{"id":31008,"date":"2014-01-30T11:04:26","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T10:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=31008"},"modified":"2019-10-07T13:41:57","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T12:41:57","slug":"readers-editor-is-the-term-chinese-wall-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/01\/30\/readers-editor-is-the-term-chinese-wall-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"Readers&#8217; editor: Is the term &#8220;Chinese wall&#8221; racist?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At <em>The BMJ<\/em> we often talk about the &#8220;Chinese wall,&#8221; a clear demarcation between the advertising sales and editorial teams. This <a title=\"Ad policy bmj group\" href=\"http:\/\/group.bmj.com\/group\/advertising\/policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">safeguard<\/a> helps to avoid conflicts of interest, and means advertisers have no prior knowledge of an article that may mention their product, either positively or negatively. But is the term racist?<!--more-->We pondered this question at our last management team meeting. The conversation was triggered in part by a similar exchange, this time via email, about the term \u201cbalkanization.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">Let\u2019s start with Chinese walls, and our concern that its use, particularly at events where we are describing the aforementioned policy, might cause offence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">In 1988 a <a title=\"Chinese wall \" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chinese_wall#Objection_to_use_of_the_phrase\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Californian judge<\/a>\u00a0objected to the phrase on the grounds that it &#8220;has an ethnic focus which many would consider a subtle form of linguistic discrimination.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">He added: &#8220;Certainly, the continued use of the term would be insensitive to the ethnic identity of the many persons of Chinese descent. Modern courts should not perpetuate the biases which creep into language from outmoded, and more primitive, ways of thought.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">Legal ethicist <a title=\"David Hricik\" href=\"http:\/\/www.law.mercer.edu\/facultystaff\/bios\/david-hricik\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Hricik<\/a>, a professor at Mercer University Law School, Georgia.\u00a0disagrees. He posted his point view on a <a title=\"Legal ethics forum\" href=\"http:\/\/legalethicsforum.typepad.com\/blog\/2005\/06\/chinese_walls_r.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">legal ethics forum<\/a>, and online debate it triggered concluded with the recommendation that\u00a0the term &#8220;ethical wall&#8221; or &#8220;ethical screen&#8221; be used instead.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">Personally I struggle to see how the term could be racist. Most of the lawyers who took part in the legal forum debate agreed. They also discussed whether or not the term itself refers to China\u2019s impenetrable Great Wall, or to flimsy decorative room dividers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">For the record, the actual wall separating <em>The BMJ\u2019s<\/em> editors and sales colleagues is in fact a floor. We share a cramped second floor office with BMJ specialty journals and marketing teams. The sales team have an airy refurbished office downstairs. Not that we\u2019re jealous, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em\">This leads me to the term balkanization, which is used, according to its <a title=\"balkanization\" href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/balkanized\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dictionary definition<\/a>, &#8220;to describe the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or non-cooperative with one another.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The subeditor copied into the email exchange about its potentially pejorative use said it would be clearer and more in line with BMJ style to use other, simpler terms where possible. Interestingly, it had merely been mentioned in a team discussion about an article. The term itself was not in the article.<\/p>\n<p>The colleague who said it rather neatly closed down the email exchange with these words: &#8220;This term isn&#8217;t racist : it refers to a political situation where big countries are divided into &#8216;small quarrelsome states&#8217; (says the dictionary) &#8211; quite an apt phrase for our editorial team now I think of it!&#8217; &#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>David Payne<\/strong> is editor, bmj.com, and readers&#8217; editor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At The BMJ we often talk about the &#8220;Chinese wall,&#8221; a clear demarcation between the advertising sales and editorial teams. This safeguard helps to avoid conflicts of interest, and means [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/01\/30\/readers-editor-is-the-term-chinese-wall-racist\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5738],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-readers-editor"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Readers&#039; editor: Is the term &quot;Chinese wall&quot; racist? - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/01\/30\/readers-editor-is-the-term-chinese-wall-racist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Readers&#039; editor: Is the term &quot;Chinese wall&quot; racist? - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At The BMJ we often talk about the &#8220;Chinese wall,&#8221; a clear demarcation between the advertising sales and editorial teams. 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