[Dixielandjazz] "Oriental Jazz"

[Don Kirkman]

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 16:47:50 -0500, David W. Littlefield wrote:

>At 11:58 AM 03/15/05 -0800, you wrote:
>>("Oriental" traditionally referred to Egypt and
>>the Near East, as has been noted elsewhere in this thread, though
>>recently some of East Asian background have tried to invoke it for PC
>>purposes.)

>Actually, "Asian" is the PC term today, NOT "oriental". The latter indeed
>did refer to the Near/Middle East, came to include all of Asia, then
>relatively quickly became used pretty exclusively for East Asians. Jeez,
>I've forgotten my anthropology, don't recall the technical term.  I'm not
>sure why they hate "oriental" but they do--my 1995 Random House Websters
>dictionary says it's "somewhat offensive", so there's clearly a history
>there... I no longer have regular social contact with Asians as I did
>before I retired, so I've never had the opportunity to ask...

Answering off list.
-- 
Don
donkirk at covad.net