These people have lost their minds!


"As Classic Novels Get Revised for Today’s Readers, a Debate About Where to Draw the Line
Agatha Christie. Roald Dahl. Ian Fleming. Classics are being reworked to remove offensive language. But some readers wonder, when does posthumous editing go too far?"


"In Agatha Christie’s novels, terms like “Oriental,” “Gypsy” and “native” have been taken out, and revised versions of Ian Fleming’s “James Bond” books will be scrubbed of racist and sexist phrases. Classics by Roald Dahl have been stripped of adjectives like “fat” and “ugly” along with references to characters’ gender and skin color."


https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0...stie-roald-dahl.html

This is scandalously wrong. No one has the right or authority to change an author's words! (I'm also against altering the words of Hymns to be more inclusive or remove the paternal/male nature of God. Jesus called God "father".)

flashguy

quote:

(I'm also against altering the words of Hymns to be more inclusive or remove the paternal/male nature of God. Jesus called God "father".)

A lot of that goes on.

Gunga Din isn't very long to start with. If they took out all the "racist" parts, it would be nothing much before, and rather less than half of that behind.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:

terms like “Oriental,”

When I was in school, "The Orient" was the term that was used when speaking of Eastern Asia. "Oriental" was used to describe people or things associated with The Orient. It was not a disparaging term, nor viewed as racist. At some point (I didn't get the memo, so I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I became aware of it fairly recently), "Oriental" became a word that was no longer used by polite (politically correct) people, and "Asian" became the proper term.

If I look at a map or a globe, it appears to me that Asia encompasses a lot more territory than The Orient, so "Asian" is not as accurate when referring to the Far East.

It's even more confusing to me because I know many Chinese and Japanese people who describe themselves as "Oriental." There is a store nearby that proclaims itself, in huge letters over the front window, as an "Oriental Grocery," not an "Asian Grocery."

My observation is that a lot of our language is now being defined as offensive, and the people who are making those decisions are frequently "reformers" who are related to the allegedly insulted ethnic groups about as much as Elizabeth Warren is related to the Cherokee Nation.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:

terms like “Oriental,”

When I was in school, "The Orient" was the term that was used when speaking of Eastern Asia. "Oriental" was used to describe people or things associated with The Orient. It was not a disparaging term, nor viewed as racist. At some point (I didn't get the memo, so I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I became aware of it fairly recently), "Oriental" became a word that was no longer used by polite (politically correct) people, and "Asian" became the proper term.

If I look at a map or a globe, it appears to me that Asia encompasses a lot more territory than The Orient, so "Asian" is not as accurate when referring to the Far East.

It's even more confusing to me because I know many Chinese and Japanese people who describe themselves as "Oriental." There is a store nearby that proclaims itself, in huge letters over the front window, as an "Oriental Grocery," not an "Asian Grocery."

My observation is that a lot of our language is now being defined as offensive, and the people who are making those decisions are frequently "reformers" who are related to the allegedly insulted ethnic groups about as much as Elizabeth Warren is related to the Cherokee Nation.

You obviously don't get it. "Oriental" is bad because it includes such evil folk as the Japanese and Koreans, a population that is generally very industrious, morally cognizant, and has a high proportion of Christian adherents. The term "Asian" is good because is intended to include populations that reside in the Eastern Mediterranean, SE Asia, and Africa, almost exclusively adhering to the Islamic faith. It is probably not a coincidence that there is a definite political skew as well, the first group being generally more conservative than the latter. It basically comes down to yellow+Christian = bad, brown/black+Muslim = good, pretty simple really.

The real mystery is how do leftists reconcile their passions for "women's rights," "gay liberation," and "gender fluidity" with the teachings of Muhammad (as applied in the contemporary world) which abhors such concepts? Maybe not such a mystery, hypocrisy never seems to be in short supply among leftists.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:


The real mystery is how do leftists reconcile their passions for "women's rights," "gay liberation," and "gender fluidity" with the teachings of Muhammad (as applied in the contemporary world) which abhors such concepts? Maybe not such a mystery, hypocrisy never seems to be in short supply among leftists.

Simple. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Anything which is perceived by leftists as something conservatives oppose becomes the best thing ever. Though conservatives generally don't oppose Islam (just violent extremist Muslims), the leftists don't see nuance, only group affiliation, so they think conservatives hate all Muslims. Thus the strictest version of Islam is the best, in the eyes of leftists.

Being married to a Chinese Mainlander, I can tell you the last person in the world who gets offended by "oriental" is an Asian person. They couldn't care less and laugh what a silly people we have become.

Here in Utah, when the high schooler wore a Chinese dress to prom, it was white liberal women who led the outrage. The Chinese, to their credit, made a statement of support, saying they were pleased by the show of their traditional culture.

Changing historic novels is very 1984. “Your chocolate ration has been increased!” Anybody know how they plan on handling Mark Twain? Non-native Jim, perhaps?

For the OP.....which group is it that relentlessly complains about banning books and attempting to find irony? These people re-writting established literature are blind to the irony to which they argue and protest.


As to the usage of Oriental....

Oriental = refers to a style type usually furniture, rugs, jewelry, font, architecture, decor, etc.
Asian = people

Referring to people of the Far East as Oriental is just inconsistent and out-of-date terminology; people who live in the Far West or, are of Western culture, aren't referred to as Occidentals. The only time you'd see the term Occidental used was in literature from the mid-20th century and earlier; hence Christie's use of Oriental is period-correct terminology. As more Asians settled in the US, succeeding generations grew, mixed-racial marriages and travel expanded, English terminology has focused on saying Asian in a general term instead of Oriental, or, being more specific since people are better able to distinguish if between Chinese or, Vietnamese or, Japanese, etc.

In the UK, Asian usually refers to those who are of Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi decent, and East Asian was those of Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Thai/Vietnamese.... In the US, those of Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi decent are referred to as South Asian. English is an imperfect language.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
Being married to a Chinese Mainlander, I can tell you the last person in the world who gets offended by "oriental" is an Asian person. They couldn't care less and laugh what a silly people we have become.

All the Asians I know are too busy working hard, making money and minding their own business to give a rat's ass about B.S. like this.

This whole "WOKE" agenda is not a grassroots movement. It's too bad the idealistic libtard airheads don't realize they are being used.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:
Here in Utah, when the high schooler wore a Chinese dress to prom, it was white liberal women who led the outrage. The Chinese, to their credit, made a statement of support, saying they were pleased by the show of their traditional culture.

Changing historic novels is very 1984. “Your chocolate ration has been increased!” Anybody know how they plan on handling Mark Twain? Non-native Jim, perhaps?

Mark Twain has already been handled--they took his books out of the school libraries and off the reading lists.

I agree that "Asian" as a substitute for "Oriental" is too vague. I use "Far East" for that area.

flashguy

I read about Roald Dahl's books awhile back, in particular Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I have an original hardcover copy from the early 60s that I bought for my son maybe 20 years ago. It has all of the original words. But Netflix recently bought Dahl's catalog and have "edited" the books. Here some examples (not all of them) from the book, original text on the left:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Unbelievable.

No doubt, they will remove all of the org. copies from schools, libraries, etc. in the coming years.

I remember studying Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice in school. There was a project and for the project, I memorized the speech that goes something like, "Am I not a Jew?..."

I guess that one doesn't get covered anymore.