When It's Okay to Use Ethnic Slurs: A Guide

[one...two...tree 2,762]

(excerpt)

Rule 1: Am I a member of the group that the word is sometimes used to slur? If yes, go to #2. If no, go to #3.

Rule 2: Am I aware that the word has a derogatory use? If yes, go to #3. If no, go to #4.

Rule 3: Am I mocking a slur by reappropriating it? If yes, as one recent and provocative entry in the six-word “Race Card Project” put it, “I can say it; you can't.” If no, go to #4.

Rule 4: Am I speaking with intent to praise or to damn the group that the word targets? If to praise, I am out of touch even if I'm not malicious, and I'm possibly still a racist. If to damn, then I am probably both malicious and racist—and will certainly be taken to be.

To put these rules into practice, consider the use of “Chinaman” in the title of my book. The phrase originated in the 1850s when Chinese immigrant laborers were given the most dangerous and thankless tasks in building America’s railroads and mining its mountains, such that their chances of survival were often slim to none. It entered into the lexicon like “Indian giver” or “Welshing on a promise”—colorful ways to couple undesirable behavior and undesirable ethnicity.

It's been a long time since the phrase was in common usage. But I myself am what used to be called a “Chinaman” (Rule 1). I am aware that it's been used a slur (Rule 2). And I am indeed mocking the slur by reappropriating it and using it about myself (Rule 4).

More precisely, I am using it with irony and paying homage to my immigrant father’s ironic sense of humor. Chao-hua Liu was a sponge for American idiom and slang when he came here in the late 1950s. Somewhere along the way he learned this phrase, realized it was to be used against him and his kind, and decided to defang it by applying it to trivial everyday situations: “The Yankees have a Chinaman's chance of coming back in the ninth inning,” he'd say when I was a kid. Or if it was almost closing time at Shop-Rite, “You have a Chinaman's chance of getting there on time!” He taught me how wit can neuter malice—how new Americans can repurpose the language, taking control of words meant to control.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/rules-of-engagement-for-ethnic-slurs/374769/

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

(excerpt)

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/rules-of-engagement-for-ethnic-slurs/374769/

Wow a PC guide to tell me the proper way to use a word. I got as far as #1, realized where it was heading and had a chuckle.

More madness from the PC left

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

He made up his own rules about how feels about his own thing. Pretty stupid.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Wow a PC guide to tell me the proper way to use a word. I got as far as #1, realized where it was heading and had a chuckle.

More madness from the PC left

I say all the time " I would not do it for all the Tea in China"

Wonder how long before that is deemed.. ohh so bad ...Implying people in China drink a lot of Tea.. How dare I.

My best Pinay friend is 49. She says oriental all the time. I keep telling her some left winger is going to get mad. She says- I Oriental I can say if i want. LOL

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Wow a PC guide to tell me the proper way to use a word. I got as far as #1, realized where it was heading and had a chuckle.

More madness from the PC left

I say all the time " I would not do it for all the Tea in China"

Wonder how long before that is deemed.. ohh so bad ...Implying people in China drink a lot of Tea.. How dare I.

My best Pinay friend is 49. She says oriental all the time. I keep telling her some left winger is going to get mad. She says- I Oriental I can say if i want. LOL

uh-oh. now you are starting to talk to yourself on a message board too. i remember when gary started doing this - it went downhill from there fast...

[JohnR! 5,495]

He made up his own rules about how feels about his own thing. Pretty stupid.

Which brings up a good point many posters on VJ seem incapable of understanding.

The copy is a simple op-ed. It is not news, it is not the truth, and it does not reflect reality; as such it doesn't warrant histrionics or feigned outrage.

It's no different than many, many other blogs and op-ed circulating in cyberspace that reflect the opinion of the author, and no one else.

It is amazing what you see presented around here, being used as the source of certain threads or discussions as though they were facts.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Facts are confusing for VJ. Opinions and declarations made with no knowledge or data get called "overwhelming facts."

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Facts are confusing for VJ. Opinions and declarations made with no knowledge or data get called "overwhelming facts."

They certainly are for confusing for the moderation team.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Facts are confusing for VJ. Opinions and declarations made with no knowledge or data get called "overwhelming facts."

Everyone pounding on NB today, eh? No wonder he's talking to himself.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Everyone pounding on NB today, eh? No wonder he's talking to himself.

You having a fantasy to pound me ? I don't roll like that

[JohnR! 5,495]

Everyone pounding on NB today, eh? No wonder he's talking to himself.

That was not my intention. Besides, it was only a general observation, not a judgment call on any particular individual(s)