The new, politically correct term for Indians/Native Americans
Reader Tara e-mails: “My daughter’s preschool teacher calls Indians/Native Americans ‘1st Americans.’ I guess that’s the NEW PC term. I just hope I’m not calling my kids ‘Last Americans!’”
On a related note, reader Becky e-mails:
Michelle,
Let me first say that I am married to a full Sioux, making my daughter half Sioux, and she does take after him (native genes beat Scot/Welsh/Irish imports anytime). In her pre-school and kindergarten, she was an Indian. Well, they called them Native Americans, but you get the point. Both my husband and I attended the Thanksgiving pageant for the two years of pre-school and the kindergarten play. At no time were we ever offended that our daughter was an Indian, Native American, whatever. In fact, we joked about it being typecasting! She had fun with it, played it up. Everyone loved it. No one asked if we were offended or anything. No one asked us ahead if we minded, either, and they all knew her heritage.
Neither of us has ever been the type to object to the Indian mascots for sports teams or anything else. The only time I have ever had a problem with his heritage is when a former employer denied me a promotion because I was a “dirty squaw who married a dirty Indian”. I quit as soon as I heard the comment, filed a grievance and put the small-minded people out of business, at least in that state (they only had 6 employees).
It’s called history people. Get a life!
***
Yesterday: Thanksgiving Derangement Syndrome
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Thank You mattymatt10 and the very same to you!
1st Americans, my A$$!
The first “americans” came over on the land bridge between what is now Russia and Alaska thousands of years ago. They moved in, settled down, and figured they had it pretty good.
Until, the SECOND group of “first americans” crossed the land bridge and “displaced” the current residents. Well, the didn’t displace them; they killed them, tortured them, enslaved them, but really didn’t displace them. That second group is what we now call “native americans.” But they’re not. They moved in on the first residents. (So I guess that land bridge was the first bridge to nowhere!)
Then in the early 1600s, what the second group of immigrants did to the first group of immigrants, the europeans did to the second group. Now they complain about it. Pot, meet kettle.
I sympathize, Hangfire. My family is Irish. And don’t forget that the Vikings went west to the Americas, east to the Ural mountains and south to Arabia. They were everywhere. Russia is so named because “rus” means northern; that is, the people from the north - the Vikings. Yes, the Indians got lucky that the planet eventually cooled down from the medieval warm period and stopped the Vikings from spreading even further.
I’m Irish,
and no, I don’t have any drunk brothers at home.
Not to threadjack, every time I see a story like
this it makes me think about how different things were 8 years ago. And now they’re all back.
Well, I’m from the Deep South, specifically rural Georgia. So, you see, I’m a victim, too.
For years, I never understood why people would say a tie is like kissing your sister.
Ties aren’t magical and warm.
I always thought it was funny how the British do this - Indians from India are “Brown Indians” and Indians from America are “Red Indians”. The PC crowd would throw a fit!
Well, I’m mostly Irish, and a retired submariner. So I can’t get miffed when someone “spends money like a drunken sailor.”
Wow, looks like southern california did not get the memo. Usually, they are the ones who write them….
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20081126-9999-1n26fixings.html
History shows the Sioux Nation to be similar to European-Americans. Like our ancestors, they were empire builders and won through battle much of the northern plains and Canada’s southern prairie provinces. They took the sacred Black Hills from another tribe and made it their own. The Sioux Nation produced some of the world’s best cavelry.
Incapaducah who helped start the final Indian war with the Spirit Lake Massacre in northwest Iowa became the Osama bin Ladin of his day. Incapducah’s casualty figures in northwest Iowa and southern Iowa were greater than the 9/11 attacks relative to the population. He was one of the government’s most wanted men. He helped defeat Custer and died with his boots on in Southern Canada.
The last war lasted about fifty years. Indians have a long, “heroic history. They did not go quietly into that good night.”
Four Lakota Sioux have through their music group, Brule are trying to reconcile the two peoples through a combination of traditional Indian and popular music.
