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Forum nameOkay Activist Archives
Topic subjectRE: some honest questions about the words "oriental" and "asian"
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=26262&mesg_id=26277
26277, RE: some honest questions about the words "oriental" and "asian"
Posted by explizit, Fri Mar-04-05 07:38 AM
nah the word "oriental" was created by Europeans, but it was comes from the word "orient" to orient oneself. so what it really relates to is a perspective of being the center, such as europeans thought europe was the center of the world. It has those negative connotations such "slanted" which means not straight, i.e. not normal. Oriental relates to that foreign, not normal, Im half japanese and I've never called myself oriental, and oh ya, middle easterners are not asian, nor do they call themselves asian. india and iraq are not both asian. Osama bin laden is not asian I dont think anyone besides you thinks he is. In the 60's the term asian-american was created by people like me-asians so dont trip if a group of people don't want to be called by an archaic term made up by ethno-centric europeans.