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Can you "Become" Racist?

Can a person "Become" racist due to events and circumstances?


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People are people. Blaming anything on how they look is silly. It's like blaming inanimate objects.

That said, there are defining issues with the Chinese (I mean actual Chinese people, in China - not people with such ancestry) beyond having a certain ethnic look. They're communist slaves living under wretched oppression, without freedom of speech. While being Chinese doesn't make anyone a bad person, I imagine living under constant tyranny would and therefore your impressions could be entirely valid and yet not race based. Now that you are home, you feel guilty and want to make excuses for their government instilled cowardice, perhaps? Note again, I'm not refering to merely "Chinese people" but specifically "people living in China", the latter having nothing to do with 'race'.

Culture and government (to a large extent) are choices and can be condemned by outsiders as well as insiders, ethically. Condemning a race is unethical. Culturally speaking, I don't buy into any of that "different but equal" crap. Some cultures and/or government systems suck.
 
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Frankly, I really like all the orientals I have met and currently know. They generally are well-mannered, serious, and a pleasure to be around. They also generally have delightful children, and that's not something that I can say about most of the people I have known.
 
Frankly, I really like all the orientals I have met and currently know. They generally are well-mannered, serious, and a pleasure to be around. They also generally have delightful children, and that's not something that I can say about most of the people I have known.

People can't be oriental. Only inanimate objects can be. For example: an oriental table, doll, or eating utensil; or subjects like oriental medicine, oriental gardening, etc. Similarly, stuff from our part of the world can be called oxidental... like oxidental technology, or oxidental science. But you would never call an American oxidental.

Just had to clarify that. Most people don't know the difference. :)
 
People can't be oriental. Only inanimate objects can be. For example: an oriental table, doll, or eating utensil; or subjects like oriental medicine, oriental gardening, etc. Similarly, stuff from our part of the world can be called oxidental... like oxidental technology, or oxidental science. But you would never call an American oxidental.

Just had to clarify that. Most people don't know the difference. :)
What can people be then?
 
I thought the orient was a sub-region of asia, the south/east land, and oriental is a subset of asian, the south/east asians.


It wouldn't be the first time I was absurdly ignorant about something...
 
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What can people be then?

Asian.

You can be more specific and say East Asian for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese people; you can say Southeast Asian for Thai Or Malaysian; South Asian = from the Indian subcontinent, including India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc.
 
Asia is a geographic label, right? Indians (and Russians, northeast notwithstanding) don't look like Chinese people. I'm pretty sure the orient is a geographic label, to specify within asia.

Unless you give me a reason to believe oriental is a derogatory term, I'm not buying it. We have oriental resturants here and they don't sell rugs, but they're full of oriental employees.

I need a reason beyond "the term is also used to describe food, objects and culture from the region", I think.
 
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Asia is a geographic label, right? Indians (and Russians, northeast notwithstanding) don't look like Chinese people. I'm pretty sure the orient is a geographic label, to specify asia.

Calling an Indian person Asian is accurate, but obviously it's also fine to call them Indian.

Orient is the classical reference for the geography of East Asia and especially China, but you don't call people Oriental. They also used to call the area of China and India the "East Indes" but that too was phased out. A lot of East Asians find being called Oriental offensive.
 
A lot of East Asians find being called Oriental offensive.


You must give me a reason beyond "the term also describes objects, food and art from the region", I think. And "you can refer to them as east asians also" doesn't really cut mustard intellectually either.

We have American cars, food, culture and people. I'd prefer it were "USian", but I don't find "American" to be derogatory; that'd just be snobbish. So, why is it derogatory (or offensive)? Give me a sound reason.


I was impressed by your first post despite you overlooking other possible factors in their behavior, which is rather suspicious in the first place but could be naivety. The naivety excuse (for ignoring factors beyond race in your assessment of a people) is difficult to accept because you have travelled - and that usually gives a bit of perspective. And now you cannot support this claim about 'oriental' at all - what's going on?
 
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You must give me a reason beyond "the term also describes objects, food and art from the region", I think. And "you can refer to them as east asians also" doesn't really cut mustard intellectually either.

We have American cars, food, culture and people. I'd prefer it were "USian", but I don't find "American" to be derogatory; that'd just be snobbish.


So, why is it derogatory (or offensive)? Give me a sound reason. I was impressed by your first post (despite overlooking other possible factors in their behavior, which is rather suspicious but could be naivety), and now you cannot support this claim about 'oriental' at all - what's going on?

A simple internet search will reveal to you that the word "oriental" when applied to an Asian person is seen as a pejorative, but my knowledge doesn't come from the internet. I've lived in Asia a couple of times now . Calling them "orientals" came in style during the British colonial era, just like calling them the Chinese came into practice because of the fine China produced there, but the Chinese don't call temselves that at all.

You'll just have to trust me. Since you can't speak their language and refer to them by what they call themselves, the most polite thing is to just call them Asian.
 
So it is because of the British use of the term, to include while in the region specifically. Fine, I can see that. I'm not British, so excuse me.


