Quote:
Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neal Stevens
I don't know if "Jap" is a slur that Japanese find offensive or not. I use it as short for Japanese, but if I found using it was causing friction, I would not use it.


Yes, it is offensive.

without deliberatly raisin a **** storm......
why is it offensive? and How is it offensive?

nip=nippon, japans old world name jap=japanese aussie=australian
pom=english kiwi=new zealander canuck=canadian yanks=US kraut=german

quite simple nikterms i woulda thought, hardy deriding or hateful.... now gook or chink or sommet...that would be offensive and derogitory, and tottally outa order for today.
So the whole offensive thing has me puzzled, especially from japanese perspective, whos government still to this day fail to reconize their war crimes and commited attrocities against allied POW`s.
My grandfather was lost to the Burma railway and I personnally find the minority argument of the word jap or nip being politically correct or offensive a travesty for those brave men. Theyd be rollin in their graves im sure....

Names calling, nicknames and such is quite a cultural thing in Australia, has been and always will be and we actually take pride in the derogitry terms aimed at us.
(comes from the convict days) Look at the Rats of Tobruk for example, the term was meant as a heinous insult to our fightin men in north afrika at their futility and desperate situation. We took it on as a badge to wear with pride, and gave the "krauts" their first taste of loss of the war, after so many easy success`s.
Imagine the reverse phychology? defeated by mere rats...bit like "theAshes" this year against England in the cricket...Dads army they called our team...we loved it and whupped them 5 zip in the series.....hehe..
...Remember the ol` :
sticks n stones will break my bones...;) the world needs to get a tougher skin or remember this nursery rhyme.

oh...and BTW that hindi swastika: it means "life" and its over 2500 years old... food for thought:|\\

Too bloody right cobba I agree.

My Grandfather served on a Allied Submarine in the war, He was held down and tattooed against his will, and these were the men serving with him. His best friend Exploded right next to him (not my description), he was shot in the leg (not sure if it was disiplinary or enemy fire)
The submarine was sunk, he was one of the "lucky" ones and survived.

And people think they are suffering from name calling or abreviations.

I find this thread is interesting on a number of fronts.

Racism or racist are terms I can't find in a dictionary of 1949 vintage. My understanding of literal meaning is that it pertains to treating/thinking about a person differently on the grounds of their race.

To say a word is racist is, to my mind, a nonsense. Words can be derogatory, perjorative, demeaning, dismissive, disrespectful etc...but not racist per se, as words themselves do not think/behave.

It is only when behaviour is involved that racism etc. becomes possible.

That, to me, is one of the biggest issues surrounding PC and the whole racism 'debate' (not that most of it qualifies as a debate, hence the inverted commas).

Ask for a translation of 'gwai loh' or 'faan gwai loh'. Not hard to hear those terms in Asian countries. Ask that Japanese about the Ainu, about citizenship for 'comfort women' (forceably removed from parts of Asia, particularly Korea, to serve as forced prostitutes by Japanese military in WWII), about land ownership for non-Japanese etc.... and see what reply you get. THOSE behaviours, singly a group or groups out and treating them defferently from the rest of society on the grounds of race are the very essence of racism. Japanese history books covering WWII are the things of fantasy (before anyone asks, a long term girlfriend of mine - fluent in Japanese - lived and taught in Japan for four years. She would find this all very illuminating....compared with the constant racial/sexual abuse she copped as a tall, good looking caucasian woman).

All this talk about words is too rich.......and it gives us an easy out for, while we all bark like trained seals at anyone using them, an actual discussion of the REAL problems is conveniently drowned out.

Having said all that, I don't support using words that are abusive etc (see initial list of attributes), but please let's not call them racist.

Incidentally, there's a wonderful quote in the front of the dictionary to which I referred:

"Words are the dress of thoughts, which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt, than your person should."
Earl of Chesterfield

Shame our current age seems to value bling more than genuine style and taste - at least when it comes to expression.

