I also find it amusing that the person who started the thread posted once and hasnt participated in the discussion beyond the first post. Usually people comment on the comments in a thread they start.

"I could be opening a can of worms here..."

Its amazing that the discussion has been so cordial, previous threads havent been so lucky.

I guess we've learned our lesson.;) Sorry again for pissing you off on the other thread I had started.:)

I was refering to previous threads refering to the "Japs" issue, not the thread you made the other day hyperion.

I didnt have much of a problem with you to be honest, if my comment wasnt funny to you thats quite ok, I was arguing against the cencorship of somthing I concided acceptable and by arguing with you and the mods we may come to an understanding.

My comments regarding "The Germans combining forces" was just my sence of humour continuing, trying to indiacte I wasnt upset in a big way, more disapointed...

So you have no need to be sorry mate :)

Hehe, I think you should rephrase that to say, " the difference between saying abo in Redfern, and saying Jap in Tokyo... In Redfern you'd get beat up faster. " :p

Exactly:yep:

Last time i checked Japanese wasnt a race... its a a person/place/or thing originating from the country of japan.

SO saying jap is short for japanese, i dont see how thats racists, like i said japan is a country not a race.

The
Japanses People's ethnicity (IE race) is asian


Thus in my humble opinion how can the word "jap" be considered a racist slur, since in all good intention its really an abreviation of the word japan/japanese.

Just my 2 cents in the bucket.

I'm pretty sure Japanese are able to tell their own race apart from other asian races. There are a number of different races in asia including Japanese, chinese, mongol, indonesian, indian, persian etc.

The word racism doesn't name only strictly racial superstitions etc., but also ethnical, religious etc. It's very closely related to xenophobia. Antisemitism is a form of racism too, but noone says Jews are a separate race. In fact the term of 'race' hasn't been used much recently, as the researchers (biologists, geneticians, antropologists) prefer to use more modern terms, like 'type', 'family' (but, sorry, I am NOT sure of English words for them, as I read only some Polish-language literature on the topic).

Theres no reason to think the Jews are not a race. The European Ashkenazi Jews are genetically different from the rest of central europeans, having kept marriages within the jewish community. Same deal with sephardic Jews in the middle east. Sure, there was intermarrying with Europeans and Arabs respectively, to create the two separate subraces. Jews originated from the middle east and emmigrated to Europe far later than the "native" white population.
And Nazi propaganda aside, don't tell me you can't tell a Jew when you see one, not always of course.

Usually I can't tell for the first look. Visit Israel, you are going to be shocked seeing blue-eyed blond-haired Jews there quite often. If we wanted to have a discussion about races, we'd have to find, what we understand under that term. Have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race
and pick one of the word meanings. :D

EDIT: Now I see I've messed up the terminology. I meant "species", not race... I hereby delete part of my post. :D

Lets just have posts with 'JP' for Japanse and we use 'Capitalist Warmonger' for the Americans. Use 'CW' for short. Just kidding. Look, I personally see 'Jap' as a slur. I do not find it offensive but in respect for the Japanese, I do not use the word. In respect for me, I hope the Japanses don't use "Cracker", "Whitey" or "Honkie". I do not use ethnic slurs with any race and I hope they would not with me. In the mutual respect for each other, these words are not needed. I for one will use Japanese.

ahoy all,

Ok, this thread has run its course so I am going to file it away. We've had a reasonable discussion about the term "Jap", established that it is considered by Japanese to be a slur, and I request we refrain from using it. If it does appear infrequently, let's not go red alert over it. Thanks.

Neal
Subsim