Post by George LuckiPost by m***@yahoo.ca"I think many of us (including you) have also shown the
term "Indian" used to refer to Native Americans is not necessarily a
racist term and is indeed used by many Native American groups to refer
to their many diverse clans, tribes and nations as a collective. It
also remains a useful shorthand when refering to a diverse group of
people."
It's always racist to impose an indentity on a group or groups.
Especially on groups which have pre-existing names for themselves.
Calling aboriginal peoples "Indians" just because it's easier for white
people is not reason to perpetuate a 500 year old mistake.
I 100% disagree that it is "racist" to impose an identity (name in a
foriegn language) for a group or groups. It is a common practice among
all peoples of the world, and has the sole purpose of creating a
grouping. This language in particular is designed to do that readily
i.e. Forest and Trees are a grouping words rather than Oak plant,
Hickory plant, Locust plant. But the designation Oak and plant are also
in their own right grouping words.
In reference to "American Indians" the archeologists and anthropologists
frequently use the term Amerind (of obvious derivation) to perclude the
confusion factor over "Indians fro the Americas" vs "Indians fro Asia".
And anyone born in either North America or South America is a "Native
American" regardless of their ancestry!
Post by George LuckiI'm not arguing with you about the problem with the problem inherent with
the word "Indian". It is a name coined by others and foreign to the people
it describes. That does not make it racist per se. If it does then I guess
that references to the Welsh or the Pennsylvania Dutch (or even the Dutch)
or calling non-Russian citizens of the former Soviet Union Russians would
also be such examples? The French call Germany - Allemagne should we be
asking what's up with that? Some of these references are based on faulty
knowledge or improper generalizations or simply long traditions of usage,
but not necessarily racism.
There is an interesting look at the names given to places (exonyms) by
others by Jacek Wesolowski from the University of Lodz, Poland at
http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/EUROPE/europe.html - Click on the
letter links to see the extent. I don't think that we can ascribe all of
this to racism. There is an advantage over the longer term to replacing to
the greatest extent possible exonyms with endonyms so that a place (or a
people) has one name (the local or indigenous one) but culturally I don't
see that happening quickly or easily.
In terms of your own knowledge of the First Nations of Canada - which name
would you suggest as the one appropriate one to describe the many nations -
the peoples of Turtle Island? something else? Aboriginal Peoples is of
course a western term as well and could as easily apply to the Irish under
British rule, etc. Was there a previously functioning name for this
collective of nations prior to the arrival of Europeans? If we look at
Aboriginal, First, Native we see all of these used - are these the best
terms? I'm back to the idea that only dialogue and respect are going to help
us answer such questions.
George Lucki
I 100% disagree that it is "racist" to impose an identity (name in a
foriegn language) for a group or groups. It is a common practice among
all peoples of the world, and has the sole purpose of creating a
grouping. This language in particular is designed to do that readily
i.e. Forest and Trees are a grouping words rather than Oak plant,
Hickory plant, Locust plant. But the designation Oak and plant are also
in their own right grouping words.
In reference to "American Indians" the archeologists and anthropologists
frequently use the term Amerind (of obvious derivation) to perclude the
confusion factor over "Indians from the Americas" vs "Indians from Asia".
And anyone born in either North America or South America is a "Native
American" regardless of their ancestry! The PC crowd will never get it!
There are many reasons for wanting to be able to deliniate differences
between groups of people. The terms only take on a derrogatory or
offensive connotation when an individual (or group) is trying to make
itself in some manner seem superior, or the individual or group that
finds it ojectionable is sensitized because of a long history of being
considered or made to feel inferrior. Neither the "superiority" nor
"inferiority" are real.
In one of Robert Heinlein's works he makes the statement "I met a
little lizard that claimed to be a Brontosaurus on his mother's side."
Which always meant to me that while interest in and knowing one's
genealogy is good for a sense of history, family continuity, and the
begining of a sense of self worth, it is what we do ourselves that the
rest of the world measures us.
Regards,
Roger