=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 6, no. 20 Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A [2ok] Ethnic terminology: 'Native American' or ...? [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2] Q & A --------------------------------------------------- ** [2ok] Ethnic terminology: 'Native American' or ...? Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Jennifer Bassett, jenny@daypotts.demon.co.uk I am preparing a glossary for Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel _The Scarlet Letter_, in an educational edition aimed at English language learners world-wide. Hawthorne uses '(Red) Indian' to refer to the indigenous peoples of America, and I feel that this term should be glossed for the learner, not for meaning, but in order to explain that it is not an acceptable term in current usage. My question to Edliners is this. Is 'Native American' still the most usual and acceptable term in use today? Is the term 'American Indian' also used? If so, is it thought to be less acceptable, or simply less frequent? Thanks in advance for any advice/opinions, especially from other (i.e. non-UK) anglophone cultures. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Jennifer Cameron-Smith, fionnabhair@one.net.au I had thought that the term 'First People' (or similar) had some currency as the current acceptable term. Unfortunately, I can't find the particular messages that relate to this. Turning to a broader issue, will context be given for Hawthorne's useage? I have some concern about changing terms if the reason for doing so is not clear. (Providing an anglophonic viewpoint from Australia.) ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Alex Grey, prufrock@quista.net My understanding is that "Native American" is the term most widely used by those who are not themselves from the Indian Nations (the majority, in other words). "American Indian" was still in wide usage when I lived in the SW States in the early '90s, particularly amongst those of Indian descent, and, as far as I know, AIM, the American Indian Movement, is still going strong. My impression at that time, FWIW, was that "American Indian" is seen as a self-description that does perfectly well and is widely understood, while "Native American" is a more PC term, chosen with the deliberate intention of avoiding any scope for offence, but which has nevertheless gained wide currency at this point. Possibly someone with more recent knowledge than me can confirm/refute any or all of the above? ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Yoel Strimling, yoel@docustar.co.il Doing a "sidesifting" search of the Web using ClearInk's SpellWebber application < http://www.spellweb.com/spellwebber.htma > I find the the term "Native American" is a lot more frequent than "American Indian". While it's not the most scientific of searches, the difference in frequency is certainly telling. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Marianne Youdale, MYoudale@aol.com My brother - who is an editor in Toronto - is married to a 'Native Indian' and she insists on the use of that terminology with reference to herself. As he grew up largely in South Africa, the word 'native' has entirely different connotations and so he finds it hard to use! ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: David Ibbetson, isserlis@home.com Jennifer Cameron-Smith wrote: > I had thought that the term 'First People' (or similar) had > some currency as the current acceptable term. Unfortunately, > I can't find the particular messages that relate to this. "First peoples" is current Canadian usage. However it's a catch- all term and particular names such as Ute or Cree would be used when practical. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Carol Schanche, CSchanche@ncte.org The inhouse Style Manual at the National Council of Teachers of English says that American Indian and Native American are both acceptable, although naming a specific nation or tribe is preferred. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Susan Strobel, sstrobel@m2k.com The AP (Associated Press) stylebook says to use "American Indian," but that Native American is also acceptable. Whenever possible, you should use the actual name of the tribe a person belongs to, i.e., Oglala, Hopi, etc. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: John Morris, johnjeff@meadowdance.org Alex Grey wrote: > My understanding is that "Native American" is the term most > widely used by those who are not themselves from the Indian > Nations (the majority, in other words). "American Indian" was > still in wide usage when I lived in the SW States in the early > '90s, particularly amongst those of Indian descent, and, as far > as I know, AIM, the American Indian Movement, is still going > strong. My impression at that time, FWIW, was that "American > Indian" is seen as a self-description that does perfectly well > and is widely understood, while "Native American" is a more PC > term ... Yes, here in the NE states, Native American is definitely the more-PC term. I don't often hear "American Indian" in my circles, but I don't happen to associate with very many people of pre- Columbian heritage. I have heard people of many different lineages take issue with "Native American" because many of us were born in the Americas but cannot use this term. ----------------------- Date: Tues, 29 May 2001 From: Omar Johns, omarjohns@naseej.com.sa Jennifer Cameron-Smith wrote: > My question to Edliners is this. Is 'Native American' still the > most usual and acceptable term in use today? Is the term > 'American Indian' also used? If so, is it thought