOL!

Your argument is essentially that a term is derogatory if its derivation is predicated on flawed rationale or a racist worldview. My argument is that a term is derogatory if its use is hurtful to people. I agree that a your rationale can contribute to why people feel hurt by a given term, but ultimately the rightness or wrongness of a term is based on the litmus test of how it makes other people feel.

The flaw with your argument is that all language is inherently illogical or irrational and predicated on the flawed understanding of the universe of our ancestors who created the languages from which ours are derived . E.g. the word “sinister” is derived from the latin word for “left” and people of the ancient world erroneously believed that being left-handed was evil. But the word “sinister” isn’t derogatory to left-handed people in modern usage and is perfectly acceptable to use, despite being derived from a flawed understanding of nature. If people used the word sinister in a way that made left-handed people feel hurt about who they are, then I think it would be just as bad as any racial epithet.

If the word “Asian” ever evolved into a usage that made people feel bad, then it too would become derogatory. Language is in a constant state of evolution, terms become obsolete, their meanings change, and new terms crop up (just read Shakespeare or Chaucer to see how different things are now). It would be more efficient if language came about more formally based on sound logic, but it simply doesn’t work that way—just look how Esperanto worked out. Meaning is organic, changes over time, and yes, can be frustrating when it becomes “too politically correct” for it’s own good. I don’t think this negates the fact that if we are aware that a term can hurt someone, that we should make every effort to avoid doing so.

To give a racist answer I would say it is because people from Asia are more civilized than black people. They are also more civilized than white people.

@gorillapaws
Nice example with sinister.
The example of sinister is related to lucky/unlucky ancient omens, and was not originally related to discrimination against left-handedness, which came later in Europe. The difference is that sinister is now in use, by everyone, simply to describe… well you know the meaning, and it’s closer to the original meaning, which came through French, than anything to do with discrimination.

Oriental, on the other hand, is in common usage to mean ‘Eastern’ and has been for 700 years. It doesn’t have to be associated with discrimination, there has never been a conscious effort to do so, even by the perpetrators themselves.

I’m just trying to be a force that stops words being perceived as offensive, when there is no reason for them to be. ‘Nigger’ should be perceived as offensive, because it is invariably intended as offensive. Just accepting any word as ‘offensive’ because a few people think so merely guarantees that more and more people will BE offended, and more and more people will ACCIDENTALLY offend others.

You get the situation where a great number of the minority have ‘heard’ the term is offensive, because of the context in which some of them have heard it used, while the majority population has no idea of this, and those of them that do use it in an offensive way are only doing so by using it in the same sentence as expressing discriminatory attitudes! Then everyone has to stop using it, and it takes decades of needless accidental offence for this to come about. Meanwhile, all the racists just carry on saying the same things, using or not whatever the new word is!

Take my Chinese example. There are many offensive words for foreign people. Referring to people as foreign devils, big-noses, red monkeys, etc.

But some foreigners consider the word ‘foreigner’ or ‘Westerner’ to be offensive, whereas the Chinese find this utterly ridiculous, because foreigners simply are foreigners. Now, I’d rather go and tell all the laowai in China that it is not an inherently offensive word, being a literal and objective description of what they are and where they come from, than attempting to convince a billion Chinese that the word ‘foreigner’ is now inherently derogatory. Mostly because they all know it’s literal meaning, and all use it in that way, whether they hate foreigners or not.

Just because one Chinese guy tells me to ‘fuck off you useless foreigner’, doesn’t mean that all Chinese people using the word ‘foreigner’ share those sentiments. In fact, most of the malicious intent of the sentence can be deduced from the ‘fuck off you useless’ part of it, and it doesn’t really matter what comes after that, even if it is ‘honourable sir’.

I just think its fucking inefficient and also completely ineffectual, for us to complain so much about a word that racists use, when everybody else uses that word as well, and the word is a literal and objective description of the thing in question.

I’m not going to use words that I know people find offensive, I don’t want to hurt people. I do want to let people know about cases where an offensiveness has been recently manufactured, while millions or billions of people still use the word with absolutely no derogatory intent.

Don’t you think we’re better off explaining to all the laowai in China that it simply means foreigner, rather than convincing all the Chinese in China to modify their language for the benefit of a few hyper-sensitive foreigners?

Just because some people said ‘Oriental’ with a sneer and a nasty tone of voice, doesn’t mean the word is now their exclusive domain, and it doesn’t mean they won’t immediately switch to saying ‘Asian’ in exactly the same way.

I’m not saying language has to be absolutely logical, I’m just saying it should be sensible and practical.

In the USA, the prevailing wisdom is that, in accordance with the idea of freedom of speech, it is completely acceptable to be a racist, so long as you express your malicious and abhorrent views with inoffensive words. Meanwhile, there is a constantly growing list of words that noone is allowed to use any more, which almost everyone struggles to keep up with, and which constantly creates situations of accidental offence.

Somehow, I think the real issue isn’t being addressed by this attitude.

@flutherother That’s not a racist answer. It may even be a fact, but it’s not racist unless your explanation for the fact relies on the perceived ‘inherent traits’ of the ‘races’.

So sorry for the de-rail…

@gorillapaws I remember learning about the doll expirements. I watched your link and my response is the black community does it to themselves more than the white community does. The first time I ever heard of the shade of black being such a big deal was on Oprah a few years ago. A mom making her son feel like crap because he was very dark. She had regretted ever making a baby with such a dark blackman. To be clear the mom was black herself. I only heardof thenbrownpaper bag test a year ago froma black man here in Memphis. I was so happy when Oprah and audience members told the teenager when you go to college, get out of your community, everything will change. I also saw on Oprah a show about Asians being so upset about their eyelids, and I don’t even really see the difference, I think most Asian women are beautiful from head to toe.

