Subject:
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Re: *Native* (was "Re: Future Wild West Possibilities")
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 22 Mar 2000 08:39:31 GMT
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Viewed:
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230 times
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Hi,
ravi wrote:
> In lugnet.starwars, Franklin W. Cain writes:
> > Notice "Follow-Up"...
> >
> > In lugnet.western, Jonathan Little writes:
> > >
> > > ... The whole cowboys and Indians
> > > (or Native AMERICANS) ...
> >
> > [screech!...]
> >
> > [CRASH!!!]
> >
> > You just hit one of my major pet peeves.
> >
> >
> >
> > *I* am a native American citizen.
**Note the small "n"--more on that later.
> > I am *NOT*, however, of the American Indian ethnicity!!!
> >
> > I was _born_ here in the US of A.
> >
> > _ANYONE_ who was _BORN_ within the territorial limits of the country
> > of their citizenship is a _NATIVE_ of that country!
> >
> > As a counter-example:
> > My mom is a _naturalized_ American;
> > she was born in _Cuba_,
> > and later _emigrated_ here.
> >
> > In case you couldn't tell, I loathe and despise
> > political correctness.
> >
> > I consider political correctness to be a form of
> > intellectual dishonesty.
> >
> > It was not my intention to cause anger or embarassment,
> > only to help contribute to the education of the populace
> > at large.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Franklin
>
> Ditto-i feel that columbus' error that america was india should not be
> pripagated.I'm indian (as in originally from the indian subcontinent) Give the
> early inhabitants of the americas (Hmmm EIOAs) some credit and their own less
> confusing identities
Yeah, but even American Indian is a name not given by the people themselves. Why
not simply call Ojibwe Ojibwe, Oneida Oneida, and Cherokee Cherokee? Sure, it
blows all of our (note that loaded "our") pat little racial categories away, but
at least it's fair. I don't think the Lakota and the Cree would *ever* want to be
put in the same category anyways.
I see Franklin's point about native-ness, but the load of the word 'native'
changes when we start talking with a capital N (at the start of a sentence doesn't
count) versus a small N. Were the term 'native Americans,' I could second your
point. Other racialized terms for this group are also fraught with
problems--aboriginal and indigenous are probably the best alternatives, because
"early Americans" implies that pernicious Social Darwinist construct, development
theory; however, only Native Americans as a term offers any sense of inclusion in
the nation. Heck, even the term Americans is suspect, because Canadians,
Mexicans, and a half billion other people on two continents are Americans too,
technically (which is one of *my* big pet peeves, the cultural arrogance required
to appropriate such a term to oneself). In Spanish, however, you can call someone
a "United Statesian" (a translation of course), and people apparently do. At
least the group we lump together under the banner of Native American Indians
(that's a 1960s-1970s construct--anyone remember that one? It's where "Native
Americans" as a favored term originates) actually spans the length of the two
continents.[1]
In any case, I don't consider "Native American" to be PC any more than I consider
"African American" to be PC. Nobody ever claims to be Politically Correct unless
being snide or sarcastic--we only use the term in the pejorative sense, and lump
it together like it's some sort of coherent movement when it's not. Most of the
time, we add terms we wish to discredit for some other reason to the PC
manifold[2], and eventually people come to believe that it really is Orwellian
doublespeak. In the case of describing a group of people, how could calling
someone what they wish to be called, rather than what a broke, lost sailor and his
mutinous crew 508 years ago called them, a manifestation of PC's evil?
best
Lindsay
[1]Ack, stop me before I parenthesis again!
[2] This has nothing to do with starship engines, settle down. I don't think
anything with a PC manifold could make more than 25kph in free-fall. Sort of like
a Yugo with wings.
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