Starbucks Aerospace
12-02-2008, 11:11
http://ucsdguardian.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9563&Itemid=2
A committee tasked with operating a semiformal dance at the University of California San Diego changed the name of the event from "Eastern Elegance: A Night in the Orient" to "Sakura Night" after an Asian Pacific-Islander student organization complained to an oversight committee that the words 'Eastern' and 'Orient' were Eurocentric and hinted at racism, although the two co-chairs and several other members of the semiformal committee are Asian American.
I go to UCSD and feel that this is a bit over-the-top. Look up 'Orient' on Wikipedia and you'll see why: the usage was clearly not intended to be racist, and, I think, intended to evoke a sense of old-world East Asian elegance, which isn't a technically objectionable use of the term.
I'm weighing writing an editorial to the newspaper I linked to, although I'd like to hear the opinions of others first.
A committee tasked with operating a semiformal dance at the University of California San Diego changed the name of the event from "Eastern Elegance: A Night in the Orient" to "Sakura Night" after an Asian Pacific-Islander student organization complained to an oversight committee that the words 'Eastern' and 'Orient' were Eurocentric and hinted at racism, although the two co-chairs and several other members of the semiformal committee are Asian American.
I go to UCSD and feel that this is a bit over-the-top. Look up 'Orient' on Wikipedia and you'll see why: the usage was clearly not intended to be racist, and, I think, intended to evoke a sense of old-world East Asian elegance, which isn't a technically objectionable use of the term.
I'm weighing writing an editorial to the newspaper I linked to, although I'd like to hear the opinions of others first.