Talk:Oriental (word)

Article Checklist for "Oriental (word)"

Workgroup category or categories	Linguistics Workgroup, Geography Workgroup, Sociology Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	Yes
Checklist last edited by	--Aleksander Stos 04:38, 30 June 2007 (CDT) Larry Sanger 23:40, 24 June 2007 (CDT); John Stephenson 05:08, 22 June 2007 (CDT)

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Reasons for this article?

As it stands, this article sourced from Wikipedia and modified by Will Nesbitt seems to be defending the use of the term 'Oriental'. Recommend some modifications. John Stephenson 05:11, 22 June 2007 (CDT)

I left this from an old Wikipedia article and culled it from some sources that I dug up. It sort of evolved into a defense of the term oriental because of a perceived (by me) assault on the term for political reasons on Wikipedia. I'm open for discussion and glad to help edit. Will Nesbitt 09:37, 23 June 2007 (CDT)

I don't think there's any problem of that here, so I'll have to agree with a notion John might have been getting at--there's no point/reason for it, unless you can justify otherwise.--Robert W King 09:56, 23 June 2007 (CDT)

Well, if it isn't edited more vigorously, we might delete it simply on grounds that it is sourced from WP without change (see Article Deletion Policy). But the topic itself is perfectly legitimate--just not a high priority, perhaps--and when did that ever stop us? --Larry Sanger 23:40, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

Edward Said has many very well know critical statements on "Oriental" and "Occidental". ---Stephen Ewen 00:11, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

This article seems to conflate the adjective "Oriental" with the substantive (noun) "an Oriental." The latter is surely both offensive, and quite dated, in almost any context, and I don't think it's fair to lump the two uses together, as the former lends an air of false legitimacy to the latter. I would propose breaking this into two entries, one for the broad term "Orient" in its historical contexts, Oriental Studies, etc., and the rest to become part of an entry on ethnic epithets generally. Russell Potter 08:29, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Even to do so might not obviate the desirability of an article about the noun. You say, interestingly, that "an Oriental" is "offensive." When did that come about? Why? Does everyone agree with you? Who made it so? Those are matters that might be explained in an article about the noun. --Larry Sanger 09:03, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

P.S. There's a reason I care about this. I'll put it bluntly: I don't want simply to censor an article about an epithet simply because it is offensive to people and smacks of racism. If someone is able to write a good article about the noun, which explains in great detail the extent to which it is now considered offensive, and explains as well the mistakes the use encoded, etc., that would be helpful, even to the cause of political correctness. --Larry Sanger 09:13, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

I am not suggesting any sort of censorship. But if we are going to have entries about terms which are considered offensive by a great many of the persons to whom they are applied, I think we should discuss them, with full and complete neutrality, in an entry or entries about such terms, rather than using such potentially divisive terms as entry titles. "Political correctness" is a chimera, I feel, invented by those who needed something to which to object; all we are talking about here is common courtesy, and in the interests of neutrality discussing terms which many find offensive as such, rather than using them -- perhaps offensively -- as index terms in themselves. Should we have mainspace entries on Dago? Wop? Polack? Retard? The terms are used, and perhaps some people, however much they may offend some, would defend them, but does that means we ought to say they're "controversial"?? By all means, let us explain the mistakes -- which I thought I had done here -- but why need we repeat them? Russell Potter 16:04, 30 June 2007 (CDT)

Counter Point

I'd written a fairly windy response and timed out before saving ... bummer. I'll type what I can remember from memory:

Firstly and foremostly, unlike the slurs that you mention above, the term oriental was never slang and to my knowledge has never been used in a perjorative fashion. (Ever.) Furthermore, the American Oriental Society is one of the oldest and most respected academic organizations in the US. There is no such equivalent using any of the slurs you list above. Until linguistically very recently, there has been ZERO controversy surrounding this word.

It is my opinion, and I think I can prove that the "controversy" surrounding the word oriental is a construct of a political movement that sought "victim" and "minority" status for Americans of East Asian descent. This movement has expanded unchallenged because the political math is pretty simple: there is much to lose and nothing to gain by opposing this movement. The movement, the victims and the politicians all gain something by agreeing that orientals are a persecuted people.

That said, I think that for most people, this is a fairly silly matter, of little import. Other than the politically motivated few, no one has much vested interest in the term "oriental". My oriental wife has no more attachment to this word than does her occidental husband. The reason this matter is important in a reference work can best be illustrated by the following example.

Some years back a politician used the word "niggardly" in his speach. There was an outcry