to be less > acceptable, or simply less frequent? It seems to me that the Hawthorn glossary would have rather more difficulty redeeming adulterers, not to mention the entire population of Rhode Island. The politically fastidious may object to the imposition of American political correctness on an unsuspecting world; or is it perhaps our perceptions of Americans that are being corrected? > I had thought that the term 'First People' (or similar) had > some currency as the current acceptable term. Unfortunately, I > can't find the particular messages that relate to this. First people were Africans: native homo sapiens. "First Nations" is a Canadian euphemism for American Indians, who must, naturally, be Americans rather than Canadians. Well, this is another big can of worms. I find it hard to believe that anyone consciously reading American literature could ever imagine that the Indians in the Scarlet Letter might be possibly be named Patel. ---------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 From: Michele Clarke, michele.clarke@btinternet.com Fascinatingly, didn't the American Indians call the 'New World' explorers 'red men' because their skin went so pink in the sun, or was that in Australia? ---------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 From: Kathryn Moran, Kathryn.Moran@chi.frb.org I edit economic research in the U.S. Since we use so much U.S. census data in our analysis, we tend to follow the Census Bureau's lead. As of the 2000 census, the demographic categories include "Black or African American" and "American Indian or Alaska Native." However, since the full name for the category is rather unwieldy, we generally use "African American." However, we had been using "Native American" in order to follow parallel construction. Since reviewing the current census categories, this may be an area we need to revisit. When all is said and done, a respectful tone to your writing will go a long way toward minimizing the possibility of offending anyone. By the way, "Red Indian" does border on being considered as a slur in the U.S. I remember the debate at the time being that the skin of an American Indian is not red. The feeling was that the term was created strictly to remind them that they were not white, and serves as a reminder of the horrible treatment of the original Americans. (Sorry Mark, I know you didn't raise the point about this particular appellation, but I thought in general we had the same thoughts on the subject.) ---------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 From: Nick Hudson, hudson@c031.aone.net.au Omar's logic is impeccable, Unfortunately, the logic of political correctness is highly peccable. Why is Red Indian unacceptable? Logic would tell us that 'Indian' was a mistake. Columbus set out for India, so (as if to prove he had got there) the inhabitants of the region he reached were termed Indians. Logically, this is much more offensive than 'Red'. But 'Red' has gone and 'Indian' survives. 'Black' has suffered/enjoyed a pendulum swing. Not so long ago PC demanded that we should not use the term, speaking instead of 'colored'. The Black Power movement put 'Black' back on the map as a term of pride. 'Native' is PC when applied to vegetation, but at best ambiguous when applied to people. If somebody called George W. Shrub a Native American, it would be logically correct but semantically confusing. Yet it was used this way in the name of the Australian Natives Association, which had nothing to do with Australian Aboriginals, but was all about second and third generation immigrants, as opposed to first-generation interlopers. It is logically correct that 'native' should be seen as particularly non-PC in South Africa, where, as I understand it, neither the white nor the black community is indigenous, both having arrived at much the same time, spelling doom for the 'natives'. But this is not the basis of the objection. The common thread here is that the objection is rarely to the words, but to the package of prejudice which it attached to them. Change the package and the rules of PC change. I don't think Jennifer Bassett was suggesting (as Jennifer Cameron implies) that Hawthorne's text would be changed, she was merely wanting to insert a gloss. My only comment is this: rather than tell readers that 'Red Indian' is not PC today, she should tell them that 'Red Indian' was not politically incorrect then. This may seem a quibble, but has the advantage that it will remain true for ever, which no comment on current political correctness can. Meanwhile, the cleansing of classic texts to remove phrases which offend our current sensibilities is indeed worrying. We tend to laugh at Dr Bowdler's attempts to clean up Shakespeare. I wonder what future generations will think of our attempts to clean up nursery rhymes and fairy stories. What will they say about a version of 'Bluebeard' cleansed of sex and violence? Yes, I saw one the other day. It was rather bland. ---------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 From: Omar Johns, omarjohns@naseej.com.sa Kathryn Moran wrote: > By the way, "Red Indian" does border on being considered as a > slur in the U.S. I remember the debate at the time being that > the skin of an American Indian is not red. I was startled, too, by "Red Indian" the first time I heard it shortly after moving to Britain in the mid-70s. In Texas, where I had come from, people would probably have regarded this as quaintly racist (Texas expelled all Indians around the time of the Civil War). The English, however, seemed to view this as a neutral term and they did actually need some way of distinguishing the various