Then you honestly did simply forget to consider other sources (besides race) for a group's behaviour? To think that looks and not culture or goverment determine a people's behavior is rather unusal for someone of some travel. That you thought in the first place that race is an important factor (a factor at all) is kinda messed up. And you pretty much wrote it all off to that, while you were there.

I can't figure out if you are a Chinese person trying to apologize for their government and culture ("I've been there and it's really not so bad"). Or a racist (someone who assumes race would be the main factor in a people's behavior) trying to do I don't know what (reform?).

No offence, I'm not actually accusing anyone of anything... I'm sure it is just my confusion and limited knowledge. But it doesn't make sense to me.

Are you a Chinese racist trying to apologize for tyranny?? - I'm just joking that sentence. -
 
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So it is because of the British use of the term, to include while in the region specifically. Fine, I can see that. I'm not British, so excuse me.


Then you honestly did simply forget to consider other sources (besides race) for a group's behaviour? To think that looks and not culture or goverment determine a people's behavior is rather unusal for someone of some travel. That you thought in the first place that race is an important factor (a factor at all) is kinda messed up. And you pretty much wrote it all off to that, while you were there.

I can't figure out if you are a Chinese person trying to apologize for their government and culture ("I've been there and it's really not so bad"). Or a racist (someone who assumes race would be the main factor in a people's behavior) trying to do I don't know what (reform?).

No offence, I'm not actually accusing anyone of anything... I'm sure it is just my confusion and limited knowledge. But it doesn't make sense to me. Are you a Chinese racist trying to apologize for tyranny?? Just kidding.

I think you're reading into what I said way too much.

All I'm saying is that saying a person is oriental is incorrect.

Everything else is incidental. And my life is very connected to China because of the field I'm in, and the fact that I speak their language, but the beginning was not easy. FYI I am caucasian.
 
You see that thinking race had anything to do with their behaviour was wrong in the first place, right? And we cannot blame "being around a bunch of them" for fundamentally flawed thought processes.


If so, we're fine.
 
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Can a person "Become" racist due to events and circumstances?


I couldn't; some people probably could.
It depends upon how their brains work.
 
People are products of their environment, not their appearance. It's quite that simple. Once one understands this, there is no going back.
 
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I couldn't; some people probably could.
It depends upon how their brains work.
Anyone could, I think.

Some would require more to cause the change, but it would still happen.

As an example, if you were "flirted with" in a disgusting and uncouth manner by every single white male you encountered, would you not become bigoted against white males in general?

Now, that obviously wouldn't happen (or I seriously want to avoid an area that it would), but you get the point.
 
Yes! A person can become racist.
 
I couldn't; some people probably could.
It depends upon how their brains work.

You can't say that with any reasonable amount of certainty.
 
They can be called Oriental as long as we are called Occidental in the same sentence, I think.
 
You can't say that with any reasonable amount of certainty.

Yes, I can.
My mind doesn't work that way.
I'm 35 years old. It's not suddenly going to start working a different way than it's ever worked.
If I get raped by a guy named Bob, I'm not going to loathe and fear every "Bob" I encounter for the rest of my life.
If a hazel-eyed guy breaks into my house and murders my entire family while I sleep, that isn't going to make me start hating every hazel-eyed person in the world.

I'm not some unworldly naif; I've been around the block a time or two.
I've encountered bad situations from time to time. Upsetting things have happened to me occasionally, and by "upsetting", I mean I'm lucky to be alive.
None of it ever turned me into a racist.
Nothing ever could, even if worse things happened to me, because if worse things happened to me I'd be dead, and dead people can't be racist.

That's my line of reasoning, anyway.

Some people seem to have minds that make connections that are very foreign- very alien- to me.
They associate a person who has hurt them with other people they don't even know, simply because all these people share some superficial physical trait.
That doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't even compute, in my worldview.
I see it's a (flawed) defense mechanism, a way to try and protect oneself from further damage, but in fact I believe it would be more likely to yield the opposite result.
 
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They can be called Oriental as long as we are called Occidental in the same sentence, I think.

Which we aren't, so.

It doesn't make grammatical sense to use those words in such a way.
 
Anyone could, I think.

Some would require more to cause the change, but it would still happen.

As an example, if you were "flirted with" in a disgusting and uncouth manner by every single white male you encountered, would you not become bigoted against white males in general?

Now, that obviously wouldn't happen (or I seriously want to avoid an area that it would), but you get the point.


Well, to be honest that's sort of happened already, but since every single person I actually care about in this world (which is only four and a half people) is a white male, meh...? :shrug:
Guess it didn't turn me racist.
 
Which we aren't, so.

It doesn't make grammatical sense to use those words in such a way.

If they are both used incorrectly in the same sentence, it works like a double negative and makes everything better, I think.
 
All I know is whatever you do, don't call them Chinamen with jfuh around.

"The chinaman is not the issue here, Dude. I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT... Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please."- Walter Sobchak
 
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