bestillmyheart | (no subject)

(no subject)

Um, you guys, don't get me wrong but...is the word 'chinks', 'japs' or 'viets' offensive?!?!?!

drowsyphoenix just showed me this really old thread about Michelle Branch, and they're all like, it's a racist slur and shit like that.

I mean honestly. All the Asians here calls themselves a chink or viet or whatever. I'm Chinese, and i call myself a chink. I actually don't know anyone here that finds that offensive, so is it seen as offensive in America?

Just curious :D

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*has no idea* depends on people i suppose....i read trough some of thouse and everyone seems to have an opinon of their own. i never heard of the term chinks before. as for japs then its pretty much used as a shorten for japanese here and is not considered to be offencive. in usa i think viets is meant as offencive...as far as i have seen all to do with the vietnamiese war?! but then again it's all pretty much perspective...and depends on the words that also exist in the centence.... sometimes americans are considered to be over (forgot that word) uhmmm.....just way nippicy about every word that refers to culture....
this just makes no sense for me ....

i suppose it depends on your race and personal beliefs. i don't get offended by people using names for aussies on me but hey, thats me. i don't consider 'japs' offensive... chinks maybe.

I'm just another white gal, but to my knowledge "chink" and "jap" are definitely considered offensive.

oh really? okay thanks :)

I know contemporary racism scholars would probably argue that the terms themselves contain no essentially racist quality, but rather, it is the way they have been used within an offensive context that has allowed the terms themselves to be considered racist. If people who are of Asian heritage use the terms on their own and intend nothing harmful by them, then clearly that's a different way of using them than the context others are familiar with.

I have the feeling that in the USA and Canada, terms like that sprung up during late 19th/early 20th C waves of immigration in which Asian immigrants were considered threatening and impure within predominantly "white" countries, and probably more during WWII when Japanese immigrants were interned and treated like criminals.

Look at this, making me think on a Monday morning! ;)

Look at this, making me think on a Monday morning! ;)
Hahahaha! Sorry for having to make you think hun ;)

Well my gut reaction when I read that was "Ohhh WINCE."

Not to say that certain ethnic slang/"slurs" aren't used by people without offending some in situations, but generally, in the US at least, saying "chink" = huuuuuuge no no.

It all depends on context, who is saying it...who they're saying it to blah blah blah. Like in some cases my Asian friends will call themselves nips and won't find it offensive, but if me, a white person called them that...even though I'm their friend, they would be offended.

Take J to the Lo for example...she used the word Nigga in a song, in the homie sort of way and it was sooooooooooooooooooooo bad. She got all sorts of shit. But Fitty uses it? And it's all cool.

In Britain, chinks and japs are definitely offensive.

umm yeah I would say its kind of offensive here. Unless you are asian and are using those words with other asian people. But I would never refer to someone that way, and I'd probably be offended for whoever was called that.

I don't consider them offensive, but I don't say those words cause they are offensive where I live (US). The only reason I don't consider them offensive is because I haven't been raised to consider them offensive.

The word that will highly offend me at any time on any day is nigger. I don't even like the word nigga, but nigger is the word that I just cannot stand, and it's probably the only word I ever hesitate to read out loud (if it's in a book that we're reading in class), and actually a word I even hesitate to write :$ I think it's because I was told it was offensive when I was 7 or 8 and watching Family Matters. It's a show about a black family living in Chicago. Anyways, the girl in the family, Laura, her locker got tagged by someone...I think it was a black basketball guy, and I can't recall why he did it. But he tagged her locker with the word nigger, and I had to have my mother explain to me that it was offensive.

And that's my story :$

As far as I can tell, in the US at least, racial names like these are pretty much only supposed to be used by the people they refer to, otherwise it's considered racist hate speech.

So, being white, I can't call a black person "nigger" or an Asian person a "chink" without people thinking I'm a racist, but if I were black I could use "nigger" to refer to myself or my friends.

Though I must confess to having used "Japs" in my notes for my class on WWII this past semester. But that was pretty much purely for the purposes of taking notes on the fly...gotta write fast, lol!

Though I must confess to having used "Japs" in my notes for my class on WWII this past semester. But that was pretty much purely for the purposes of taking notes on the fly...gotta write fast, lol!

LOL! I say, 'Japs', 'Chinks', 'Viets' all the time, thinking it was like an abbreviation for 'Japanese', 'Chinese' and 'Vietnamese' ya know? ]

This is interesting ;)

Hmm, in French there's the word 'chintok' (=chink), and I wouldn't use it. Not that I've actually heard anyone say that, but I think it would probably considered offensive.

Ha, I saw that thread. That girl got her butt torn up by those people that commented.

I agree with what someone said above me about it being okay for people in a certain race to call themselves whatever nickname they have, but me myself not being able to do so because I'm not part of that race. I don't like to hear other people use the slang either, unless they're a member of the race. In that case you'd know they were okay with it, but I'm sure there are members of certain races that find the slang words offensive.

I have deep southern roots (Mississippi, the Carolinas, etc) and get slightly offended when people say things about southerners being dumb or whatever. I guess it's all a matter of opinion.

Some Chinese peeps here are called Chekwas, and that's baaad...

Hmm thinking about all this Kaz made me realise that maybe it's just because we're used to calling ourselves chinky and viet and whatnot. I have to admit, I haven't heard others use the phrase that much- and I also just remembered that at my press conference, I was using 'Abo' for Aborigine, and my friend next to me went 'Ummm...'
Maybe it's all a matter of opinion, I don't know.

Maybe?

Erm, i know not to say 'Abo' for Aborigine...

well it was only in my own notes anyway

it was faster to write that!

so yeah..

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