Why is "***" in the words Japan or Japanese censored? censored?

Wikipedia:

Today it is regarded as an ethnic slur, though English-speaking countries differ in the degree they consider the term offensive. In the United States, Japanese Americans have come to find the term controversial or offensive, even when used as an abbreviation.

Check the link for more info, but that excerpt pretty much covers it.

Note: Replace the *** in the link with the term you're looking for.

Darksylph - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I've never heard the term *** even refer to japanese people. Where i come from (New York, US) its a slang short for 'jewish american princess'. That is a term not necessarily applied to jewish people (even though its in the initials) but for any sort of princess rich-type self-centered bitchy female. Its definately an insult, but not really an ethnic or racial slur.

How old are you? You must be pretty young to not have heard the term applied to Japanese! I wanna say it gained it's popularity in WWII but I could be wrong, the use you're accustomed to for it is MUCH newer. I've heard both, but the short slang for Japanese it's way more prevalent. Also, the princess thing isn't just referring to rich snobby type, but specifically rich due to an inheritance and not from work. (yes, you can be snobby and still WORK ;p )

Yes, the first three letters are censored because after WWII it was considered racial slang by the Americans. My assumption is that this all started after the Japanese decided to air raid Pearl Harbor (which in turn caused the US to accompany WWII).

Vaelissa - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The thing is, it's not 1941 anymore, not many people think of it as an offensive term, even many Japanese. Considering the huge amount of anime fans that play, and how trendy it is to learn the Japanese language these days, I doubt many even think to use it as an offensive term.

There are far, far more offensive words that are not censored, the word "****" is a perfect example. That is a word which cannot be used in a good way, yet people trivialize the horrible act over WC and nobody does anything, I mean seriously PWI, what gives? The PW chat filter is horribly inconsistent.

It also would be nice if it could detect whether a set of letters is part of a larger word before filtering at least. So, you could still blank out " J a p", but not mess up "Japanese". The forums do it, why not in-game?

Yeah it's not 1941 anymore, but it's still racist to this day for an American to name a black person the N word (for lack of a better option). The racial slur for the Japanese still apply, but it's another race being involved.

I like how ghey is filtered, but **** isn't.

Basically, like any sort of word filter with current technology, it doesn't do that good a job. If anyone wants to get around it and *gasp* use a swear word, then can easily do so without being caught, and a large number of innocent words are picked up. The filter just is even worse than average in some areas, like not having a list of exceptions to the filter.

*** is a short form for Japanese because it's easier to say, and then it became derogatory because people started using it in a derogatory manner.
It's much the same with words like abo, for aborigine which was just a shortened form, even being used by aborigines and many other people with no derogatory connotations, but then as some people started using it in such a manner, then others became offended, and rampant political correctness did the next.

That word is still considered quite offensive, enough to earn protest when used in international talks, and enough for most modern dictionaries to list if as offensive or derogatory. There's a reason most Japanese region codes are jpn, ja, or even jp rather than that word.

It's varied rather highly based on region and time period. You won't see much recognition of it as offensive in Hong Kong or France, and a lot of north easterners in the United States probably won't encounter the phrase as often as you might in, say, California or Texas. Before WWII, it usually wasn't said offensive, and there have been more than a few places that have needed to have the name changed as time and trends passed.

After WWII... well, a lot of people took slogans aimed at a system of government and opponents in a war, and instead aimed those same slogans at fellow civilian individuals. It's not pretty.

why is *** censored but nip isn't? i thought nippon and nip were also derogatory?

Spic is actually a degratory term for people of hispanic ethicities, I believe.