Cheers all!
(haven't been around for a while)

Yes and abo=Aborigine

Yet are you going to walk down the street in Redfern calling people "Abos"? No, you wouldn't dare. Just like you wouldn't call people "nips" or "japs" if you were to walk around the streets of Tokyo. Why? Well I'd hope that you'd avoid using those terms out of basic courtesy and respect for other people. When not sitting safely behind the anonymity of an ADSL connection your own personal safety is perhaps also a likely factor.

You see this is what happens on the internet. Suddenly under the guise of free speech people feel they have the right to insult one another. What is offensive to one person may not be offensive to another. I generally swear and curse like a sailor but I don't do this when I feel (and especially when I know) that someone will be offended by the use of certain words. That's why I don't write swear words on this forum; I know some people will be offended and I adjust my language accordingly. This is not a matter of freedom of speech, it is a matter of manners and being considerate to other people's feelings.

FACT: Japanese people find it very offensive when called "jap" and "nip".

It doesn't matter why Japanese people find it offensive. It is offensive, plain and simple. The actions of the Japanese over sixty years ago doesn't provide you carte blanche to insult the Japanese today (most Japanese alive today were not even born during WW2).

Use those terms if you must but be aware you will be hurting the feelings of the Japanese subsimers every time you do. This is a community and as such I think it is important to respect its members. You don't show respect when you knowingly insult someone.

Peace,

M

steeltraps on the money.....and I stand by what ive said....

IRONxMortlock...who did i insult?
I asked the questions and offered my opinion, that is all.
Far as i knew, forum debate is free speech within reason.


no shame here...no racism either... just the facts ma`am....

I see a few times in this disscussion that "the americans were racist against the japanese". Keep in mind that the japanese military in the first half of the 20th century looked upon anyone who was not japanese as sub human. The japanese military commited just as many if not more war atrocities as nazi germany. Things ranging from, using prisoners as live bayonet practice, beheading prisoners, eating prisoners, cutting open live prisoners so there surgens in training could study the human body at work and testing the effects of various ammunition on live prisoners. Look at the thousands of people they massacured in china. My point to all this is that for the most part this stuff is lost to history but before you start calling all the americans who hated the japanese in ww2 racists take a step back and look at why the japanese were so hated. I can't blame them for feeling the way they they did.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english...1181790217.jpg

Very true. I dont think anyone was trying to say the Japanese were innocent and of no wrong doing...no nation is. The point that was being made was that the American sentiment behind these "nicknames" was one of hate, anger, fear, racism or prejudice, and that the contiuned use of such names born from that sentiment is unacceptable in itself, and unacceptable because it is deem insulting by those the nicknames were intended.
If past atrocities is enough, then I could go about spouting all kind of hatered(If my info is right, Im only 3-4 generations out of slavery, 1 generation to vote and basic civil rights), but I'd be a lesser person if I did, that hatered would have no positive or constructive basis but to spread my anger and my anxse(spelling?). Its use and my defense of it use would be to only allow me to hide behind that anger without really dealing with it, or Im making an excuse to use this as means to lash out as transference from other sources of dissatisfaction. It would be more of a sign of my general state of unhappiness, anger, fear, etc in my life.
To be upset about things is normal, but to use that anger as justification to step out of that realm and spew poison freely in others is irresponsible.

Yes we have have free speech and other wonderful rights and liberities, but with these rights comes responsibilty in how we use it. Responisbilty to self, but also to the larger community, society and so forth. Granted we have the right to be ass-hats with these liberties, but its such a waste.

Also, various atrocities committed by the Japanese military, not neccessarily its general population, was done by a small minority soldiers(maninly Japanese Army). It was an unfortunate practice pushed by a portion of the higher command. It turns out many of the more common, peasant conscripts didnt have the desire or stomach to do such things and these tasks were forced upon them under threat.

