
‘Negro,’ ‘Oriental’ and ‘Indian’ to Be Scrubbed from All Federal Laws - AJAlabs
http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/05/_negro_oriental_and_indian_to_be_scrubbed_from_all_federal_laws.html?utm_content=buffer8d486&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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esbranson
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.

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burfog
Nearly none of these belong in the law, no matter what word you use.

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.

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dragonwriter
Headline (and article) are _wildly_ inaccurate. The bill in question [0]
amends _exactly two_ 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".

That's it.

[0] [https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-
bill/4238...](https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-
bill/4238/text/enr)

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cloudjacker
replaces "Oriental" with "Asian American", what if the law isn't in reference
to American persons?

when only Asian Americans are eligible for a visa Congress is going to git
blame obama

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sdrothrock
I was wondering about that with "Indian," too. If people slip up and replace
"Indian" (from India) with "Native American," that's a completely different
meaning.

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droopyEyelids
I hope a record is kept of the changes, I bet they'd be really interesting
from a historical perspective.

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AJAlabs
I absolutely agree. I'll be keeping an eye on the progress of this.

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dTal
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_ grep through the legal database?

I can think of many other changes we should make, if it's that easy.

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dragonwriter
> How is this done?

Its not: the headline (and source article) are inaccurate (and the article the
source article is based on does not make the claim that all federal laws or
affected, it seems to be one minor media outlet misreading a report in a
different minor media outlet, and not bothering actually reviewing the
readily-available official documents.) The bill at issue changes language in
_two specific_ federal laws, it does not do so for "all federal laws".

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pc2g4d
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?

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undersuit
Isn't it kinda offensive to lump every east Asian group together?

OK, maybe it's not offensive. Isn't it odd that US laws target Orientals? What
is an Oriental? Are sub-continental Indians oriental, are Australian
aboriginals, do we care about natives of eastern Russia?

