Native Americans

[sdlee]

I decided to post this seperately from the Arkansas thread because that thread is so funny and this subject is not.

Here in South Dakota I am living on land stolen from Indians by white guys in the name of Gold.Its no big deal,what someones great-great -grand father did to someone elses great-great- grandfather is not something I have time to hold onto a grudge for.

I know many, many Native Americans. Guess what few of them like that term. Infact Id say most of them hate it.I thank all of you who pointed this out in that Arkansas thread, its a relief to know that out there in PC world there are some people with a sense about this.

How can I back up what I say. Here we go. I am related to a buncha these guys. Thats right they are half breeds. Guess what else they are proud of thier half breedness.Thier mom ( a full blooded Sioux) and thier dad (A full blooded caucasion)
are both related to me in the form of my aunt and uncle, one by marriage...awww but I will not tell you which is which and that throws the PC world into a spin.....what will you address me as?

Could it be that now you are forced to take me as a human?

 

[hooverwheelaway]

***Scratches head***
Huh?

Speaking of "Half-Breed"
I do love that Cher song...

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[jasonl]

Do they prefer to be called "Indians" or "Native Americans"?

 

[jasonl]

I didn't know there was a video for Cher's "Half Breed". Now I need a shower.

 

[petek]

Well there seems to be a real split amongst Indians on what they want to be called. It's been in the paper here a few times, there's a Chippewa reserve adjoinging our town.. But wait,, they're not called Chippewa anymore it's Amagasstathing or something.. Anyways a lot of the elders don't like it let alone can pronounce it. I see plenty of mid aged and up folks wearing there I'm Indian and proud of it T shirts... I think it's something with the younger ones who want to be called native american/canadians...then there's the ones who throw in "aboriginals". Gawd that sounds absolutely primitive..and it's stealing from the Aussies I think LOL
One of the main thru streets in town here is called Indian Rd. and of course there's one guy wants that changed to Amagasswasithing Rd because he's says it's disrespectful,,,oh brother.

 

[58limited]

I know lots of African-Americans that prefer to be called "black" - they tell me that they are black, so why not call them that?

On my last census form, where it asked for my race, they gave many PC style choices with sub categories. I don't mind it when they ask for ethnicity, but the lengthy list of subcategories was too much. I checked "other" and wrote Texan-American.

Here we had a controversy that made the national news a couple of years ago. There was a road called Jap Rd. When I moved here, I never gave it a second thought, but the PC police got their panties in a wad and sued the county to have the name changed. This is when I learned the history of the road: a Japanese family fled Japan prior to WWII and moved to a farm at the end of the road and the name came from that. I guess it really was derogatory, "jap" was not a term of endearment, especially in those days. The county did finally change the name. I figured they should have named it after the Japanese family and this was proposed, but instead they renamed it "Boondocks Rd."

 

[petek]

There has been an ongoing erasure of derogatory name places. Places with names like Squaw Mtn, Squaw River etc. are being changed. In Alberta there was a mountain near Banff called Chinaman's Peak. It was named that in the 1800's iirc because the first man to climb it was a Chinese laborer named Ha Ling. It's now called Ha Ling Peak which is fitting

http://www.peakware.com/peaks.html?pk=2122

 

[sdlee]

re naming in the name of history

A funny thing happened here on the way to the school board meeting one night.....

Theres a school on the South SIde of Rapid City SD that was named for a woman named Annie Tallent, who was the first white woman and first teacher to come through the Black Hills

In her later years she wrote a memoirs book and made reference that in the gold rush days the indians were savages, killing the white man without thought and scalping them

in the 60s before we ever heard that prase Politically Correct, the Annie Tallent School was built

30 years passed and then someone got all offended that the school was named after a woman who held the precious indians in such low reguard............soooooo you know what happened

many fights, many news storys later and an actually shut down of the school until an approprieate new name was found on and on it went and it went.On the news every night.....think of what those kids musta been thinking.

Any lo and behold the city council and school board made a decision and it was re named South Park Elementary School. This was the year before the folks at fox decided to display a lil cartoon of the same name.

HA! Talk about a plan backfiring on them... Yeah South Park thats a great image for these kids. You can bet there are packs of them in that school running around in fours and nicnaming themselves after thier favorite little terror.

if theres a moral here Im not sure what it is. I just think its funnier than hell how this played out and thought it was an appropriate story for this thread.

 

[xyz]

Sdlee, I'm a FULLBLOODED CAUCASION and I used to date a FULLBODIED BLACKFOOT girl. She was as fine as fine gets. Indian women are beautiful by nature in the most literal sense of the word. And yes, she prefered to be recognized as an INDIAN WOMAN.

 

[sdlee]

XYZ,

Thank you, ....THATS what Im talking about

a great big smile for you. Nobody else here got it so directly

Ps I bet she was beautiful too