The government is only now removing 'negro' and 'oriental' from law texts

House of Representatives votes unanimously to remove offensive names from legal documents.
(Image credit: iStock)

On Monday a bill to excise outdated racial language from federal law passed the House of Representatives by unanimous vote.

Sponsored by Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), the bill will remove all mentions of words like "negro" and "oriental" (when applied to a person) and replace them with updated terms, including "Asian-American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African-American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native."

"The word 'Oriental' is an offensive and derogatory term that should no longer be used by the federal government," Meng explained. "Nobody in our country, regardless of ethnicity, should be referred to in an insulting manner by the government."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.