
Ask HN: Is “open the kimono” a racist term? - Mandatum
We had a team meeting today, business as usual.<p>5 guys on the call, all white men.<p>Sales guy referred to one of our partners Indian team member and then says &quot;and his cousin Abdul&quot;, when referring to the new guy on their team. They&#x27;re not cousins, there were audible groans.<p>That was racist. It&#x27;s racism I see very often in Australia.<p>Then next he started talking about the client, and then he used the term &quot;open the kimono&quot;. Groans again. Now I&#x27;d only heard this term except from a Slack message I saw our CTO post a few years prior. I thought it was an odd choice of phrasing, but now after looking it up I learned it was used mostly in finance.<p>Is that racist?
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bloak
I don't know whether it's "racist"; the term "racist" is highly ambiguous. It
might also be "sexist". In any case the expression is nasty and should not be
used, in my opinion.

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eesmith
I first heard the phrase in the 1990s when I lived in Silicon Valley working
for a software company.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744...](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744/why-
corporate-executives-talk-about-opening-their-kimonos?t=1592387441488) gives a
rather comprehensive treatment. I'll provide only a cursory set of quotes:

It mentions a 1990s characterization "Basically a somewhat sexist synonym for
'open the books,'", another characterization as "kind of creepy" then goes on
to expand:

> The idea of a corporation wearing clothes is kind of creepy, because the
> idea that corporations are people is creepy — as is the idea that showing
> skin equates somehow with sharing information. ...

> Greenhouse calls it "somewhat sexist" — and there's probably a reason it's
> "open the kimono" and not "drop the trousers" — but a kimono is technically
> a unisex garment. That doesn't mean the phrase isn't read in a gendered way.

> ... So there is certainly a gendered dimension to the kimono in the West.
> But is "open the kimono" a racist phrase, exactly? Well, it can certainly
> lead to, shall we say, racist-adjacent behaviors like white guys dressing up
> in kimonos for their marketing presentations.

> ... "It does make sense that this ethnically charged bit of jargon could
> have emerged from fears in the U.S. about the rise of Japan's economy in the
> '80s," Vanderbilt's Barry says. He adds that in his view the phrase is "kind
> of racist, frankly, especially if it is borne of fear of Japanese economic
> dominance."

> That explanation may make sense, but like most discussion on the subject,
> it's basically conjecture.

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mytailorisrich
I didn't know the expression "open the kimono".

When I read this post I interpreted it in a sexual/sexist way (assumed to be
related to Geisha) which made it rather racist but the link provided by
TomMarius in another comment suggests that it is not so.

So I think the issue here is that it is too obscure and too specific to a
country in a way that people may interpret it as being sexist or racist.

Always best to stick to unambiguous expressions, or maybe don't use an
expression at all and say 'relax' when you mean 'relax'.

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TomMarius
[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/open-
kimono.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/open-kimono.asp)

Apparently it is considered at least a little racist. I don't know why, though
- is "loose your tie" (not sure if English has similar phrase; said to an
angry person) racist? Would "show your cards" be racist?

~~~
Mandatum
Not sure about lose your tie.

On show your cards, sounds like poker. There's no culture-tie to cards.

~~~
TomMarius
Card players are more than not white.

Other people than Japanese wear kimono, e.g. in martial arts, even these that
split off a hundred years ago - is that racist too, then?

~~~
eesmith
Racist usage is contextual. What's racist in one context is not racist in
another.

I might call my kids "little monkeys" if they act rowdy at home. But given the
long racist history of calling black people "monkeys", that same term might
not be interpreted the way I mean it should I refer to rowdy black kids that
way.

And I would be in the wrong, because it's wrong that I should have gotten to
be an adult without learning that aspect of American history. (I shouldn't get
away with that privilege, to use the modern term.)

So we have to look towards how the term came about, the racist and sexist
interpretations of both "kimono" and "geisha" in American culture, the origin
of the term in the era when Americans were worried about Japanese economic
dominance (why did the phrase come out of the US instead of Japan?), etc.

Along those lines, how did the term get to be "open the kimono" instead of
"drop trousers" or "go skinny-dipping"? And in real life, what secret is
opening the kimono supposed to reveal - the color of one's underwear? The
existence of one's genitalia?

Given how many times I've gone skinny dipping - including at clothing-optional
areas - and taken a sauna at public bathhouses, well, plenty have people have
seen me naked. I still have lots of secrets. So I don't even see how the
analogy is supposed to be relevant.

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linguae
I'm an American who travels to Japan frequently and once lived there for eight
months. I don't like the phrase and I feel uncomfortable whenever I hear it;
to me it evokes stereotypes and myths surrounding geisha.