Since Europeans were arriving and already here when this land took on the name “America”, wouldn’t they be called “1st Americans”, too. Therefore, to separate the two, wouldn’t the Indians need to be called “Pre 1st Americans”?
Wouldn’t that make them “Sooners?”
I mistyped. I should have written Southern Minnesota. The Indian chief had reasons to be angry with whites. A horse thief killed his brother and fled to California. The prosecutor did try to find the killer, but he also put Inkapaduka’s brothers’ head on a stake outside of his house.
Nevermind, the article I posted is cute, but then I read the comments section. Cali to ban Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Make sure to read The Peoples History of Thanksgiving, its a real eye opener….GAG!!
The Lakota Sioux were some of the most brutal and sadistic indians on the continent. When the white europeans kicked their a$$es, the other tribes that lived in fear of the Sioux were very thankful to be rid of the Sioux.
Unfortunately, that little tidbit doesn’t get taught in school alongside the “Columbus was that evil white male” cr@p.
I always find it worth a chuckle that the people who founded the Native Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement were white professors from the University of Hawaii back in the late ’60s. And many of the Native Hawaiians now active in the movement, which does not recognize the U.S. Government or the State government, are actually government employees.
So…what’s wrong with the word “Indian”?
Nothing.
As a full blood Choctaw, I have never liked even the hyphenated Native American label. I reject this plea by the Left to become something less than the full.
Call me Choctaw, or an Indian, please.
The politically correctiveness of the Left is now in full swing, and we all Americans need to beware of the siren songs it lulls.
While it beguiles, it divides us up into smaller, more easily divided, more easily conquered subgroups.
I am an American. Period. and Choctaw.
**sigh** I STILL wish that Stanford University hadn’t changed from the Stanford Indians to the Stanford Cardinal.
My collie says:
Blutarsky would have been proud.
So what is a matizo, First and Third? There ARE a lot of Latin Americans in professional Baseball
Somebody has to put this on a chart–it is getting so confusing.
By both language and DNA studies we know the First American/Native American/Indian, whatever, are far less homogeneous than Europeans. I know lots of Pima, Maricopa, Apache, Ak Chin, Tohono O’Odham (Papago} and Hopi.Very few of them will refer to themselves as First American/Native American/Indian, whatever, but as Pima, Maricopa, Apache, Ak Chin, Tohono O’Odham (Papago} and Hopi. I can not say for sure but I am not aware they need to consult with a preschool teacher to hold those views.
I guess if you can not get a real job you can always be a teacher. But Happy Thanksgiving to all, except for the trolls of course.
At around the same time the Vikings were exploring North America, they were serving as the Varangian Guards for the Byzantine emporer in Constantinople, fighting the Arabs in Sicily and Syria.
Probabably a good thing that Christianity and a mini ice age caused them to settle down. Ironically, the Viking descendents are probably some of the most peace loving people in the world today.
Maybe the Native Americans should have built a fence and forced the European settlers to assimilate into their society.
Nice to meet you - don’t meet a lot of 100% Indians these days.
Do you “teach” at a college somewhere, or are you just an idiot?
Here is a list of ’stereotypes’ that offend me:
1. Blacks with afros
2. Martial arts movies with Asians
3. Speedy Gonzales, and his cousin, Slow Poke Rodriguez
4. Mexicans who are Mexican
5. Canadians who say ‘hoose’, not ‘house’
All of these are stoopid; as stoopid as TDS.
Hangfire:
LOL!
Inasmuch as “America” is a European term for this continent, the local natives can’t claim it for themselves. As stated here, they had their own terms and those are fine. What’s wrong with Choktaw, Cherokee, Nez Perce, etc.?
As for “First Americans,” I reserve that phrase to the Continental Army, the militia, and the families that supported them. Those were the first Americans.
Well, the left just has to find things to hate. If we do away with Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, I’m sure they will find another situation and make it offensive. I guess “whitey” needs to atone for everything, even if it is NOT their fault. This is just another attack on free speech and creative expression. My one sliver of sioux wants the libs to get off my land!
To quote Peter Griffin: Holy cr@p!
