Oriental is not an offensive word, anyone who thinks it is should grow a pair and get a life. The hypersensitive PC social justice crap is so wearisome.
Let me make it simple for you -- if that's what's going on here at Hacker News that they've got you playing hall monitor using your rules as a tool to censor only the political speech you don't like, and that happens to be liberal, you AND this site can stick your thought control where the sun don't shine and delete my entire account for all I care. I can promise you that if it's going to be okay for liberals to insert THEIR politics into their comments then I'm going to feel free to continue firing back with mine and if you don't like it that's too bad.
But you're right. We love being called orientals. It's just that warm feeling of being categorised and separated from the occidentals in that lovely nostalgic way the PC guys just don't get.
This isn't "PC social justice crap", this is how society works. Words evolve in meaning, and sometimes those meanings become intrinsically linked with racism and prejudice.
If you'd rather speak your mind and, in the process, make everyone think you're an absolute dick, by all means, but don't think anyone who refuses to put up with your crap is being politically correct. They're just being polite by looking out for other people.
These scenarios seem to be white people deciding what words other white people are allowed to use to describe cultures, people, nationalities, ethnicities, etc. Would you chide an Asian group running a store with 'Orient' in the name?[1] If not, why the hypocrisy?
It's not "white people deciding" it's "white people finally acknowledging what these words mean".
Whatever culture is the subject of a slur is naturally free to use that slur in any way they see fit. It does not automatically mean it's free for anyone to use.
I really want you to fill in the blanks for those 3 in the context of referring to Asia as 'the Orient'.
"Oriental" became a slur just as "negro" did despite starting out as a more neutral term, though one in an age where many racial terminology was intrinsically loaded.
If people of Asian descent want to call their shops something with "Orient" in it, it doesn't bother me. If someone who's not from that descent instead appropriates that culture and makes a mockery of it, that's not cool.
Don't project your frustrations as a means to appeal to popularity.
>"Oriental" became a slur
According to whom?
>just as "negro"
No, not the same. "negro" is an offensive term to black people.
>instead appropriates that culture and makes a mockery of it
Can you explain to me in the quote from the document where the 'mockery' is?
"The fact of the matter is that this bias, and its glaring ignorance of the real value of such a large amount of so-called "redundancy" continues to this very day, and thus continues to be a chafing-point between Orientals and misguided Westerners."
Wikipedia gives a summary with respect to the American use of the word (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient#American_English):
"John Kuo Wei Tchen, director of the Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program and Institute at New York University, said the basic critique of the term developed in U.S.A. in the 1970s. Tchen has said: "With the U.S.A. anti-war movement in the '60s and early '70s, many Asian Americans identified the term 'Oriental' with a Western process of racializing Asians as forever opposite 'others'."[10]"
Their mascot is literally a caricature of an "indian". It's from a time when that sort of thing was acceptable because we didn't have to listen to such voices. We'd just sweep them off to reservations and strip them of their dignity and rights. Great times.
So if you want to presume Oriental isn't a slur, go right ahead and keep using it. Just don't raise a fuss if someone comes to you and says "You might not want to use that word, it's got certain connotations."
I'd rather explain the concept of color to dogs.
The problem is that's not universally the case. Outside of North America the word is not offensive or pejorative. While it's definitely offensive in the North American English, without knowing the author's origin, it's wrong to dismiss it completely out of hand. American culture is not the sole arbitrator of what is offensive.
Edit: And after googling around, the Author lives in Vancouver -- so the usage can be considered offensive.