Anyway, back to black, your link, do you blame white people for telling black people and children that they aren’t as nice? We are talking little children in that study who probably watch cartoons, who probaby don’t watch the news, whydo they think white babies and people are nicer and more desireable? Sure there is the advertising and marketing of the doll itself, so that counts, white babydolls are sold to us through advertising more than black, but what if that expirement tell us that those kids are treated well by their white teacher while their black moms, dads, and neighbors are screaming at them all the time or not even doing anything so obviously negative, but just not giving them positive reinforement and smiles? I know that all sounds racist, again, I am not trying to generalize, just saying I really think a lot of the negative messages come out of the black community itself, and I think they think they know what the white people are thinking, but no, it is in their own heads.

The hair, again white girls are perming, and straightening, and coloring also. Skin color, I have tried to have more color in my skin my whole life, now I have the wrinkles to show for the time spent in the sun. The one young girl in your link wo was told by her mom her hairdo was to African, I tought she looked great, cute, and I think every one of my white girlfriends would think so too. Not one of my white girlfriends would be thinking she should go get her hair straightened.

I know what it is like to be the minority, I know what it is like to know people hate me, that people in history enslaved my people and brought us to the ovens to be gassed and incinerated. I know the feeling of sitting in temple and thinking if they want to get a bunch of us all in one room, the synagogue is an easy target. But, I also was given being proud to be an American, America is a much a part of me as being Jewish, if not more. I was told I can do anything, America is a paradise of freedom for those who work hard. I was tod I was beautiful, especially by my grandparents and aunt, I was told I was smart, I had people around me who were always happy to see me. The hate, the anisemitism tha I knew existed, was not a part of my immediate world for the most part, even though I knew it always could be.

Jews purposely conformed, most Jews, to the American way of life, embraced it, wanted their children to fit in so badly they did not pass on their mother tongues in fear the children would have accents (an unfortunate misconception practiced by many immigrants two and three generations ago).

Your link had a girl speaking of feeling like she doesn’t have roots, heritage. But, she does. Hers is smilar to mine. I feel no major connection to Russia or Latvia, they were horrile to Jews in the days of my reatives. My aternal grandfather lived a horrific childhood in Latvia, and then at 14 came to America. His entire life was difficult and incredibly said, it is heartbreaking. I think the one thing many black families still miss is not passing on being excited to live in the United States of America of today.

@The_Idler I think you might like this recent question about Political Correctness. I tend to agree Americans go overboard on the topic.

@wilma As an adjective, the word ‘oriental’ is fine. “We purchased an oriental vase at a Chinese gift shop,” for example. “The oriental decor of the room reflects Japanese and Chinese influences.”

But used as a noun to define a person, ‘oriental’ sounds uneducated and unrefined. “Those Orientals who live down the street just moved in last year.” It’s like using the word ‘broad’ to describe a woman, or ‘old man’ to describe your father. It really doesn’t bother me that much, though to some it’s derogatory and ‘Asian’ is the more accepted and proper term to use. I agree.

I agree it sounds archaic, like Asiatic, to refer to a person as ‘an Oriental’. Mostly because it is archaic. But I sometimes use it as an adjective, still while referring to people.

Like, “My Oriental friends tell me their hair is much thicker than Euro hair”.

This would certainly not be taken to be offensive in the UK, though to refer to someone as ‘that Oriental who just moved in’ might be considered rather rude, if only because a person was reduced to their ‘racial’ ‘category’, in a situation where that is not necessary or relevant.

I can’t imagine using it to refer to someone I am personally addressing, because it’s pretty general and less useful than saying their nationality. I find the same with ‘Asian’. It’s not a useful word, because in the UK it almost exclusively refers to South Asians, while ‘literally’ it refers to an area of the world which is home to half the world’s population, of many and varied cultures, languages and appearances….

Talking about ‘Asian people’ is only half as vague as talking about ‘Earth people’, whereas ‘Oriental’ generally now refers to the people, produce and ideas of the Far East, as opposed to all of Asia.

Thanks @MRSHINYSHOES .

@thorninmud , Outstanding primary answer/theory.

It applies firmly to all that I have encountered in Australasia and Oceania.

Thank you.

We are all to a degree racist,sexist,bigoted and biased.
I
Oh m god I just typed 4 lines of NWO Rhetoric bullshit. (deleted)

Tribal and small is better than ONE ,because this global ONE is nothing but New age Communism.

@Boogabooga1 Yes, after posting that, I regretted not mentioning Australasia and Oceania. They’re perfect examples.

Just one short note on the use of language:

Words, in and of themselves, have no power, no weight. It’s our reaction to them which gives them power. This is why I laugh when my black friends call me “crackah” or even “peckerwood.” By all rights, I should be just as offended at those appelations as they are at the word “nigger.” But because I don’t grant those terms power, they have none. I strongly suspect that, when blacks call one another “nigger,” it’s an attempt to rob the term of its power over them.

I have a great admiration for most blacks. To have struggled from abject slavery to high office in the same country over a period of over 200 years is an amazing accomplishment. I salute our brothers and sisters of the darker persuasion. Your achievements will be very favorably noticed by history.