Why is it that whites are "white"...

[Q Classic]

Those are regionalisms

So is Oriental! Christ!

Except I'm pointing out the context in which "Oriental" is used and what connotations it has in that context.

"Northerner" and "Southerner" mean and signify very different things depending on context. In the case of the United States, if you're in the North, "Southerner" is more often used (than "Northerner") and often looked down upon, synonymous with rednecks, white trash, and the like; if you're in the South, "Northerner" is generally replaced by "yankee", "carpetbagger", "liberal socialist fascist blame-America-first anti-American ****s", and any number of other epithets, many which date to the days following the War of Northern Aggression.

Do note that I'm not saying anything about the meaning of "Oriental" in the United Kingdom or Oceania; that's not what we're discussing, and the meanings are quite different there; do note that I keep pointing out that this is only the common, problematic connotation in America, and why it's frowned upon to use it.

Of course, your refusal to even read what I'm saying...

[Q Classic]

If you're sensitive to your own needs and not the needs of different races, that doesn't make you a racist?

There's a difference between overt racism and institutional racism. I do not think most people who don't understand why the term "Oriental" is problematic in America are necessarily racist; nor do I think a desire to remain willfully ignorant is a sign of overt racism, just a mark of normal wearing-blinders idiocy.

[Drake Tungsten]

Except I'm pointing out the context in which "Oriental" is used and what connotations it has in that context.

No, you're inventing bull**** intellectual justifications for your solely emotional reaction to what you perceive as an attack on your Korean heritage.

Do note that I'm not saying anything about the meaning of "Oriental" in the United Kingdom or Oceania; that's not what we're discussing, and the meanings are quite different there; do note that I keep pointing out that this is only the common, problematic connotation in America, and why it's frowned upon to use it.

Bull****. You clearly claimed that "Oriental" had "its origins in European ethnocentrism", which is completely wrong.

[Q Classic]

No, you're inventing bull**** intellectual justifications for your solely emotional reaction to what you perceive as an attack on your Korean heritage.

Except I don't quite perceive it as an attack on my heritage. I think I've made that painfully clear.

Bull****. You clearly claimed that "Oriental" had "its origins in European ethnocentrism", which is completely wrong.

Origins, yes. Connotations there are different then they are here in the United States.

I'm sorry you're unwilling to even try to understand what I'm saying.

[Drake Tungsten]

What you're saying changes every time someone slaps down a portion of it and doesn't make any sense in any of its forms...

[chequita guevara]

Good to see Poly's tradition of clueless white racism is going strong.

[GePap]

Of course Oriental is based on European ethnocentrism. I doubt the meaning of Oriental is different anywhere in the Western World. The term means the same thing in Latin America as in the US and in Europe, meaning someone from the East, East being not only the longitudenal direction, but people from the lands of East Asia. Africans are to the orient of Latin America, but no one in Latin America, even given that the word for 'east" is Spanish is "el oriente", would ever think that the term applies to Africans, or Europeans, who are also to our 'orient.' And the same in fact would apply to Occidental, who connotation is Westerner (as in Europeans, ergo Whites). And yes, Western in Spanish is "el occidente".

As for "Northerner" and "Southener", those terms most certainly apply as Q3 has said to regionalism. Someone complaining about Northeners in London is not likely to be talking about someone from Boston, but someone from York. To a non-American, Southerner and Northerner in the American context is meaningless, since that use of a latitudinal distinction does not have the same universality as Oriental and Westerner has. IN Latin American both are gringos, or Yankees, even someone from Dixie. In fact, the idea of a division between North and South in the third world is far more likely to bring the connotation of the divide between the Rich (Europe, North America, East Asia) and Poor (Latin America, Africa, South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East). Australia and NZ are hardly ever a consideration in this grouping, as they are so relatively remote.

[GePap]

And Q3 is also correct in pointing out that calling European Ethnocentrism for what it is does not dimish anyone elses ethnocentrism.

As for the drift in meaning, no duh meanings drift - Asia was once just a province in Western Anatolia, then morphed to mean most of Eurasia to the East. Everyone here is technically a barbarian, if we are to use the original meaning of the term as non-Greeks. All that said, in the world we currently live in, saying "The West" and "The East" (or Occidental, Oriental) means the divide between Europe and Asia, whether Asia stands for the Classical East (the middle east) or the more modern connotation (the lands of and around China).

EDIT: Additionally, if someone wants to claim, as was already done, that Western and Eastern just means ones position in Eurasia (and is thus not an example of any bias), then how on earth could Arabs and Persians not be considered Westerners? After all, if you were to split Eurasia evenly by longitudinal measurements, those two groups would certainly fall on the 'western' side, yet they are the original "orientals." Even if the term isn't used for them anymore, no one speaks of Arabs and Persians as "westerners", not even themselves.

[Kitschum]

Of course Oriental is based on European ethnocentrism. I doubt the meaning of Oriental is different anywhere in the Western World. The term means the same thing in Latin America as in the US and in Europe, meaning someone from the East, East being not only the longitudenal direction, but people from the lands of East Asia. Africans are to the orient of Latin America, but no one in Latin America, even given that the word for 'east" is Spanish is "el oriente", would ever think that the term applies to Africans, or Europeans, who are also to our 'orient.'

First of all, the dominant languages of the New World (new to who?) - English, Portuguese, Spanish - are all European and obviously reflect the European historical experience, exactly as we would expect. But your noting that in the Americas "oriental" is not actually used in the literal sense of "east" is an important observation because it indicates a decoupling of the word from its origin. Doesn't this pull the oriental rug (sorry...) from under the ethnocentrism argument?

I'd also like to compare it to the "Nordic". Now, this obviously refers to the Scandinavian countries no matter that you might be speaking English in North America or in Australia where Scandinavia isn't directly to the north so it would be appear to be a eurocentric term. Does that make it offensive? If not, it appears that what the "eurocentric" thing comes down is that Oriental is problematic simply because of its connotations of Orientalism, i.e. strictly speaking the old 'science' of philology as applied to non-European cultures, but especially in the light of postmodern critique. Again, etymology appears to be a complete red herring.

Additionally, if someone wants to claim, as was already done, that Western and Eastern just means ones position in Eurasia (and is thus not an example of any bias), then how on earth could Arabs and Persians not be considered Westerners? After all, if you were to split Eurasia evenly by longitudinal measurements, those two groups would certainly fall on the 'western' side, yet they are the original "orientals." Even if the term isn't used for them anymore, no one speaks of Arabs and Persians as "westerners", not even themselves.

This is unfair to the (European) Ancients. If you look at ancient maps (like the one here) it's not unsual that the occident is roughly the western half and the ancient orient the eastern half. As the knowledge of the east expanded so did the orient, but that is an obvious observation.

By the way, in the Islamic world, Iraq is in the Mashriq, i.e. the east as contrasted with the Maghreb, the west, that is North Africa. This is obviously based on arabocentrism.

[Drake Tungsten]

GePap sides with QCubed, thus driving the final nail in QCubed's hopes of being taken seriously.