Edit: Meme has been slightly altered to be more accurate. Credit to @ininewcrow for the updated and better image.
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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And others feel the same about the term "Native Americans." It's a big group of people from hundreds of independent nations that never had need for a collective term for themselves before Europeans arrived and started assigning labels.
There is no right answer on what to call them, the best you can do is use the term preferred by the people you're interacting with at the moment, which will usually be their actual nation. For those situations where you are referring to them collectively, I've variously been told to use "Native Nations," "American Indian," "Native American," and "Indigenous Peoples." Each term will be liked by some and hated by others. Just be willing to change for the situation and people you're talking to and you'll be fine.
Oh, I do for sure. I'll call people by any name or group or whatever if they ask. But I would never assume that a Native American is perfectly fine being called the equivalent of "a native or inhabitant of India, or a person of Indian descent." That's insane to me, and it's insane to assume that they'd be fine with it. This whole thing is because of the irony of a person who was so clearly trying to defend Native Americans using a label that describes a completely different ethnic group. "No, not THOSE Indians, the other Indians, so named because a monster of a person landed here and thought he was somewhere else". It's just hilarious to me.
While I probably wouldn't make "Indian" my first choice due to the negative historical connotations, we do have plenty of formal institutions -- indigenous-led institutions among them -- that use Indian in the name. So it's bound to come up in casual discussion.
I think what is most important is that, if a group or individual expresses a preference, we should honor that preference where possible.
Even the term "indigenous" is problematic. It was the term used by the Romans to describe the subjugated peoples in remote provinces.
I'm not kidding, just last week I was participating in a diversity workshop run by people from Native Nations (their preferred term), and they regularly referred to "Indian country." It's a complicated term but it has been incorporated into their identity regardless of the fact that there is another group of people called Indians.
To be more specific you can say "American Indians" but even that's problematic in the same way "Native American" is because you're labeling them based on some Italian guy's name. You're so hung up on the "Indian" label but don't seem to have a problem constantly using "Native American" when the people you're referring to have absolutely nothing to do with Amerigo Vespucci.
Relating the word "America" to "Amerigo Vespucci" is a HUGE stretch, don't you think? It's what the continent is called in English, which we're speaking right now. How far back through etymology do we have to go?
No? Lol, that's literally where the name comes from, how is that a stretch? Using the term "Indian", which you're arguing against, predates the term "America." So if the origin of "America" is too far in the past to matter, then that's even more true of the term "Indian." (Technically the Spanish "Indios" from Columbus's 1493 writings is what predates "America", which first occurred in a German map in 1507. The writings were subsequently translated into Latin and disseminated through Europe, they may well have been translated into English before that map but I can't find when the first English translation occurred.)
My point is that the term you're insisting is the sole correct term isn't universally endorsed by native communities. Many view it as yet another Eurocentric term for exactly the reason that we named an entire continent after some European guy rather than the cultures and people that had been here for millennia. Others don't mind it and have adopted it in their identity.
Just ask people when interacting with them and don't be so dogmatic online. Sheesh.
This is why I was asking how far back through etymology do we have to go. I do not give a fuck what the origin of the word "America" was. The continent is called North America in English, which we are speaking. It is the same way I would call my ancestry German rather than Deutsch, because we are not speaking German. The people who were here before the Europeans are native to this land (even though technically they are not native either, since we all came from Africa if you go back far enough, which again, how far back do we need to go?). Hence, Native Americans. They were called "Indians" for a long time out of ignorance and then willful ignorance, but how do we distinguish Indians from India and Indians from America? Hence, American Indians.
The term "Indian" is wrong. Just because Christopher Columbus was stupid and thought he was in India does not make this continent India. I'm also not saying Native American or American Indians are the sole correct terms, but it's better than a literally wrong one that has a lot of bad history behind it. A black guy who doesn't mind when his white friends call him "nigga" does not mean that he speaks for all black people. Same thing with "Indian" to describe someone who is indigenous to this land (a land that is decidedly not India). I don't care if someone wants to be known as Native American, or American Indian, or Indian, or Cherokee, or Navajo, or Sioux, or anything else. But I'm not going to call any person commonly understood to be indigenous to the Americas any but the first two without asking them. Some assume their tribe, the other is both factually wrong and used pejoratively for hundreds of years.
And that's why your position is wrong. I'm not kidding, you need to care about these things. It's the part of this argument that seems to elude you.
It sounds like you don't even disagree that you should just ask people what they prefer, so maybe tone down the "let me tell you the only terms you're allowed to use for a people I don't belong to." It's not for us to say.
Explain to me the relevance that an English word came from an Italian man, then. The continent is called North America. That's what it is called in the language we are conversing in. The word's origin means nothing. What word should we use instead?