Talk:Viet Cong/Archive 1

I would recommend you research the word before you revert. It is a racist phrase, adopted mainly by the American's and Europeans.

The entry clearly states that the phrase was used by the South Vietnamese to describe their political opponents (who were, like them, Vietnamese). Unless you are now going to suggest that there was some kind of relevant racial divide, it thus cannot possibly be a "racist tern". I'm going to remove it again in a moment, and will continue to remove it unless and until there is some reasonable evidence that this usage was indeed racist.

If it were written that the phrase as used by foregners was racist, that would be a different matter. Even this, though, is fraught with difficulty, as we would then have to explain how it is that an American soldier saying "Viet Cong" is being racist, but a South Vietnamese soldier using the same words is not.

I have not the slightest doubt that the entire American & Allied involvement in Indochina was racist in its nature (nor would any other serious historian), but the term "racist" in this particular context makes no sense. Tannin

The Viet Minh soldiers who were trained and armed in the North started a Guerrilla war against the national government of the south. The Americans gave the guerrillas a new name, "Viet Cong." This was a derogatory/racist (perhaps moreso as it (and the war) evolved) and slang term meaning Vietnamese Communist.

Be sure to check the Racial Slur database http://www.rsdb.org/rsdb.csv or http://gyral.blackshell.com/names.html -- search for Viet Cong. For what it is worth (although I wish I could find my source) I have heard it being compared to Westerners use of the word "nigger." In the end, I suppose it depends on how you define racism. BTW, I know nothing of SV calling their own people VC, however, it is well documented that the American's and Europeans used it frequently.

205.162.222.223 06:49, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The term "Viet Cong" lacked racist intent, except as one may view any term used to describe someone in another country as racist. By that light, a French person described someone as anglaise is racist, because that person would describe himself as English, while the generally derogatory term "Russkie" to describe someone from Russia is not ethnocentric, because it is a better transliteration of the Cyrllic than "Russian."

The term "Viet Cong" was used descriptively to designate NLF fighters, as opposed to the ethnically identical Army of North Vietnam, who were called by the acronymn "PAVN." There were racist phrases for Vietnamese, notable "Gook" and "Slope".

BTW, virtually every war is racist, even between combatants who would others would consider ethnically similar.

This article should be moved to NLF. Viet Cong is NOT the name of the movement. // Wellp

Gah, the entire article is about the use of the term "Viet Cong" rather than the movement itself. Bad news overall, I think. I'd support having this article at Viet Cong and discussing the use of that term, and then having a separate article on the NLF as such. john 03:32, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Even at Viet Cong, though, it was supposed to be an article about the movement. Either way, the article needs significant work. 172 03:36, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes. It would appear that most of the effort put into the article revolved around making sure that the use of the term "Viet Cong" was NPOV, rather than making sure that it was an informative article about the NLF. You do know that RickK listed your move of the article in Wikipedia:Requests for review of admin actions, though, don't you? john 03:45, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, and he put it one requests for review of admin actions as well. Maybe he's constipated or something. 172 04:03, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it is unprofessional to use colloquial terms for things that have proper names. I also think that if there is a question of offensiveness, which there clearly is here, it's better to err on the side of calling a group what they prefer to be called - c.f. the policy on the words "gay" and "homosexual". However Viet Cong should be an article on that term - not a redirect to this article. Snowspinner 19:34, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to note that, as this is still under fairly hot debate, it was probably poor form to move the article without at least a note on the talk pages as to what's going on. Is Viet Cong to be a separate article from NLF? Or what? Snowspinner 23:38, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest that this article is, very largely, a discussion of the usage of the term "Viet Cong". I think we need to split it up, with that part in an article called Viet Cong, and the stuff on NLF on an article with the official name (and it's not as though "NLF" is some sort of obscure name - it was and is very commonly used). And yes, very poor form VV. john 23:46, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me? I was moving it back. I don't know whether Snowspinner is referring to the move by 172 or the undoing move in his comment. But, this has been discussed before. Lots. - V V 23:57, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting the article like that isn't totally unreasonable, but it's a major change we should discuss first. Redirecting VC to NLF, however, is far more troublesome. - V V 23:59, 18 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I was mostly noting that I (and some other people) seem to agree that an article on the group should be at NLF, and not here. And that the debate was pretty active right now, and that the move could probably wait until it settled down to consensus. But whatev, largely. Snowspinner 00:04, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam because "Viet Cong" is more informal word, like the term "VC." However, I suggest we take a vote on the issue--Comrade Nick 02:29, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]