[quote=harvey]Looks like flu successfully moved this thread to his favorite topic.

BTW, why is “oriental” not politically correct but “asian” is ok?

My grandmother used the term “oriental” all her life, without malice.

Here’s the answer: Because oriental means eastern, which implies that Europe is the center of the world.

Somehow, somewhere, some orientals..errr… I mean, asians got upset about the etymology of a word and demanded to be called asians.

And it stuck.

(Nevermind that a significant population of Asia isn’t, well, “asian.”)

Who comes up with this stuff? Who has the time and energy to care?[/quote]

It’s not my favorite topic. Favorite topic would be something pleasant to deal with. I consider this a gross social injustice. It’s the only thing I consider to be a gross social injustice in this country, continuously perpetrated by the extreme far left. (moderate left usually don’t believe in affirmative action as it stands today)
It had an impact on me (to a lesser extent), and It has a direct impact on my kid.

Regarding oriental versus asian. Actually, a lot of this came out of the progressive camp. It apparently offends some people. Semantics. I really don’t care frankly about this nit picking semantics.

Here’s food for thought. Here’s two things someone can say:

1: you can have someone say something that is non-PC but had no intention of offending….

2: you can have someone say something 100% PC, but said in a way to be offensive.

Case#1: is a product of someone’s ignorance. It’s not a big deal.

Example, someone in middle america completely obvious to PCness and didn’t know times have changed and says oriental instead of asian in the context of an otherwise harmless sentence….
For example: “your oriental daughter is polite and well mannered, she’s a doll”

Ok, really? Are you going to make a big deal about this?

Case#2: is more interesting. It’s more subtle, and you might not realize it first. But it’s something carefully crafted under the guise of being PC, but when in reality it is far more menacing.

For example: “Because all Asian Americans are good at math and science (not true, that’s a generalization)….we need to encourage diversity in engineering and science to others and give opportunities to underrepresented minorities”
That’s a complete PC thing to say.. It’s also completely racial.

Example 2 is far more alarming to me than example 1, as it should be to just about every other asian american.