why Oriental is offensive

[Natalie Maynor]

Replying to myself:

>   In other words, it may be common knowledge in California that
> "oriental" is unPC, but it's not common knowledge yet everywhere.

I should clarify that what I'm talking about here is not just "PC"
or "unPC" but rather the idea that the term oriental might be
considered offensive by anybody.  This is why I worry about what
might happen to innocent people from other parts of the country who
visit the west coast and find themselves punched out by an irate
Californian if they should use the word "oriental" with no idea that
it carries any negative baggage.  I realize that recent dictionaries
carry usage notes, but not everybody reads every usage note in a new
dictionary.  It's going to take a while for the word to spread to
everybody.  An Asian friend of mine who is married to one of my
colleagues and has lived here for about ten or twelve years now
told me that her (non-Asian) sister-in-law in California told her
that she should stop referring to herself as Oriental and use Asian
instead.  She said that she's trying but that she sometimes forgets.
It's perhaps relevant in all this that her husband told me that people
in California consider theirs an inter-racial marriage while people
here don't.

   --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu)