The person who told me I used it offensively didnt really explain why to me. I've avoided saying the word for years straight now. I still don't know how to say the word ethnic appropriately.
I can't help but think I might have said it with a colonial perspective
Btw, why is it perfectly fine here?
That article is translated from Chinese into not only English, but like 15 other languages, so I wouldn't take People's Daily's repeated use of the word as an endorsement from somebody with full understanding of the word "ethnic" including all racial connotations and baggage in American English. It is probable that the word they translated it from doesn't have the same baggage, especially because they list Han as one of the ethnic styles she draws from, and Han is the majority ethnic group of China.
I don't think the word ethnic is in itself problematic. The problem lies in otherizing non-white cultures by lumping them together as ethnic. I rarely hear the word ethnic used to describe French or English culture. Maybe German, although that's an interesting case considering German used to be an otherized, non-white race in the US.
The abstract of this paper describes it better than I can, but Whiteness is implicitly seen as normal, default, and idealized while Blackness is lumped together "over there". And white people benefit from this, but often are either unaware of it or don't want to be. Anyway, read that essay summary because it's really informative.
Bottom line is, if you mean a particular culture, just say that specifically rather than dropping it into the bucket that contains every culture that isn't white. Because generalizing such a diverse array of non-white cultures as "ethnic" and another diverse array of white-skinned cultures as "normal" is one of the ways white supremacy is propagated.
"Thus, Whiteness, White supremacy, and White privilege are three interlocking forces that disguise racism so it may allow White people to oppress and harm persons of color while maintaining their individual and collective advantage and innocence. If we are to overcome, or at least minimize the forces of racism, we must make Whiteness visible. As long as Whiteness remains invisible and is equated with normality and superiority, People of Color will continue to suffer from its oppressive qualities."
Okay so not using the word ethnic to say "nonwhite" is about tearing down the curtain on whiteness and its nature.
"The problem lies in otherizing non-white cultures by lumping them together as ethnic."
This makes complete sense. Thanks for getting it across to me.
"Whiteness is implicitly seen as normal, default, and idealized while Blackness is lumped together "over there"."
That's a sad yet kinda funny way to put it, the sinister nature of Whiteness is so dumb. So even though many white people feel they're not racist, many won't acknowledge how they take advantage of their whiteness and how its imposed on people of color. Sneakily, it's in lack of acknowledgement of privilege that Whiteness can thrive. It's in lack of acknowledgememt of the "othering." You won't look at the problems of "othering." Resulting in continuation of white-centric societies.
I was conscious of some of this, but didn't know how to put the pieces together into one picture.
It was years ago, so I don't really remember. I think it was something like "ethnic culture."
I mostly remember the person's reaction more than what I said.
oh. well there's your problem, all cultures are ethnic. that's what ethnicity is, its what you call a group of people that share a particular way of life. the word is generally used in reference to a specific culture or a set of specific cultures and practices related to them or when referring to the concept of ethnicity in the abstract. imo saying "ethnic culture" without being specific to a culture is generally taken as racializing the term because it presupposes some default non-ethnic culture that doesn't really exist.
I won't lie, that article did really love the word "ethnic". It's like they just copy-pasted or have a hatred of synonyms. But I've never been corrected on "ethnic grocery" when trying to imply a small shop is focused on specifically Polish, Vietnamese, or indian food.
To basically repeat others here, it really does just seem offensive if used in place of "non-white" or "foreign".
Based on comments, I guess since you're talking about one ethnicity's food at a time, it's fine.
I'd say if you're using to refer to a particular ethnicity that's fine. For example, if you're talking about people of the Han Chinese ethnicity who are citizens of Malaysia.
Where it becomes offensive is when people use it as a synonym for "not white."
But most culture is "not white."
Edit: I think my mind is latching on to the center of a venn diagram of things that are both "culture belonging to a people" and "culture not belonging to white people" because I've been hearing the colonial perspective far longer than I've asked this question. When it comes to the word, I'm not understanding very well how to seperate the two things without blending them together.
It's hard to let go of the thought that referring to nonwhiteness the point of the word. So ever since hearing that the way I used it implies that white is the default, I've been completely avoiding it like a slur.
