Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
I’ve been indoctrinated. Some here might say I’ve been suckered. But I just hate to insult people, so I speak with an abundance of caution regarding certain ethnic/sexual preference/religious groups. That is—if I’m not a part of them.
I say Asian not Oriental. I say African American or homosexual or Jewish unless I hear one who is part of those groups using “black” or “gay” or “Jew” first. Then, I’ll follow along if it seems welcome.
And, of course, I say Native American instead of Indian.
But my 6-year-old does not because she’s learning otherwise at her progressive public school.
Yup, you read that right.
Our family has probably had one or two conversations about the origins of Thanksgiving. I have a sneaking suspicion that all of it is a Tall Tale anyway, and I prefer to save my Tall Tale-telling for December 25.
But I have used the term “Native American” for, oh, the past 10 years or so. You know why? Because when I first met my husband, I told some story about an Indian. We talked for a long time with him staring at me in complete bafflement and me trying to add details and explain more clearly. Then, he had a revelation of monumental proportions!
“OOHHHH! I thought you were talking about an Indian from India. Okay. Start the story again.”
My husband, who is hardly a PC policeman (though he might look good in the uniform, but I digress), was just genuinely confused. He’d made the common-sense adjustment many years ago that we call people from India, Indians, and we call the people who were living in this country before Columbus, Native Americans.
So check this out.
My daughter, who is learning all about the first Thanksgiving in her public school, has come home the past few days talking all about Pilgrims and Indians. Yes, Indians. Her school is apparently okay with the term. I listened to her, frankly, with amazement. Later, I brought her to the globe and pointed out India. I said, “Some people will say that the only Indians are people who come from here. The folks at the first Thanksgiving are often called Native Americans, because ‘native’ means ‘here first’ and they were here in America first.”
“Oh,” my daughter says. “Okay.”
But then she pulls out her school library book, flips through a few pages to a picture of a brownish, scowling, bare-chested, headdress-wearing gentleman holding some corn for the "feast" and says, “But that’s an Indian, right?”
Ummm.
“Let’s ask Daddy when he comes home. Do you want to finish your milk?”
I never thought that I could be de-PC’d by a public school curriculum. How’s that for a twist?
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Jun '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
I usually say American Indian, rather than Native American, 'cause I like to think of myself as a native American too. Grandpa grew up in Norway, but I didn't come here from anyplace else. I was born a stone's throw from the Mississippi River. How much more native can you get? :)
Aug '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
That's real progressivism!
Me? I say "redskin".
Jun '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Someone help me out on this. I was challenged this morning in class by a student who claimed that Columbus used the term "In Dios" (Sp. in God) to describe Native Americans. I'm dubious because her source is Howard Zinn, but I need clarification.
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
America learned from Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali's exchange years ago that a person should be called what he wants to be called.
So I make that my rule.
Coming from a predominantly African-American community and having gone to predominantly African-American schools, I will note (but not judge) that my fellow Americans of African descent have changed what they call themselves several times during my lifetime (and I make no objection when they do).
When I started grammar school back in the '60's, the accepted term was Negro. That was replaced with Black. That was replaced with African-American. I note that over the past decade, Black has made a comeback.
Interesting personal story: My wife and I decided we wouldn't label people by color when raising our kids, instead letting our four kids say what they saw when describing people.
Left to their own descriptions, instead of Black and White they called people Brown and Tan.
I liked it. Brown and Tan brings us a whole lot closer together than Black and White, and they are certainly more apt descriptions.
Jun '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
I spent some time in British Columbia last summer. What to call the aboriginal people is even more complicated there. I picked up pretty quickly that "Eskimo" was about as welcome as "negro" would be here. Perhaps our Canadian members could explain the variations on Inuk, First Nations persons etc. If you want to be PC, you got to keep up.
Sep '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
We have a kid's book about Thanksgiving that we read to the little boys which uses the term but then explains that they're really the Wampanoag or people of the light, which is great I want the boys to know about this but later it praises someone called Sarah Hale who got President Lincoln to make Thanksgiving "official" so all those little blank slates out there...and probably a few parents are going to think Lincoln and the Pilgrims lived about the same time. I can't imagine why they ignored the one that happend in Virginia a few years before the Mayflower but that is a different issue.
Sep '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Please don't mention the name of your daughter's school. The PC police will be picketing outside Monday morning!
Being in the IT industry, I've had to distinguish between Indians as in Choctaw and Cherokee and Indians from India. So it's always been American Indian and just Indian.
Aug '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Hard to believe that Howard Zinn passes for fact. Shameful he shares the shelf in college bookstores across the country as required reading, course text in some cases !!
I was taught that Columbus thought he had made it around and that he was in the East Indies, thus the West Indies were settled on when the miscalculation was discovered and the indigenous peoples named the West Indians . Although I imagine at that point the people in India were known as the Mughals , Marathas, Hindoos, etc. The East Indies Trading Co was founded in 1600 and the Portuguese colony dated from 1500, so the "Indies" were probably a catchall term.
And the Indians a collective description of colonial subjects. But that is a uneducated guess. Would welcome some accuracy , any accuracy.
Edited on Nov 19, 2010 at 11:36amOct '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
I've spent a lot of time in Northern Wisconsin and other areas of the country with large Native American populations, and I have yet to meet an Indian who objected to that term. As a matter of fact, I can't recall a single instance of an Indian friend referring to himself as anything other than an "Indian." (I'm sure it must have happened at least once, but I don't recall it)
But as for me, I have done business with East Indians for several years now and have many East Indian friends and associates, so I tend to use the term Native American just to keep my own head straight.