If the left gets rid of all of our holidays then what will they to replace them? Well we have to honor all Muslim ones? We probably would have to honor Lenin, Brezhnev, and Mao’s birthday instead. On a further note as I live on the Yakama Reservation several Yakama’s have told me of late that they are glad that Europe conquered North America instead of other empires like the Muslims, China or other more brutal empires. That is why the Yakamas have a huge representation in the Armed Forces to make sure none of these powers take over of this great land.
I hate political correctness. Does all this mean no more playing Cowboys and Indians with my wife where I’m captured and she ties me up and… ooops! Never mind.
It just goes to show you that indians had liberals back then.
jsr
COLD SHOWER TIME PLEASE.
My kid told me to sit on the ground ‘criss-cross applesauce’. Long story short, that’s what teachers are calling ’sitting Indian style’ these days.
Well, all I can say tomorrow is thank Gaia as I carve the tofurkey…
I don’t see why you have to demean efforts to ensure 1st Americans/Native Americans/Indian Americans are comfortable with what everyone else is calling them.
More accurate than “First American” would be “Pre-American”, as the so-called New World wasn’t “America” until that infamous map that named the continent after the cartographer. Yes, I am supporting RobM1981’s statement in #126.
However, a simple “American” for all citizens of our fair Country seems best to me. Then heritage can be a separate subject, fulled with history and pride.
Perhaps we should research the historical origin of Wall Street on Manhatten Island (yes, that Wall Street)
Pick a name, any name, and call me it……..
OH!!!!! Good one! That hurt.
OK, Im over it now……. now call me another one…..! (Just fyi, there’s no name that anyone in the world can call me that my ex hasnt called me first. lol)
I don’t see why people like you and the idiots mentioned above don’t understand that all the whining like babies about every little imagined slight is demeaning to us all.
Familyman wrote:(#50)
I’m not that well-educated, but the only group that I can think of, maybe, answering your question are (is?) the ethnic Hawaiians as there weren’t any people (that I recall) when they settled the Hawaiian Islands. AlohaGuy, how wrong am I?
————–
Omu, (#134)I think we have established here that Indian is considered by many not to be that bad, although the actual tribe/group is preferred. I have heard of this in other cases, for example, the Seminoles in Florida that have enthusiastically supported at least one school that had a Seminole as its mascot/symbol as a) it was a teaching opportunity and b) the school was not making fun of the tribe.
(As an aside, if I had gone to that school, I would have been pretty pleased that I had the real people with whom the school was associated around.)
I think it is more insulting to come up with all these strange terms and remove team nicknames/mascots in case someone else might be offended. I firmly believe that I would hold this view even if I had significantly more than under 1% Indian (probably Wampanoag) blood (based on family lore).
I’m a “Native American” too! I was born here.
OMU: I am offended by that.
Even if it doesn’t mean what they think it does, eh, Omo?
Oops, sorry, finger error! Too much wine.
OMU
How dare you think that I should control my speech patterns? Don’t you believe in the diversity and creativity of the English language? Don’t you believe in the uniqueness of my perspective? DON’T YOU BELIEVE IN FREE SPEACH?
Actually, Michelle, there are areas in Canada where the Native American population is more active in race baiting than the African American community here.
In Canada they call them ‘First Nation’. It is a movement. If you don’t do what they say, they will boycott and threaten and shut you down. We don’t hear about it much in America. But if you travel up in the sticks in British Columbia and listen to political talk shows, the ‘First Nation’ is a very powerful political organization. . .and they are all the Native Americans demanding special rights based on their race.
On November 26th, 2008 at 9:28 pm, thebronze said:
Even Obama’s “Fight the Smears” site says
But note that he says a “native” citizen and not a “Natural born” citizen…
opps!
DON’T YOU BELIEVE IN FREE
SPEACH?SPEECH?Not only is “1st Americans” more PC stupidity, it’s also wildly inaccurate.
Back in 1996 Kennewick Man taught us that “Native Americans” quite possibly “stole” their land from someone else and those who acutally study “First Americans” aren’t at all sure who was here first.
