The Orient and Other PC Discussion

[simpkin]

When I was living in London, someone told me that in the 80s (if I recall correctly) there was a particular streak of idiotic political correctness:

You weren't allowed to say "black coffee", you had to say "coffee without milk" or some such nonsense.

Those idiots and do-gooders are also at work here (in Austria). Mangling the language with their endless combinations of masculine and feminine forms in one word ("-Innen", if you've had the misfortune to be exposed to it) is one thing.

Then they started to ban crucifixes in schools, they want to ban Christmas-related customs (to be considerate towards some non-Christian immigrants) and so on - the list of moronic hypocrisy goes on.

So, coming back to Go, I will never refer to White as "she" (except, you know, if it's a female player), nor will I refrain from using "black" and "white" (cause, you know, the stones *are* black and white), and if I want to use "Orientals", I will and if not, I won't.

So just say the things you actually want to say and never mind the pseudo-consternation shown by the hypocrites when you use "non-PC" language.

Almost all of these are urban legends used to denigrate considerate behaviour. They are not real. Go ahead and find examples of people being banned from talking about "black coffee" - not "my friend's uncle's sister's dog's babysitter", but actual real cases ...

So you refuse to describe a hypothetical Go player as "she"? You insist on using "he"? Because no hypothetical Go player is actually female, presumably ...? It doesn't matter what you call them; they're imaginary. Why not have one of each gender, to make us look nice and inclusive?

[richardamullens]

So you refuse to describe a hypothetical Go player as "she"? You insist on using "he"? Because no hypothetical Go player is actually female, presumably ...?

Keep doing a good job of recruiting women Go players ! It seems that there are at least 3 in the Durham Go club.

[John Fairbairn]

Almost all of these are urban legends used to denigrate considerate behaviour. They are not real. Go ahead and find examples of people being banned from talking about "black coffee" - not "my friend's uncle's sister's dog's babysitter", but actual real cases ...

A lot of PC dogma is actually INconsiderate behaviour because it penalises the majority for the sake of an often invented minority.

So you refuse to describe a hypothetical Go player as "she"? You insist on using "he"? Because no hypothetical Go player is actually female, presumably ...? It doesn't matter what you call them; they're imaginary. Why not have one of each gender, to make us look nice and inclusive?

There's a practical aspect to this. If new go players are brought up to think of Black as female and White as male (or arsey-versy), things will become very confusing and/or irritating when they come to read the commentaries and non-beginner books which form the vast majority of go texts. Probably something like 99% of existing commentaries describe games between male players where "he" is the only sensible pronoun. That proportion is not likely to change much in the near future. It is sometimes possible to limit the he's by using Black/White, but in a long text typical of a commentary or book there is only so much you can do in that regard.

Raising the profile of women in the game is worth a little bit of positive discrimination, in my view. In my own modest way I think I can claim to have done a little of that, being the first to write anything substantial in English about "women in go" - a 16-page article in Go World 64. On a much large scale, professional organsisations and sponsors have offered women fast-track promotion systems, their own events, and seeded places in tournament (the current Samsung Cup now has a separate preliminary to ensure some women play in the finals). I approve of these things. But messing around with he and she is not the way to help women. That's no more effective than putting a sticking plaster on a broken leg, which gives the person putting on the plaster a sanctimonious glow - and maybe this is the real inspiration for PC - but doesn't really help the patient.

[daniel_the_smith]

I don't get why it's such a big deal. I don't intuitively get why "Oriental" is offensive (I mean, I understand the reasons presented but they don't add up to me), but it's not really any effort to use another word (although, in this case "Asian" seems less accurate, but whatever). Using he & she for black & white by default would actually make discussing games/positions more clear if everyone did it, so I really don't get why people have a problem with that. Stuff like "flight attendant" instead of "stewardess" is just plain more accurate in modern society, so I don't get why that irritates people, either.

Anyway, given our gender and minority ratios, as go players anything (within reason) we can do to make sub-groups feel less out of place is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Go congress was significantly whiter and more masculine than Chicago is, for example. There's nothing inherent in the game that should cause that, so it must be the players that are to blame.

[Liisa]

I don't get why it's such a big deal.

People feel that the topic is important, but they do not have anything reasonable to say for it. Thus people fill this thread with non-sense OT discussion, because they cannot let this thread to be and wait for further information. It is just some sort of unconscious reaction for the topic, because people have not proper mental tools for handling such completely new concepts like eurogopro.

[Harleqin]

Yes, language shapes thought. If we lack words for something, we cannot think it either. That is the primary idea behind newspeak.

I have difficulty imagining the term "oriental" to be offensive in any way.

I find it quite natural to use "he" as a default gender-inspecific personal pronoun. It is usually unnecessary complex to have two different, non-interchangable but equal-meaning gender-inspecific pronouns, although it can sometimes help to disambiguate. One such case could be for Black and White in a Go game, but only when the players are abstract. If I only need one, though, I use the default.