Also the act of cannibalism was two pronged. Some of the leaders in command felt they could absorb the strengths of their enemies through the eating of their flesh. But it turns out much of the cannibalism was out of true hunger, and the eating of humans wasnt only practied on the enemy, but also on fellow soldiers. The Japanese had no desire, nor the ability to engage in a prolonged war of attrition. They didnt have the resources to support their troops and required the troops from the beginning to aquire resources from the area the best they could. It was literally eat or be eaten.

Anyway, Im not here in defense of the Japanese, but in the defense of common descency.

So if some of you are right, we should campaign for the forum to become uncensored, and allow all words including all forms of swearing. After all they're all just words... would be fine by be me.
I'm not someone who can get offended by single words, rather statements or deeds.
So if you're going on the principle "it's just a word", then allow one offensive word you have to allow them all.
Personally I don't know how the word Jap is offensive because it's just a shortening of the word Japanese, just like Aussie is a shoterening of Australian. Maybe the difference is we chose our nickname for ourselves.
I don't see why abo is offensive either, but Ironxmortlock is right, I sure wouldn't be going around saying it in Redfern. But I get a feeling minorities like to make up little taboos like this to piss of their former oppressors. Like the stereotype of the black man "what do you mean you people, you think we're all the same, don't you", and the polite unknowing white man not being able to come to words... :rotfl:

Which brings me to something I've just thought of. Maybe Aboriginals, Native Americans, Blacks, etc. deserve not to be caused offence because generally white people treated them like crap a while back.
Should Japan deserve the same respect, considering it's past? If we let bygones be bygones we should be able to call everyone what we like. So if we should forget what the Japanese did, we should also distance ourselves from our past with the Aboriginals. After all, that was generations ago.
I grew up as a German in Australia, and had to put up with various forms of racisim, being called a Nazi and such. But I took it on the chin and lived with it. As my army Sergeant always used to say, "Dry your eyes princess, and harden up sunshine!":D

Read carefully and you'll notice that I didn't claim you insulted anyone. In the interests of "forum debate" I explained that using "nip" and "jap" (terms which you appeared to be defending the use of) IS offensive.

If you were to use these terms, then you could safely assume that you will be insulting the Japanese people who read them.

I guess you can only be offended if you want to be offended. One time I was in London with some firends of mine and some Brits;) started singing "There were ten German bombers in the air". They wanted to exasperate us but we thought it was plain funny. They stopped before the song was over.:cry:
I guess what I want to say is that 'Kraut' or 'Jap' are no words that came just like that, you have to look at the historical context. And if you understand why they were used one shouldn't be offended anymore. At least I'm not, in fact I'm a proud Kraut.:lol:

Another thing I wanted to say...

the difference between saying abo in Redfern, and saying Jap in Tokyo... In Redfern you'd get beat up. :yep:

... but when talking to people I'm a polite kind of person and wouldn't say anything offensive to anyone I didn't know.

Hey, if you chose to embrace that name, thats fine. Its not the first time a group as accepted a derogatory nickname as their own. My understanding is Chicano was once derogatory, but then became accepted by that group...but that group accepted it. Until i get a since that the Japanese has embraced the word, I wont use it. If some memebers of that group accept it and others dont, i'll hedge my usage on the side of safety, responsibilty and consideration and use it only in company that i know wont be offended, if i use it at all.

When you read all the AAR of SH3 you'll hardly find anyone saying 'I sank 2 Brits and 3 yanks' so I guess that hardly anybody will say that they sank any 'Japs'. But since it is a simulation I think everybody should be allowed to say that 'I have sunk some Jap tin cans'. Calling somebody a 'Jap' e.g. should however not be tolerated.

wow
7 pages discussing the word "jap"

Amazing isnt it, but we are discussing alot of aspects surrounding its use, and we could go another hunderd pages and still not come to an agreement or concencus.

The word is not going to go away, it will always be used, which is why people make the bad a good so it doesnt upset them unless it words around it indicate TRUE racism, and I cant see any of that happening on these forums.

It helps to build a stronger charactor, if it upsets you (and you dont like being upset), only you can change your thinking so it doesnt, people will always use it so its best to accept it and wear it with pride. It doesnt make you less of a man.