varieties and colors of Indians: West, East, and American. So I let the images of circling wagons pass without further comment. Americans probably object to this instinctively because of the mention of color: it is too close to Hollywood's Redskins. Apparently the baseball team of the same name has recently come under some pressure as well. > The feeling was that the term was created strictly to remind > them that they were not white, and serves as a reminder of the > horrible treatment of the original Americans. Horrible treatment is rather an understatement for largely successful centrally orchestrated policy of genocide pursued by the US Government for well over a century. Following almost complete extinction, racist noble redman nonsense began to bilge forth from Hollywood at regular intervals, and indeed continues. I suspect that unresolved psychic trauma of the compulsive serial killer might have something to do with the search for political correctness here and elsewhere. What has this to do with editing? Well, it is difficult to anticipate readers responses once we move beyond a rather narrow national community, and what editors do does involve them in anticipating just such responses. The Hawthorne glossary, Jennifer said, is "in an educational edition aimed at English language learners world-wide". World wide is a pretty big audience, and the larger the audience, the greater the risk of causing unintended offence by gratuitous intervention. She then said: > Hawthorne uses '(Red) Indian' to refer to the indigenous peoples > of America and I feel that this term should be glossed for the > learner, not for meaning, but in order to explain that it is > not an acceptable term in current usage. My only objection to this concerns the judgement implicit in "not an acceptable term in current usage". It would be sufficient to say that the term is archaic. Alternatives need not be mentioned. How would you deal, for instance, with Flannery O'Connor's frequent ejaculations of "nigger"! As a teenager I found her unreadable because of this, and because I did not understand why she was saying it in every other paragraph. A sensitive editor might have helped me over this particular impediment. I am not criticizing Jennifer. Her question is very reasonable. ---------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 From: Mark Hendy, markhendy1@compuserve.com Surely some things, if not sacred, are at least good manners. Whether or not vox populi is vox dei, one of the necessary civilities of life in the modern world is calling a people what it wants to be called, so long as the appellation does not denigrate others. Of course, in arguments over "PC" there are many stealthily opportunist proponents and equal numbers of covertly elitist opponents. However, such subtextual considerations surely go well beyond matters of mere terminology. Can't we all agree to let usage be governed by good old courtesy? ---------------------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 From: John Morris, johnjeff@meadowdance.org This [Mark's] is a really nice idea and it works well with small groups of people. For example, I live in a small (20 people) intentional community named Meadowdance and we all are pretty comfortable with calling ourselves "Meadowdancers." However, when we are dealing with very large groups, to which names are usually applied, it can be very difficult to come up with a consensus among the named people on what that name should be. I have met many people who object to the commonly accepted PC term for their own subgrouping. I don't know what the real answer is, but self determination by the entire group does not seem to be it. ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 31 May 2001 From: Nick Hudson, hudson@c031.aone.net.au The rule of 'calling people what they want to be called' is of course an appropriate courtesy and works 90% of the time. The problem is that the other 10% remain a problem. The Australian situation illustrates many of the issues. The source of the problem was that the indigenous population had words for 'human being' as opposed to 'non-human beings', and names for their own clan as opposed to other clans, but no generic term to distinguish themselves from other human beings. This is not surprising, as they were unaware of the existence of other human beings. The white invaders needed such a generic, and adopted the common language adjective 'aboriginal', a plausible plural noun 'aborigines' and a backformed singular noun 'aborigine'. Despite the genesis of these terms, they were and still are generally accepted by the communities in question, with the proviso that they must not be abbreviated ('abo' is totally taboo) and must be written with a capital A. There is some debate about the preferred noun form (should it be 'an Aboriginal' or 'an Aborigine'), but neither causes profound offence. The only other true generic was 'blackfeller', which existed in Pidgin rather than Australian English. It was very widely used by and of (in particular) Aboriginal stockmen, and had positive connotation long before the days of Black Power. You hear it very rarely nowadays. Meanwhile, 'Blacks', which was once widely used by Whites and was always strongly pejorative, is now used by many Aboriginals with pride. In some contexts, some Whites can use it, but it is so loaded that I would only use it when talking to an Aboriginal I knew very well, and who knew me very well. If you ask Sydney Aboriginals what they LIKE to be called, they will almost certainly say 'Kooris'. This was apparently a generic term identifying the original inhabitants of the central NSW