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Subject:Re: English for Asian readers From:Stewart Lindsay <slindsay -at- WATARTS -dot- UWATERLOO -dot- CA> Date:Thu, 23 Dec 1993 18:12:32 -0500
On Thu, 23 Dec 1993, Marian Harry-Young wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 21 Dec 1993, Karen Kay wrote:
> >
> > > for you to do so. (The old 'nigger' question.) I wouldn't say that it's
> > > very rude; not as rude as, say, blowing your nose. But it *DOES* reflect
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Stewart Lindsay
> > Canada
> >
> HEY, HEY, HEY, CAN'T YOU CONTRIBUTE WITHOUT REFERRING TO PEOPLE
> WITHOUT INSULTING THEM TO THE HIGHEST!!!! I STRONGLY, AND YOU
> CAN'T EXCUSE THIS TYPE OF BLATANT RACISM BY SAYING YOU WERE
> TRYING TO MAKE A POINT,.... I HOPE THE OTHERS ON THIS LIST WILL
> SUPPORT ME ON THIS.
> MARIAN HARRY-YOUNT
***********
What in the discussion do you find to be blatantly racist?? (And I shall
ignore your editting to make it seem that _I_ wrote the included text,
when in fact that was my including of Karen's). Does the mention of the
word "nigger" in an academic discussion bother you? You don't know my
colour, and I don't know yours, but my black (NOT African-American, since
a)I'm in Canada, and b) that is how my friends ask to be called) friends
often refer to themselves, AMONGST THEMSELVES, as "nigger". _I_, or any
other white person could NEVER use the term, and that, I believe, was
Karen's point: Asians (and I lived there for 5 years, speak fluent
Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), good Japanese, and more than a smidgen
of Bahasa Handara Indonesian) consider "Oriental" an unflattering term
when _WE_ use it, even though they may occassionally use it. My purely
unscientific source for this is my (Chinese) wife, her family, with whom I
lived, my closest Japanese friend, whom I called up just now to confirm
this, and a HK Chinese colleague who is here doing his PhD on James Joyce.
If indeed you had come into the discussion late and hadn't followed the
thread, I suppose I could excuse such blatantly insulting (and
false) accusations; I would suggest you get off your PC horse and realize
that if discussions are going to lead to anything, then they have to the
shallow surface of triteness - there was nothing racist in what I said,
and I see nothing of the sort in Karen's comparison of the language used
intra-culturally, that may be inappropriate inter-culturally.