Some East Indians refer to Native Americans as "Red Indians," which is the politically incorrect way the British refer to American Indians. This term is offensive here in America. However most of the Native Americans I have known would just roll their eyes and dismiss you as an idiot if you were to use the term in front of them.
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
In Spanish, India = India and Indians = Indios. It follows the same grammatical convention that is used for many other nationalities that are from countries that end in an 'A' (e.g. China/Chinos, Rusia/Rusos, etc). If Columbus wanted to say "In God," he would've said "En Dios" (pl. "En Dioses") in Spanish or "In Dio" (pl "In Dei") in his native Italian.
Edited on Nov 19, 2010 at 11:46amAug '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
I object to the term white. The only white people are dead! We're pink. Skin color is so obvious that it should never be ignored. Only PC police or the mentally ill object to the unambiguous truth being spoken..
Sep '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Under the Obama administration, all Americans are referred to as "Taxable-Americans" and "Non-Taxable-Americans". There is no third.
May '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Hilarious, Ursula.
Tommy De Seno:
I liked it. Brown and Tan brings us a whole lot closer together than Black and White, and they are certainly more apt descriptions.
That works until they meet an Indian (from India) who's as dark as anyone from the Congo.
I refuse to say "Native American" because it implies a primacy of rights ("We were here first!"). All around the world, there is evidence of civilizations before the civilizations we're familiar with. The "injuns" (as my grandpa called them) were likely no exception. Besides, the term "Native American" bears no cultural connotations in the way "hispanic" or "Latino" does. Two tribal bloods run in my family, Cherokee and Pamunkey, and they were not united by culture in the way Mexico and Columbia are.
I say "black", and have only caught hell for doing so by whites. If it's good enough for BET, it's good enough for me. Few Americans have any connection to African cultures.
"Oriental" seems more accurate than "East Asian", though they mean the same thing.
What I find most ridiculous is "Caucasian", because it's the only physiological term deemed politically acceptable (try Negroid or Mongoloid sometime).
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
This was, for some time, a hot button issue at Dartmouth. In fact, The Dartmouth Review still supports the Indian mascot, which was used by the school's sports teams up until the early 1970s.
Unfortunately the Native Americans at Dartmouth, as well as the PC police, prefer no mascot (the intangible Big Green) to a gallant, rousing graphic of an Indian which, to the more sensible on campus, seems in no way demeaning. Have a look yourself here.
May '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Otherwise known as Republicans and Democrats.
The thing to keep in mind when discussing this stuff is that the word by which a person identifies himself or herself depends on the circumstances.
When national politics is concerned, many people with heritage from various parts of Central and South America band together for stronger influence under terms like "hispanic" and "Latino". But in everyday local matters, Mexicans and El Salvadorans, Columbians and Hondurans, do not like to be confused.
Likewise, a South African and Kenyan share little culturally. But the various nations of Africa have notably united under a continental identity because they know it helps them in world politics.
And this doesn't just occur with nationality or race (something, by the way, used 9 times out of 10 to identify a person culturally). To a foreigner, I'm an American. To an American, I'm a Texan or Southerner. To a fellow Texan, I'm a Houstonian.
We acknowledge our differences because we care about each other. Political correctness is apathetic, isolationist.
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
flownover
Hard to believe that Howard Zinn passes for fact. Shameful he shares the shelf in college bookstores across the country as required reading, course text in some cases !!
Edited on Nov 19 at 11:36 am
College?! Try our local Episcopalian middle school. Welcome to California.
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Hilarious and all too true!
May '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In Spanish, India = India and Indians = Indios. It follows the same grammatical convention that is used for many other nationalities that are from countries that end in an 'A' (e.g. China/Chinos, Rusia/Rusos, etc). If Columbus wanted to say "In God," he would've said "En Dios" (pl. "En Dioses") in Spanish or "In Dio" (pl "In Dei") in his native Italian. · Nov 19 at 11:43am
Edited on Nov 19 at 11:46 am
Indios is the spanish, and both Indios and Indiani are acceptable in Italian.
More to the issue is what Aaron pointed out above:
I refuse to say "Native American" because it implies a primacy of rights ("We were here first!"). All around the world, there is evidence of civilizations before the civilizations we're familiar with.
The people that were living in "America" when the first settlers came from abroad were not any more native than I am. It's also dubious to call them Americans. America was not the common name for this land before it was discovered, was it?
I prefer pre-columbian.
May '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In Spanish, India = India and Indians = Indios. It follows the same grammatical convention that is used for many other nationalities that are from countries that end in an 'A' (e.g. China/Chinos, Rusia/Rusos, etc). If Columbus wanted to say "In God," he would've said "En Dios" (pl. "En Dioses") in Spanish or "In Dio" (pl "In Dei") in his native Italian. · Nov 19 at 11:43am
Edited on Nov 19 at 11:46 am
Just goes to show ya Howard Zinn didn't know diddley squat. The word "in" isn't even a word in Spanish.
Jul '10
Re: Thanksgiving Lesson: Pilgrims and ... Those Other People
Aaron Miller:
I refuse to say "Native American" because it implies a primacy of rights ("We were here first!").
at 12:21pm
Exactly. I couldn't agree more.
Aaron Miller:
I say "black", and have only caught hell for doing so by whites. If it's good enough for BET, it's good enough for me. Few Americans have any connection to African cultures.
Exactly. I couldn't agree more. No one has any more or less Rights than anyone else to say anything.
I say We're All "Eden-Americans."
"Can't We All just get along?"
Edited on Nov 19, 2010 at 4:39pm