coast. The term came back into currency only in 1985, but was instantly accepted by the Sydney community. In particular, it was adopted in their radio programs. However, these programs went out nationwide. As a result, many PC whites (and many Sydney Aboriginals) promoted the idea that 'Koori' was an Aboriginal word for 'Aboriginal'. This caused distress, or at least puzzlement, to Aboriginals in other regions, who insisted that they were Murrays or Nungas, etc., and not Kooris. Over the ensuing years (just sixteen, remember) the myth has become a sort of reality. Today 'Koori' is probably more frequently heard than any other term, and I suspect that even Western Australian Aboriginals would not be distressed or puzzled if called 'Kooris'. But if they ever use the term among themselves, it would probably denote Aboriginal visitors from the Eastern States, and certainly not be 'what they want to be called' themselves. What's the point of all this? Simply that the rule 'call people what they want to be called' is both sensible and courteous, but unfortunately does not always generate an unequivocal answer. Editors, who have to satisfy a wide range of readers from different backgrounds, in a variety of places and and over an indefinite period of time, have an unenviable task. ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 31 May 2001 From: Peter Best, pbest@idl.net.au Well said Nick and Omar. Nick, hasn't "black" again been relegated to the "questionable" category and replaced with "African Americans"? It seems that the more clumsy and unutterable a term is, the more likely it is to be PC. I always thought that "Red Indian" was a particularly English usage deriving from their need to distinguish between American peoples and the "Indian" Indians. There'd seem to be little need to remind people that they are "not white" if you've already imposed a name on them that is totally foreign. Perhaps we need to send some of the older descriptive terms to "political rehabilitation camp" so that they can be used again without their former derogatory, paternalistic or racist implications. Maybe we also need to lighten up a little and stop looking for offence where none is intended. I recall that after the Sydney Olympics the director of the opening and closing ceremonies, Ric Birch, was asked by a reporter what he wanted to do next. He replied that he wanted to relax under a tree with a cool drink and be fanned by a giant Nubian slave. This prompted a very serious and high-minded letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald decrying his bad taste and outlining the horrors that slavery inflicted on the peoples of Africa. ---------------------- Date: Fri, 1 June 2001 From: Anne Hegerty, annehegerty@genie.co.uk Nick Hudson wrote: > The source of the problem was that the indigenous population > had words for 'human being' as opposed to 'non-human beings', > and names for their own clan as opposed to other clans, but no > generic term to distinguish themselves from other human beings. > This is not surprising, as they were unaware of the existence > of other human beings. The white British working class call themselves 'real people' in much the same way ('I liked "The Full Monty" because it had real people in it'). ---------------------- Date: Fri, 1 June 2001 From: Nick Hudson, hudson@c031.aone.net.au I'd often heard 'real people' but I'd always thought of it as simply meaning 'realistic portrayals of ordinary folk'. I think you're right, it can mean a lot more than this. Not sure whether this is relevant, but if an Aboriginal tells you that somebody 'talks language', it means 'talks an Aboriginal language'. Which in turn reminds me of a story told me by Robert Serumaga. He and his Kikuyu wife were living in Cambridge. Their children had been born there and only spoke English, but Robert and his wife normally talked Kikuyu to one another. One day, he happened to speak to his wife in English, wherupon a wide-eyed child said 'Daddy, why are you talking to Mummy in children's language'. Real people, real language. ---------------------- Date: Fri, 1 June 2001 From: Marianne Youdale, MYoudale@aol.com Michele Clarke writes: > Fascinatingly, didn't the American Indians call the 'New World' > explorers 'red men' because their skin went so pink in the sun, > or was that in Australia? That could have been in South Africa with 'Rooi Necks' which referred to English men out in the sun. Mad dogs and English men?... ---------------------- Date: Sat, 2 June 2001 From: David Ibbetson, isserlis@home.com > That could have been in South Africa with 'Rooi Necks' which > referred to English men out in the sun. Mad dogs and English > men?... According to Chambers Dictionary the spelling is rooinek. This is also the spelling I remember from Kipling. ---------------------- Date: Mon, 4 June 2001 From: Iwan Thomas, iwan@frame.org.uk > This is also the spelling I remember from Kipling. I didn't know that you had Kipled. ---------------------- Date: Mon, 4 June 2001 From: David Ibbetson, isserlis@home.com Will there ever come a season That will save us from the curse Of a rhyme that knows no reason And an unmelodious verse? When there stands a muzzled stripling Mute beside a muzzled bore When the Rudyards cease from kipling And the Haggards ride no more. -- J. K. Stephen ---------------------- Date: Wed, 6 June 2001 From: Peter Best, pbest@idl.net.au But do the Charlottes still Rample? ---[8] Administration ------------------------------------------ EDline provides the opportunity for an online discussion of matters editorial and editorial business. 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