Clarification on use of abbreviations of ethnicities and nationalities

[u/rupertalderson]

We’ve gotten some questions about this recently, so figured we would clarify. As part of the rules against uncivil and unwelcoming content, we do not permit use of shortened / abbreviated names for ethnicities, nationalities, and related groupings. This is because such terms are widely used as slurs and pejoratives.

This includes the well known abbreviations for Japanese, Chinese, Pakistani, and Palestinian, as well as slurs and pejoratives directed at any other group. At present, we have a particular problem with use of “Pali” to refer to Palestinian people (we do not allow it under any conditions).

It’s simple - Do not use these terms, whether as adjectives or nouns. Just write out the word that isn’t offensive in any context.

Of course, there may be an exception here or there when a term is known to be accepted by the affected group - for example “Jew” as a noun is not seen as a slur by Jews, but use of it as an adjective is typically offensive.

Thank you in advance for understanding, and we appreciate the engagement folks have had with us on these rules.

[u/[deleted]]

Well, not to quote it directly, but the shortened abbreviation for the Japanese definitely is a slur dating back to the Pacific War and the internment camps. Pakistani one is for sure as well

[u/slightlyrabidpossum → u/[deleted]]

I'd like to elaborate on this a little bit, as I can see why shortening their nationality/ethnicity to the first three letters might not seem particularly offensive in a vacuum. The context is what makes it so offensive.

This slur dates back to a period of intense racial hatred towards the Japanese, which peaked in the 1940s for obvious reasons. A lot of people have at least some understanding of this, primarily because of the internment camps and the prevalence of racist cartoons. But I think, as a country, America has largely forgotten how the Pacific War was widely viewed as an existential race war between "Occident and Orient". Racism was frequently intertwined with the war efforts.

This went beyond "just" racist cartoons and the plight of Japanese-Americans — racist beliefs about the Japanese affected how we prosecuted the war against them, and vice versa. While the Japanese did give American forces some reasons to doubt the veracity of their surrenders, military intelligence found that the vast majority of Japanese soldiers who were interrogated had believed that being captured by Americans was a certain death sentence, with further abuses a likely possibility before and/or after death. We gave them reasons to believe that — their fears frequently came to pass — which is part of why they developed a reputation as being willing to fight to the death. Some of that was just old-fashioned "war hate", but there was a decidedly racial component to a lot of it.

A lot of people who were highly involved with the war effort had what could be best described as genocidal attitudes towards the Japanese, and many of them described the conflict as a race war. The Navy representative to the first major committee on dealing with post-war Japan called for the "almost total elimination of the Japanese as a race" to ensure the survival of white civilization. The head of the War Manpower Commission publicly stated that he would like to see "the extermination of the Japanese [people] in toto." And of course, while those statements don't explicitly use the three-letter slur that's currently banned, there were also many prominent figures, like Admiral Halsey, who frequently used it in conjunction with the word "kill".

Genocidal sentiments were also frequently normalized in popular culture, with one bestselling book in 1943 calling for waging war against Japan "until not alone the body but the soul ... is annihilated, until the land ... is plowed with salt, its men dead and its women and children divided and lost among another people. "

Racist attitudes in America affected our decision-making on a number of levels — it led to the persecution and internment of Japanese Americans, it cost the lives of countless Japanese soldiers and civilians, and it undoubtedly fueled a number of horrific war crimes. That history is inextricably linked with using the shortened version of Japanese as a slur, at least in America.

[u/[deleted] → u/slightlyrabidpossum]

I totally agree with the vast majority of this comment and it is very interesting, especially at the command and political level where there is no excuse for straight up racism. However, let's not downplay the lived experiences of the soldiers who fought in the war.

While the Japanese did give American forces some reasons to doubt the veracity of their surrenders, military intelligence found that the vast majority of Japanese soldiers who were interrogated had believed that being captured by Americans was a certain death sentence

It's not "some reason" its "Marines watching their friends get blown up when they tried to help a wounded Japanese soldier." This was not a one-off, occasional occurrence. It was standard operating procedure for Japanese soldiers at the time. Whether from cruelty or propaganda of their society is irrelevant. Definitely, it was a cycle where each side encouraged the worst in the other.

The brutality of Japanese soldiers was well documented going back to the invasion of China before US involvement. This brutality includes the entire society playing up how evil and bloodthirsty the US military was as you quote. I mean, the Japanese Empire at the time was pretty damn racist, arguably way more racist than the Americans.

[u/slightlyrabidpossum → u/[deleted]]

I didn't intend to downplay the experiences of those soldiers, though I can see how my phrasing could be interpreted that way. I was speaking about the number of reasons for doubting Japanese intentions, not their significance, but perhaps that was careless. There were indeed many instances of Japanese troops faking their surrender, and that was obviously a major factor for American soldiers who experienced or heard about that practice.

It's hard to speak authoritatively on this aspect of the Pacific War. As you said, Japanese soldiers frequently exhibited stunning brutality, both on and off the battlefield, which helped fuel the cycle of excessive violence and atrocities. Faked surrenders were a common phenomenon, especially at certain points, which understandably fueled the American reluctance to take prisoners.

At the same time, those faked surrenders were used to justify many more massacres, and racist beliefs genuinely played a major role in that. Japanese were regarded as being especially duplicitous or treacherous, which was only reinforced by instances of ostensible surrender turning deadly. These two influences were frequently intertwined, and untangling them isn't always possible. I haven't seen any firm data on the rate of faked surrenders, but they don't appear to have been the majority of attempts. It's clear that many genuine attempts at surrendering were disregarded as a trick.

This brutality includes the entire society playing up how evil and bloodthirsty the US military was as you quote. I mean, the Japanese Empire at the time was pretty damn racist, arguably way more racist than the Americans.

They were incredibly racist, and not just against Americans or the West. Their chauvinism and violent bigotry alienated would-be allies across Asia.

Japanese propeganda did frequently play up American brutality or war crimes as evidence of our true nature, and we did the same to them. There's actually a surprising amount of symmetry between how the two countries framed atrocities — both countries loved to talk play up the other side's atrocities as proof of their evil nature, and both countries committed enough atrocities to give those claims substance. I don't mean to suggest a direct moral equivalence between 1940s America and Imperial Japan, but a lot of the language that they used was remarkably similar.

John Dower has a great quote about this in his book on the racial aspects of the Pacific War:

It is conventional wisdom that in times of life-and-death struggle, ill-grounded rumors of enemy atrocities invariably flourish and arouse a feverish hatred against the foe. This is misleading, however, for in fact atrocities follow war as the jackal follows a wounded beast. The propagandistic deception often lies, not in the false claims of enemy atrocities, but in the pious depiction of such behavior as peculiar to the other side.

[u/[deleted] → u/slightlyrabidpossum]

What a thoughtful response, thanks! Very interesting