Can somebody help me understand why "Oriental" is considered so offensive? It seems about as offensive to me as calling Europe, etc. "the West". Perhaps it's just guilty by association with colonialism and outmoded racial attitudes?
Headline (and article) are <i>wildly</i> inaccurate. The bill in question [0] amends <i>exactly two</i> federal laws (one section of each), not "all federal laws", to change the use of terms for racial/ethnic groups: the "Department of Energy Organization Act" and the "Local Public Works Capital Development and Investment Act of 1976".<p>That's it.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4238/text/enr" rel="nofollow">https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4238...</a>
replaces "Oriental" with "Asian American", what if the law isn't in reference to American persons?<p>when only Asian Americans are eligible for a visa Congress is going to git blame obama
Nearly none of these belong in the law, no matter what word you use.<p>The one exception is that we need to way to refer to tribal lands, tribal law, tribe membership, and similar. I think "tribe" and "tribal" are normally the best terms for this. In some cases, "North American Aboriginal" or "Hawaiian Aboriginal" would be more appropriate.
How is this done? I've heard so much about how intractably large the current body of law is. Can you really just grep through the legal database like that? Can <i>I</i> grep through the legal database?<p>I can think of many other changes we should make, if it's that easy.
It would be interesting to see the usage of 'Negro' and 'Oriental' etc in the Statutes at Large attributable to each political party over the years.