All we really know about pre-Columbian North America is who had managed managed to conquer and exterminate or incorporate the other races who had lived here, and that would be the Indians.
And people who don’t think that quite a few Indians weren’t already busy raping, torturing, conquering and enslaving each other when White Man showed up doesn’t know their history.
Why aren’t they considered just as evil as the White Man? Because Whitey managed dominance where others failed? Because the Indians were “savages” who didn’t know any better? Or is it the same mentality that ignores Muslim on Muslim violence while criticizing any military action carried out on them by the West?
And the Indians didn’t have much at all to fear from the Vikings. The Vikings were looking for gold and trade routes.
They would conquer, pillage and leave. They very rarely stuck around unless they had a financial motive for doing so.
The North American Indians would have had very little that appealed to them unless the Vikings wanted trade routes to South America, which probably would have consisted of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.
True. My ancestors preffered Anglo-Saxon and Irish villages.
I suppose we can’t get together for a pow-wow anymore, or smoke em peacepipe and our kids can’t be blood brothers…wait a minute didn’t these leftist liberal media types do all this original stereotyping in their movies? Talk about hypocrisy!
Guess next time someone says we will be having a round-table meeting the knights might be offended and we will have to listen to some politically correct term, like …medieval persons with armored plating and accessories!
I always wondered why “reconquista” doesn’t offend First Americans.
The way I understand it their ancestors came over the Alaskan land bridge and settled here first but some kept traveling south. Now the southern ancestors (mixed with the Spanish Conquistadors) come back north and claim this is their land?
From the comments I’ve read here, they seem to be comfortable being called Americans.
So- reader BECKY gets called a name and gets her feelings hurt, files a grievance and puts the other employees out of a job?
Am I reading this right?
As pissed as I might be I would be able to brush off the comment if only the boss was involved and is the one who said it. Why punish the other workers if they didn’t have a part in the comment?
Hope I’m missing something here - I don’t get it.
Yep. The Viking spread their joy (and their seed) all up and down the coast of Europe. They found unguarded churches just chock full o’ gold and silver wherever they went. What were they supposed to do?
Take the booty, grab some slaves (Europeans were enslaved? No way!), and go home.
What’s the point of sticking around after you pillage? Governing is hard, boring work and defending your new territories is risky and expensive.
Let the people heal, get back to their lives and rebuild their town. Then come back and clean up again.
Pillage…leave…repeat.
Leave it to Omu to completely miss the point and try to blame it on everyone else.
If the Indians didn’t like being called Indians they would say so. Most Indians I know prefer to be called either by their tribal name (Sioux, Lakota, Pyute, etc) failing that they consider themselves “Conservatives” but then I hang out with a fairly intelligent crowd.
29Victor, you make me wax nostalgic.
My former female boss once remarked to me that we could not be related, because she was Irish. My response was, “Since my ancestors were Vikings, that might depend on how far your ancestors lived from the coast.”
She cracked up.
I recall someone asking me if I was offended if they called me (a) a Jew, (b) A Canuck, or (c) a chick. And I said no, all of those are true.
Now if they would have made some demeaning or completely prejudiced comment about any of those things, I would probably kick them in the shin. But I am honestly the first person to laugh when someone tells a genuinely funny joke about all of the above.
But to constantly change the goal posts about what is considered politically correct just makes people worried about every tiny little comment made about another person. Just be polite and respectful of all people.
Good for this pre-school “teacher:” I’ve successfully vomited on the night before Thanksgiving. Bulimia will now be called “giving thanks.” Just PC is all.
