"Indian" term dying out?

In "American Indian" vs. "Native American" I made the case that "Indians" is the preferred term for Indians. In response, Oscar Morales wrote:Sorry, Rob Schmidt, not buying your diatribe/screed.

Outmoded terminology may be historically logged in official gov't records, but that does not make it right. Do you really think the 1996-2006 Congress or that that the 2001-2008 Executive cared a whit about correcting outdated terminology? That they had any concern at all?

Jeez, even the foremost black organization, NAACP, has that name simply because they had to refer to themselves in terminology that was socio/culturally acceptable in the day and age of their founding. You can rest assured they realized they would gain nothing by inflaming the ire of racist xenophopic white males. They were smart enough to know that being confrontational would only get them the business end of the police baton, the firehoses, and the attack dogs.

Unfortunately, for a brave few in Mississippi/Alabama, but luckily for the rest of America, that started changing in the late 50's/60's.

In the meantime, a lot of outdated terms still remain. It'll change, slowly, but surely, it will change. As all you old, racist bazturds slowly but surely die out, we younger, more accepting Americans will change things. Of course, whatever offspring you've managed to indoctrinate with your nonsense will remain obstructionist, but they too will eventually die out.

Put that in your sock and smell it!!My response:  "Diatribe/screed" is Morales's term for "explanation with evidence," I gather.

I sure wish all comments were this easy to knock down. The original posting explains how Indians use and prefer the term "Indians." Morales didn't touch this explanation, much less try to rebut it. He simply fantasized that it and the evidence for it doesn't exist.

The key point Morales simply doesn't understand is, again, that Indians use and prefer the term "Indians." Therefore, it doesn't matter what non-Natives like me do. The only way the term "Indians" will die out is if Indians themselves die out.

Needless to say, Morales has zero evidence that the term "Indians" is being replaced by the more academic "Native Americans." I'm pretty sure the evidence would prove the opposite--that "Native Americans" is dwindling in use as people become comfortable with "Indians" or "Natives." Thus, newer concepts such as gaming are labeled "Indian gaming" and not "Native American gaming."

But if you want to prove me wrong, Oscar, go for it. Show us the evidence that the term "Indian" is dying out. Spare us the worthless posturing and put up or shut up.

Alexie weighs in

Coincidentally, Sherman Alexie just expressed his opinion on the matter:LJ: I notice you used the term “Indian” several times rather than something like Native American. I think that’s really interesting, because a lot of people are like, “No, we’re not!” And so…

Alexie: Indians call each other Indians. As soon as you hear an Indian say “Native American,” you know there’s a non-Indian in the room. You know, just trying to make you feel bad. I mean, Native American is just as inaccurate. “Native American” means “anybody born in the Americas.” If you want to get technical, you’d have to go with “indigenous,” which actually isn’t all that accurate either, considering we all came from a man and a woman in Africa. Those two were indigenous. Everyone is else is “Eehh?” “First Nations” works, but that’s arrogant. It pretty much all comes down to Indian. Beyond that, it comes down to the name of your tribe—but there’s 2,000 of us, and nobody really gives a crap.Alexie merely reiterates the position held by the vast majority of Indians. But people like Oscar Morales clearly don't get it and need to hear it again.

When Alexie says there's "a non-Indian in the room," I think he's talking about Morales. Morales may know something about history, but I doubt he knows much about Native history.

I suspect Morales is a high-minded Latino who thinks he's being "down" with Indians by embracing the term "Native Americans" instead of "Indians." If so, how pathetically misguided can you get?

P.S. As for "NovaMundians," the term preferred by Kiowa writer Russell Bates, there hasn't been the slightest movement toward it in the last year. Like Russ himself, this silly neologism is one year closer to the grave.