Reasonable or not?

[cali]

Asian-American activists offended that MARTA re-named the train line into the heart of Atlanta's Asian community the "yellow line" will take their objections to the transit agency's chief on



MARTA officials were warned by an employee before the name change last October that Atlanta’s burgeoning Asian community would find the term for the line to Doraville offensive.

“Historically, it has had a derogatory intent,” said John Park, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Pan Asian Community Services in Doraville, just down the hill from the Marta station. “It physically paints a very unattractive picture. I don’t consider myself ‘yellow.’”

Park and other Asian activists plan to meet Friday with MARTA CEO Beverly Scott. They hope MARTA will change the line’s name from yellow to gold.

Scott said Monday that she will go into the meeting with an open mind. "There are very few things in this life that are absolute," she said.

While Scott did not "in any way want to minimize" the concerns, she said that one MARTA employee's complaint was not indicative of everybody's feelings. She added that by the time it was raised, MARTA was ending a year-long process to implement the change. "Everything was printed, we were ready to go," she said.

MARTA launched the color-coded lines Oct. 1 to help passengers navigate the system more easily. Transit officials noted that other systems, including Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, use similar color codes. MARTA designates its lines red, green, blue and yellow.

snip

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/marta-yellow-line-to-294162.html

[babylonsister]

1. For crying out loud, really??? nt

[thunder rising]

2. A transit authority has a CEO? However, there appears to be more than one complaining.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pampango]

4. Interesting to see how this poll turns out. Asian-American claims of bias or insensitivity

don't seem to generally get the same level of credibility as do those of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans or women or gays, for that matter. Asians' history in the US is fraught with discrimination and exploitation, but their relative economic success nowadays (and perhaps some antipathy for recent economic progress in Asia, though most Asian-Americans have been here for generations) may make it more difficult to grant them the same level of sensitivity with respect to their perceptions of bias. (The ol' "to what extent does the majority decide what is offensive to a minority or does the minority themselves get to decide?")

Wonder what the reaction to the "black line" into African-American neighborhoods, the "brown line" into Hispanic-American neighborhoods or the "rainbow line" into Atlanta's gay neighborhood would be? Perhaps it there would not be the same reaction since "Black", "Brown" and "Rainbow" are not generally considered offensive terms with reference to groups of people.

[WeDidIt]

5. That's ridiculous

Chicago has a "Brown Line", is that a problem? There's also a "Yellow Line" here, too.

[Odin2005]

6. Now that's fucking stupid.

It's the label for a train route, anyone who thinks it's aimed at some group is paranoid.

[ismnotwasm]

7. Wow

It's insensitive bullshit, and I suspect someone(s) is successfully trying to be an asshole.

This kind of stuff reminds me of the scene in "Clerks 2" where the white character passionately tries to defend the term "porch monkey".

[TexasObserver]

8. Given the use of "yellow" as a negative pejorative toward Asians ...

... their opposition should have been expected, and such opposition is reasonable.

Pick a different color.

"MARTA officials were warned by an employee before the name change last October that Atlanta’s burgeoning Asian community would find the term for the line to Doraville offensive."

[-wulf-]

9. It's a joke.

Doraville is not locally known as Asian-town. Afterall, only 12% of the population is "Asian."

In fact, the African American community is larger than the Asian community, and Hispanics and Whites both have more than double the Asian population.


Yes, there is like a two block area in the whole city where most of the signs are in other languages, but it is hardly a large scale Asian community.