You think Africans had it bad, the slave industry in Europe was a booming business at one time. The word “slave” comes from the word “Slav”, a people that lost a lot of their own to slavery. I haven’t heard a thing about reparations from them. I suppose maybe an ancestor or 2 of mine, from Scotland, ended up on a boat to somewhere to be sold. Can’t mention any of that in textbooks, of course. It isn’t PC. At one time or another, all civilizations were “assimilated” into some new culture that came along. So, we all demand apologies and demand new “1st-names”? Or, just a few get that, based on whatever sympathy the PC crowd can drum up, at the time. Unfortunately, history has a lot of myth and bias attached to it, making the study of it, difficult, if you want to find the real truth. Speaking of slaves, the Indians had a pretty good business going in that, too, if I recall. And, they weren’t exactly peaceful with each other. That’s one reason why the Separatists were allowed to stay in Plymouth…as allies with the Wampanoag against other tribes. To me, Thanksgiving is not a celebration of Separatists and Indians. It is an annual “pause” to give thanks to Him for all his blessings given to me and my family over the year. That is the way it is supposed to be, and, originally, never had anything to do with Plymouth. Unfortunately, in order to gain some political power and money, of course, over the decades, it has been distorted to the point that we have protests over some settlers and Indians that never had anything to do with the Thanksgiving proclamation. Besides there were earlier so-called Thanksgivings too. To everyone here, take time, today, pause, and reflect on, not what you want or think you deserve, but on what blessings you have now. Compared to the rest of the world, that is a lot. You people who have visited other countries, around the world, like me, know what I mean. It only takes a minute or 2, then the day is clear for turkey, football, and family. Happy Thanksgiving!
Put someone out of business for an opinion? On what grounds? Regardless of how silly or nasty the personal opinion may be, isn’t forcing him out of business a major violation of the owner’s rights? How is this different from the eHarmony case? At least Becky isn’t not insecure about her daughter’s Indian heritage.
Enjoy those turkeys!
Do any of the 1st Americans at this site want to talk about the advantages of being a Native American. I understand that even if you have been fully integrated into this society you still get money from the government every month. Maybe this is not true. Maybe you can dispel this rumor. How much “Indian” do you have to be to get money?
If you do qualify for this handout, if indeed it exists, do any of you turn it down?
Is the amount dependent on which tribe you descended from?
Should “1st Americans” be hyphenated to be politically correct?
God help us……
All I have to say is, as a 1/4 Cherokee, 1/4 French, 1/2 “dunno what else” adopted into a German/Italian/English family and raised Evangelical Baptist…
I’m an American Mutt and proud of it.
Are you asking if American indians receive retributions in some form? Yes, through the U.S. Department of the Interior and it’s office of the special trustee for American indians.
The OST has fiduciary trust responsible to American Indian tribes, individual Indians, and Alaska Natives which incorporates a beneficiary focus and beneficiary participation while providing, stewardship and management of trust assets.
I had a conversation with a close friend who is a member of a local tribe. He and his family chose not accept OST money but do receive a share from their casino operations. He’s a conservative who “got off the reservation” thirty years ago. He informed me most of his tribe are still mentally locked into their declining culture and have the emotional need for government help. Most of them are registered Democrats.
My My mytake. You sound as if your looking for a fight.
I think most of us are mutts in this country. Not much inbreeds unless your from Alabama./ sarc
I’ve always thought it strange when people hold on to a genetic or cultural heritage. There is so much more out there to explore when you let go of the past.
On November 26th, 2008 at 9:00 pm, Omu said:
Because we are Americans: United, we stand - hyphenated, we limp and lumber along until someone knocks us over!
Happy Thanksgiving, Omu! You may be an expatriated Texan living in Ireland, but please remember, you’re still an American - enjoy this special day of Giving Thanks!
My great grandmother was a Potomac Indian. I have many full-blooded Potomac cousins. The Potomacs were a tribe living in what is now Stafford County of Virginia when John Smith got here. The Potomacs are a branch of the Powhatans which is a branch of the Algonquins. The Potomacs were also part of the Powhatan Confederacy (No, that’s not the Civil War Confederacy). My roots are deep in Virginia soil, all the way back to Pocahontas. I also qualify for a Native American card. Does that qualify me as a “1st American”?
PirateLady, I don’t think you are reading that right. The point was that she was denied a promotion based, not on her performance, but on the boss’s prejudice. It was the discrimination - not the name-calling - that was the issue.
