SouthernN'Proud
Southern Discomfort
from tonguetied.us
The name for a dance sponsored by a campus club at the Virginia Tech, Midwinter 2006: Tour Through the Orient, is under scrutiny by Asian students on campus because some of them feel word "Orient" is derogatory, according to the student paper there.
The Asian American Student Union called an emergency meeting to discuss the issue of The German Club's dance, a campus tradition for more than a century. Most of the students at the meeting didn't know the term was offensive, so they were educated by the more enlightened among them.
"This is a touchy subject among Asian-Pacific Americans and the subject should not be taken lightly," said Jennel Baltazar. "There are so many different cultures and ethnicities from Asia that it just seems wrong to lump everything into one big 'Oriental' category."
The German Club has apologized, not just for the title of the dance but for some of the decor -- images of the Buddha, sumo wrestlers, people performing karate, the Hokie Bird dressed as a samurai, and chopsticks in people's hair -- that was described as "exploitative" of Asians.
The whiners want the money raised from the dance to be contributed to the school's Asian Studies Program as pennance.
**end**
What a shocker. "You awful people, ridiculing our proud heritage! You cheapen us! Now give us the money."
The name for a dance sponsored by a campus club at the Virginia Tech, Midwinter 2006: Tour Through the Orient, is under scrutiny by Asian students on campus because some of them feel word "Orient" is derogatory, according to the student paper there.
The Asian American Student Union called an emergency meeting to discuss the issue of The German Club's dance, a campus tradition for more than a century. Most of the students at the meeting didn't know the term was offensive, so they were educated by the more enlightened among them.
"This is a touchy subject among Asian-Pacific Americans and the subject should not be taken lightly," said Jennel Baltazar. "There are so many different cultures and ethnicities from Asia that it just seems wrong to lump everything into one big 'Oriental' category."
The German Club has apologized, not just for the title of the dance but for some of the decor -- images of the Buddha, sumo wrestlers, people performing karate, the Hokie Bird dressed as a samurai, and chopsticks in people's hair -- that was described as "exploitative" of Asians.
The whiners want the money raised from the dance to be contributed to the school's Asian Studies Program as pennance.
**end**
What a shocker. "You awful people, ridiculing our proud heritage! You cheapen us! Now give us the money."
