https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/150925/25124
Do Japanese-Americans not want people to talk about what happened to them during WW2? If that is the case, I want a source.
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3I upvote this question. Being an Asian American (I am Asian, US citizen), I don't feel it offensive. However, I am not Japanese. I don't know the exact feelings they have. If you are a Japanese American, please express your feelings toward the subject answer.– NobodyCommented Jun 24, 2020 at 11:27
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5@scaaahu It's not about being offensive towards Japanese Americans but towards other minorities and is incredibly ignorant in that regard.– Bryan Krause ModCommented Jun 24, 2020 at 15:40
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I removed most of the comments, not because I want to suppress the discussion, but it was drifting towards personal attacks from all sides. Please do not make any assumptions about each other’s experiences, expertise on the subject, or similar.– Wrzlprmft ModCommented Jun 25, 2020 at 7:49
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Perhaps theose very Japanese-Americans do not want to be the source...– Solar MikeCommented Jul 16, 2020 at 7:53
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3 Answers
A comment left on this answer stated:
This seems to be more of a snarky comment than a good-faith answer.
I agree with this: This is not an honest attempt to answer the question, but instead it suggests playing a rude practical joke on the students in question. This suggestion is based on taking the request in question overly literal by replacing one group with another, which mocks the request and is rude to both groups involved. Moreover, suggesting such a blatantly bad action is rude in itself, in particular since the asker expressed a clear desire for finding a non-risky solution.
More explicitly, what happened is this:
- Group A¹ is currently experiencing a huge distress.
- As a result, a professor was requested to make an exam of “questions that relate to life experiences of marginalized minorities”.
- The question asks how a professor can tactfully decline such a request.
- Your answer suggest to make an exam about the experiences of Group B, which would comply with the literal request (since Group B also is a marginalised minority), but is obviously not what the request aimed for.
- Taking some serious request overly literal is a rude, practical joke and light years away from a tactful reaction. Doing this when dealing with an extremely painful topic is even worse.
The last point is independent of who Group A and B exactly are, what exactly their experiences are, and how these experiences compare to each other, in particular this is not about which group had it worse. It also does not matter whether the request in question is valid or not.
¹ Mind that I am using placeholders here because the exact identities of the groups do not matter for the point I am making here.
answered Jun 23, 2020 at 19:40
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2Rude practical joke? The answer has a strong argument for it, Japanese-Americans suffered horrendously during WW2. "Offensive" can't be an acceptable reason to delete something since it is a completely subjective feeling. Some Canadian-American might be offended by the answer because it didn't mention that minority, but would you take such a remark seriously?– d-bCommented Jun 23, 2020 at 20:11
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1@MassimoOrtolano No one in this thread is able to make an argument for their opinion which is a pretty strong indication that it is wrong.– d-bCommented Jun 24, 2020 at 8:07
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7@d-b: Just because you disagree with the arguments or even if they should be completely wrong doesn’t mean they do not exist. Quoting an excerpt from my answer and putting a question mark behind it is not a counter-argument which you can expect to solicit a reasonable response. Nobody disagreed with your assessment of Japanese American history. Finally, offensive can indeed be an acceptable reason to delete something as you should know. If you want to fight that battle, this is not the right place to do it.– Wrzlprmft ModCommented Jun 24, 2020 at 8:16
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Your addition in particular this is not about which group had it suggests to me that the subject answer is an NAA.– NobodyCommented Jun 25, 2020 at 7:58
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@scaaahu: I have the feeling you misunderstand me, but I don’t know how to clarify: When I say that “this is not about which group had it worse”, this refers to my assessment on why the answer in question is rude. I concur that the answer in question is NAA (since it does not address the question of how to tactfully decline), but the primary problem is that it is rude (which is also what this meta question is about), partially because of making an excessively bad suggestion.– Wrzlprmft ModCommented Jun 25, 2020 at 8:06
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1This is a very poorly reasoned explanation. I don't see how you can infer all this from an answer that has almost no content. Commented Jun 25, 2020 at 10:42
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@AnonymousPhysicist: I am only drawing two things from the answer itself: 1) What is being suggested (which would horribly backfire while complying with the letter of the request). 2) Taking the request overly literal was the intention of the author. — I don’t think we disagree about Point 1. Point 2 is by it’s nature a judgement call and I can see that from the post alone, one might be inclined to assume negligence instead of intention. However, previous and subsequent comments (most of which are now deleted) do not support that assumption.– Wrzlprmft ModCommented Jun 25, 2020 at 17:04
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Neither of those points are supported by the content of the answer. The "suggestion" does not include enough information to determine what implementation would look like, and therefore does not tell us if it would "backfire" or not. There is also no evidence you are wrong. I did not see the deleted comments, but it's the answer you have labeled offensive. Commented Jun 25, 2020 at 22:49
I think the answer deserved to be deleted because it didn't make much sense, and could be considered spam.
It's completely possible that it was a well-intentioned post. It's also possible it's based on nasty obnoxious intentions. There just is not enough information to tell, since "look how that turned out" is vague.
The answer is also misinformed. Concentration camps still exist and people are sent to them now.
Wrzlprmft said "Taking some serious request overly literal is a rude" but I see no way to connect this argument to the answer in question.
answered Jun 25, 2020 at 10:37
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I think your answer was removed for the wrong reason. I agree that it requires quite a stretch to claim it's offensive, but - it's true that "this seems to be more of a ... comment than a ... answer".
Also, what @AnonymousPhysicist said.
