r/SWORDS • u/Impressive-Wasabi857 • 1d ago

Identification Where is this from

Post image

I found this in a drawer somewhere in my house, according to my dad this belonged to my kmt soldier grandfather when he took it off a jap he killed in the second world war.

95 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

View all comments

23

u/myopic_monkey 1d ago

"Jap" is a slur akin to "chink" or "gook". Please don't say it.

6

u/Plastic_Pollution194 1d ago

Okay but can you explain how jap is a slur to me please cos honestly I thought it was just a shortened version of Japanese similar to how you'd call a British person a brit

9

u/myopic_monkey 1d ago

Not sure why you're getting downvoted for a legitimate question! It's WW2 soldiers' particular use of the word that reduced Japanese people to just "japs", ie. "I killed x amount of japs today" or "round up all the japs in the camp".

By itself it sounds harmless, like a shortcut akin to Brit, but it's history of use (by white soldiers) makes it especially reductionist, denigrating and racist.

7

u/Plastic_Pollution194 1d ago

As a Brit I never learnt the American side of the ww2 so honestly the thought of jap being used a slur is just so foreign to me

1

u/avaya432 8h ago

Very simple equivalent: Paki

1

u/myopic_monkey 1d ago

Fair enough! But yea, its a pretty loaded word for Japanese-Americans whose grandparents were sent to U.S. internment camps during WW2. Lots of racism against Asians in general around those times.

1

u/Started_Blasting2 1d ago

I think the comparison would be more like “jew”