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主题:Taylor Branch:高天火柱——MLK三部曲之二 -- 万年看客

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多谢
家园 不客气,为老师打回下手很光荣,有用得着的地方请吩咐

不客气,为老师打回下手很光荣,有用得着的地方请吩咐

竟然忘了,最传统和接近华人的词是东方oriental,但应该从来没出现在表格上,使用的场合和广泛程度,同中文的“东方”基本一样,本来是最人畜无害的词,但近年无奈地成为政治不正确,一个很有趣也很蛋疼,很美国特色的问题,下面转一篇文章供参考,翻译大意如下

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奥巴马禁中央政府使用“东方人oriental”这个词

因为东方人听起来像外来人口,永远不能成为美国人,有排外歧视侮辱成分

白人比亚洲人更急切抹掉这个词,因为急于洗清自己,白人喜欢同亚洲人讲种族主义问题,因为不敢同黑人讲

在美国用“东方”一词最多的正是东方人,尤其年长人群,无数商业艺术文化行业使用“东方”,禁用“东方”,说是保护他们,实质折腾他们。(该文作者是东方医疗行业) N多年来,全美国N多省市,N多学校,N多课程,使用“东方医学”这个词,花大量人力物力,把整个行业折腾一遍,为了一个从不曾存在的侮辱。无数美国人享受“东方医学”,我们应该争取的是与西医实际平等的地位,而不是在称呼用词上扯淡。

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The term ‘Oriental’ is outdated, but is it racist?

By JAYNE TSUCHIYAMA JUN 01, 2016

It is now politically incorrect to use the word “Oriental,” and the admonition has the force of law: President Obama recently signed a bill prohibiting use of the term in all federal documents. Rep. Grace Meng, the New York congresswoman who sponsored the legislation, exulted that “at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good.”

As an Oriental, I am bemused. Apparently Asians are supposed to feel demeaned if someone refers to us as Orientals. But good luck finding a single Asian American who has ever had the word spat at them in anger. Most Asian Americans have had racist epithets hurled at them at one time or another: Chink, slant eye, gook, Nip, zipperhead. But Oriental isn’t in the canon.

And why should it be? Literally, it means of the Orient or of the East, as opposed to of the Occident or of the West. Last I checked, geographic origin is not a slur. If it were, it would be wrong to label people from Mississippi as Southerners.

Of course I understand that some insults have benign origins. “Jap,” for example, is simply a shortening of the word Japanese, but that one stings. As 127,000 Japanese Americans were carted off to internment camps during World War II, they were repeatedly referred to by their fellow citizens and the media as Japs. It was meant as an insult and understood as such. Clearly context is important.

Erika Lee, director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota and author of “The Making of Asian America: A History,” offered a similar explanation to NBC News: “In the U.S., the term ‘Oriental’ has been used to reinforce the idea that Asians were/are forever foreign and could never become American. These ideas helped to justify immigration exclusion, racial discrimination and violence, political disfranchisement and segregation.” Lee also claimed that continued use of the term “perpetuates inequality, disrespect, discrimination and stereotypes towards Asian Americans.”

I don’t see it that way; I see self-righteous, fragile egos eager to find offense where none is intended. A wave of anti-Oriental discrimination is not sweeping the country. Besides, the term has been steadily falling out of circulation since the 1950s, and it’s mainly used today by older Asians and the proprietors of hundreds if not thousands of restaurants, hotels, shops and organizations with Oriental in their name. The well-intentioned meddlers will create trouble for exactly the population they want to defend.

My profession, Oriental medicine, is among those on the receiving end of the identity-politics outbreak. A funny thing I noticed is that my Caucasian (dare I say Occidental?) colleagues, not my Asian colleagues, are most eager to remove Oriental from public discourse. I suppose they’re busy shouldering their burden of guilt. Margaret Cho said it best: “White people like to tell Asians how to feel about race because they’re too scared to tell black people.”

In my field, the word “Oriental” appears in the title of 17 of the 58 accredited graduate-level schools, 21 of the 33 state associations and eight of the 24 national associations. Though the new federal legislation does not require us to act, it has increased pressure to toe the politically correct line.

Are we really going to waste time, energy and millions of dollars to rebrand our entire discipline — rename our schools and boards, redesign corporate identities, websites and publications and send out thousands of revised diplomas — all to wipe away an insult that doesn’t exist?

We have more important things to worry about. Big pharma is busy patenting the active compounds in the herbal formulas that Orientals have been prescribing for millenniums. The World Health Organization and National Institutes of Health have long recognized the efficacy of acupuncture (the mainstream of Oriental medicine) in treating dozens of conditions. More than 20 million Americans have used acupuncture. Yet neither Medicare, Medicaid nor federal employees’ insurance covers the procedure. Practitioners of Oriental medicine have struggled for years to gain acceptance with the Occidental medical community and with insurance companies and federal and state governments. Yet here we are focusing our efforts on language.

Jayne Tsuchiyama is a doctor of acupuncture and Oriental medicine.

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