[Chew Terr]

On a much large scale, professional organsisations and sponsors have offered women fast-track promotion systems...

Hey John... I know this is off-topic, but I was curious about this. I hadn't really heard much about this sort of fast-track system. Could you please describe it or point me somewhere that does?

[azrael]

Its interesting to see how this whole 'Oriental' debate is dominated by 'White' people. I haven't seen any any 'Orientals' actively taking part. I might be wrong though.

To be honest as a Chinese living in UK I don't find the word offensive. I also find this debate to be highly amusing.

[daniel_the_smith]

Yeah, if I think about it I will ask people at go club tonight. I'm curious.

[Javaness]

There's a practical aspect to this. If new go players are brought up to think of Black as female and White as male (or arsey-versy), things will become very confusing and/or irritating when they come to read the commentaries and non-beginner books which form the vast majority of go texts. Probably something like 99% of existing commentaries describe games between male players where "he" is the only sensible pronoun. That proportion is not likely to change much in the near future. It is sometimes possible to limit the he's by using Black/White, but in a long text typical of a commentary or book there is only so much you can do in that regard.

Raising the profile of women in the game is worth a little bit of positive discrimination, in my view. In my own modest way I think I can claim to have done a little of that, being the first to write anything substantial in English about "women in go" - a 16-page article in Go World 64. On a much large scale, professional organsisations and sponsors have offered women fast-track promotion systems, their own events, and seeded places in tournament (the current Samsung Cup now has a separate preliminary to ensure some women play in the finals). I approve of these things. But messing around with he and she is not the way to help women. That's no more effective than putting a sticking plaster on a broken leg, which gives the person putting on the plaster a sanctimonious glow - and maybe this is the real inspiration for PC - but doesn't really help the patient.

Some people, including women, don't want to raise the profile of women in the game. For those of us that do, I believe that deliberately using 'he' and 'she' for separate colours is a banal, tokenist, and vaguely irritating attempt to do so. Besides, in reviews I normally say Black can be satisfied with their thickness rather than He can be satisfied with his thickness

Is Chess more attractive to women because the Queen is the most powerful piece?

[palapiku]

I like the use of "she" for White and "he" for Black. Maybe it's because I first saw it in Learn To Play Go books, which are a) very cute and silly and b) are written by a woman, and complaining she doesn't use the "gender-neutral" "he" would actually seem sexist. Plus it does make it easier to distinguish between the two players in the text (always saying black this, white that gets tiresome).

[Javaness]

I like the use of "she" for White and "he" for Black. Maybe it's because I first saw it in Learn To Play Go books, which are a) very cute and silly and b) are written by a woman, and complaining she doesn't use the "gender-neutral" "he" would actually seem sexist. Plus it does make it easier to distinguish between the two players in the text (always saying black this, white that gets tiresome).

If you want to give a positive image of, or for, feminity in Go, why not just work an example of a lady's achievements into your text, instead of pretending that your choice of gender for the stones presents some pair-go-esque world of 1:1 male-female ratio and harmony.

[Horibe]

Some people, including women, don't want to raise the profile of women in the game. For those of us that do, I believe that deliberately using 'he' and 'she' for separate colours is a banal, tokenist, and vaguely irritating attempt to do so. Besides, in reviews I normally say Black can be satisfied with their thickness rather than He can be satisfied with his thickness

It is amazing. I mean we can use words to make anything offensive, or to stretch any point.

Surely using "she" to represent the white stones is simply perpetuating an oldfashioned idealized notion of the purity of womanhood.

Seriously, if the players are fictional, what is the harm of throwing some "she"s in? Would men here be offended less if the holder of the black, traditionally weaker stones, were referred to as "she".

Personally I think it is a nice, non exclusionairy convention which allows some less confusing variations in sentence structure.

Perhaps it would be extreme for a feminist to insist on such a convention, but it seems equally extreme for folks to be so irritated by its very occaisional use.

[tapir]

I can't resist to point out:

- that Edward Said qualms were probably more about the approach than about the word.

- that saying America when actually talking about the United States, would probably qualify as US-centric in the bigger part of the Americas.

- that discussing whether white is female, male or simply white should probably discussed somewhere where it matters. (E.g. White as female is quite common on Sensei's Library.)

[Liisa]

To continue off-topic, I would like to state an obvious, that in yin-yang white is a male color and black represents a female. This is also traditional Oriental interpretation of go stone colors and their gender roles. Westerners might think something else and that is ok.

Chess is of course different game, because it has queens and princesses and rockinghorses and other cute little things, so it has build in female and male aspects so it is not sensible to associate gender roles for the colors themselves.

One thing that is a little annoying is that people usually refer to gobots as male, although the gender of gobot should be female.