Actully I’m part Cherokee like 1/8, Throw in some German, Irish and who knows what elese as I don’t know my ancestory that well. I’m mixed with all sorts of things. And given the whole subject of the Vikings, I might be genetically related to the Vikings of the East, the Mongols. Shows in my facial sturcture. And Ghengis Khan spread his “love” around enough .8 percent of all people (thats in the millions) are directly related to him.
Anyways most Indians don’t care for native American, when I went to a little Cherokee type event they called themselves that or *GASP* Americans. I never could stand how people in the US more and more go with “Irish, Dutch, etc” You all bleed the same. Me? I’m a human first and foremost. Most blacks don’t even like being called “African American” I had an art teacher who was black and heavily into learning about her heritigage I called her an African American and she busted out laughing. “Call me black Child.”
Anyways this PC stuff is garbage, multi culturalisim divides more than unites, look at the balkins. There is nothing to see alike in differances or a need to encourage them. I don’t give a rats ass if your, Red, Green, Blue, a Jew, or a mexican. You all cry you all bleed. We all die. Time to see whats alike and end the PC stuff, racisim will never die so long as identifying with one group is around. Nation First, race later.
The land bridge theory sounds ok, except it doesn’t explain a couple of things like Kennewick man and the X mtDNA haplogroup. It seems that at least some Europeans found their way to North America long before the Vikings.
As far as slavery is concerned, it was not introduced by the Europeans as can be seen here, and if you try really hard you may find some information on torture as practiced by Native Americans. Obviously there is less information available on the sociology of first wave immigrants, but they probably had at least a few bad habits.
I’m not trying to make excuses for anyone here. My point is simply that the human story is far more complex than “us good - them bad” or vice-versa, and our understanding of human migrations over the millennia is spotty at best. If bad behavior belongs to a specific race, then that race would be “the humans.”
I wasn’t looking for a fight, just some information. When everyone is screaming conservatism, I want to know who is on the dole and how they justify it while criticizing others. I like to hear about Indians, or whatever you call them or yourselves, refusing handouts, just like everyone else on this website should be doing. But first it must be established just what is available to Indians just by being one or 1/8th of one or whatever.
How much money are we talking about here?
My Chickasaw wife and two Chickasaw children call them “Indians” when no specific tribe is known, and by the name of the tribe when it is known.
I won’t be surprised if in the coming year evidence arises of many groups coming to North America (and South) from all over the world. Colonies could start and fail and never leave any evidence or none that has been found yet.
By the way, I am in Utah where there are plenty of Indians…including 2 adopted sisters and 1 adopted brother. 8 nieces and nephews from those sibings and all, including the niece that lives with us have never had a problem being called Indian…nor do they care about being called Native Americans…..having said that, I am sitting at the computer with my niece who just told me she is none of the above. First and formost, she is an American….PERIOD!
make that “in the coming years..plural”
This is unsurprising… In Canada, the standard PC term has been “First Nations” for some time now.
With art, the term used is Pre-Columbian. Pre-Columbian Americans would at least make some sense. At least it does to me and I’m part Indian…and Irish and Scottish and English and German. I’m married to a wonderful man who is Spanish and French and African. We like mutts at my house. I’m trying to convince my kids to marry spouses from Asia or the South Seas. I’m hoping we can get some really mixed up grandkids.
The Norsemen who came to Canada/America were fishing and logging. They were not seeking gold.
American is a political term defined by the citizenship statutes of the US legal system.
America was formed by the genocidal practices of the US Government and its residents seeking land and title
through military conquest and treaties not honored.
The teacher is delusional. Delusions of grandeur are played out by teachers everyday as they try to “make nice” over things left unresolved with sovereign Indian nations within the US borders.
Honor the treaties that are still valid US law.
Change all of us can believe in.
Bear1909 out.
Native American*Indigenous Rights*Land Rights* Thanksgiving* US History*Other names for Indians* Geronimo*Crazy Horse*American Indians and Public Education* Teachers Without Knowledge* History Is Dead*