Well, it depends. Using it like a publicly-accepted academic descriptor is fine, like Erika did
Now, if you use it like the word "exotic", it's a bit iffy, maybe orientalist-framed so to speak, and I think the People's Daily article you're using was prolly translated without this sensitivity in mind
Looking at all the times I've used the word "ethnic" on Hexbear, I have apparently only ever used the word in the following phrases:
- ethnic category
- ethnic group
- ethnic minority
- ethnic cleansing
- ethnic background
- ethnic null pointer error
- ethnic conflict
- ethnic enclave
So the semantic domain of "ethnic" is for me very strongly "of or relating to a group of people having common racial, national, religious or cultural origins" — I am however aware of the term being used with the sense of "characteristic of a foreign (non-western) or minority group's culture", and did once quote a YouTube video that used the term with that sense. I only learned this sense of "ethnic" much later than the first sense, and right away it struck me as a bit gross, so I can't really see myself using the term in this way.
A null pointer error is basically what happens when a computer program tries accessing information that does not exist, and ends up glitching out or crashing as a result. This happens because a pointer — which is a piece of information that basically just tells the computer where in memory it can find another piece of information — has been set to point to a nonexistent location in memory, known as "null", hence a "null pointer". Null pointers do actually have plenty of perfectly valid uses in computer programming — the problem happens when the computer for one reason or another ends up taking the null pointer saying "I am pointing to nowhere in particular" as meaning "hey let's go to this cool place called Nowhere in Particular, you'll totally find the information you're looking for there".
In context, I made up the term "ethnic null pointer error" to refer to the experience of being pushed to perform or identify with being American, as a member of the American diaspora. Because you can't really answer questions like "what's American cuisine?" or "what's American handicrafts?" or "what's the American national costume?" et cetera, right? If a bit of "American culture" wasn't stolen, or rooted in puritanical religious fundamentalism, or invented by a capitalist to sell plastic crap, it's probably already become too popular worldwide due to cultural imperialism to even stand out as an American thing. So as a member of the American diaspora, you don't really have much of anything that you could claim as "your culture", even when the circumstances are very much pushing you to look for something to claim.
Off the top of my head I would define "ethnic" as a "traditional thing done by a minority group" with a focus on the minority group as an other. A workaround is simply to avoid the word and use a word like "traditional" and/or the adjective form for minority group in question.
- "Cornrows are an ethnic hairstyle," is offensive.
- "Cornrows are a black hairstyle." I don't know if "traditional" is a good fit here because I don't know much about cornrows.
Btw, why is it perfectly fine here?
The first paragraph with my edit
Li Jie, a skilled embroiderer from southwest China's Yunnan Province, infuses intangible cultural heritage items such as traditional embroidery and silver ornaments with modern fashion elements, creating
ethniccostumes that captivate consumers and breathe new life into traditional clothing.My hunch is that the article was written in Mandarin and translated. And translations can have problematic words and phrases.
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Ninja edit
Why Do American Grocery Stores Still Have an Ethnic Aisle?
This international hodgepodge strikes many shoppers and food purveyors as antiquated. But doing away with it isn’t as easy as it might sound.
[...]
“I buy Finnish crackers. Why are they not in the ethnic aisle?” she said. “An Asian rice cracker would be in the ethnic aisle.”
I would define "ethnic" as a "traditional thing done by a minority group"
Not trying to jump on you here but I think associating ethnicity only with minorities is a Western/American brainworm that reinforces "whiteness" as the default, and to an extent "superior". I feel like it connects to viewing minorities as "exotic"/other-ing them. I know you're not saying it this way and if anybody else has thoughts about this I'd love to hear them.
Ethnicity is just a group or subgroup with distinct cultural features. Nothing to do with minorities or majorities aside from how being in either group influenced their particular customs. There are majority ethnic groups and minority ethnic groups
"Cornrows are an ethnic hairstyle," is offensive.
I think you chose a bad example for this - afaik cornrows are specifically an African American thing, which would make them an ethnic hairstyle - a hairstyle specific to people of African American ethnicity. I know that your point was using it as a replacement for black is offensive, but the specific example ended up making a sentence that has its own valid meaning.
