Sunday, September 7, 2008

the "o word"

"Oriental" has always been a word that feels offensive and derogatory to me, but in the past I haven't been able to articulate why. Then today I ran across this brief article, which discusses the "o-word" and why exactly it is so offensive when used to refer to people.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

could you re-post the article link? It didn't work for me.

As a good anthropology major, I assume you've read Said's Orientalism, right? Has that had any affect on your thought?

Jenny said...

oops! Clearly I don't check backwards often enough. :P

Hopefully the link works this time: http://www.usariseup.com/article.cfm?articleId=60&issueid=4

If not, go to www.usariseup.com and search under the "Labels and Stereotypes" section for the article called "The O Word"