Re: Indians

A friend of mine who is a Prof as well as Blackfoot sent me this...thought you guys would like it.....TipiCrawler

Subject: George Carlin on Indians:

"...Now the Indians. I call them Indians because that's what they are. They're Indians. There's nothing wrong with the word Indian." "First of all, it's important to know that the word Indian does not derive from Columbus mistakenly believing he had reached India. India was not even called by that name in 1492, it was known as Hindustan."

"More likely, the word Indian comes from Columbus's description of the people he found here. He was an Italian, and did not speak or write very good Spanish, so in his written accounts he called the Indians, 'Una gente in Dios.' A people in God. In God. In Dios. Indians. It's a perfectly noble and respectable word."

"As far as calling them 'Americans' is concerned, do I even have to point out what an insult this is? ----- We steal their hemisphere, kill twenty or so million of them, destroy five hundred separate cultures, herd the survivors onto the worst land we can find, and now we want to name them after ourselves? It's appalling. Haven't we done enough damage? Do we have to further degrade them by tagging them with this repulsive name?...."

"You know, you'd think it would be a fairly simple thing to come over to this continent, commit genocide, eliminate the forests, dam up the rivers, build our malls and massage parlors, sell our blenders and whoopee cushions, poison ourselves with chemicals, and let it go at that. But no. We have to compound the insult."

"... I'm glad the Indians have gambling casinos now. It makes me happy that people are losing their rent money to the Indians. Maybe the Indians will get lucky and win their country back. Probably they wouldn't want it. Look at what we did to it."

James M. Craven Blackfoot Name: Omahkohkiaayo-i'poyi
Professor/Consultant,Economics;Business Division Chair Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. USA 98663 Tel: (360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863 http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5

Employer has no association with private/protected opinion "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (George Orwell) "...every anticipation of results which are first to be proved seems disturbing to me...(Karl Marx, "Grundrisse")

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!!

Hmmm... interessting... did the name "native american" really came from "the white men"?

I've got no real idea about the cultural problems of the idians. OK, I know the typical: some of what happens in the past, about the reservations and the casinos. I even saw a report at TV about indian casinos. But nothing of the "deep stuff".

OK, I'm european and it has nothing to do with my history (yes, in some way it does, but in the meaning: it didn't happen here, so it is not really interessting for us, but I guess it is somehow compareable how Jews were treated by the Nazi regime).

And now for the really not so nice part. I always loved to take a contra-position to opinions even if these don't match mine. I do it because I sometimes like to annoy people with it , sometimes because there are points which might be overlooked because everybody has only one opinion and they don't see (and/or understand) the other side. And that's what I want to do.

For me the text sounds a bit racist. Especially the last part of the casinos. Yes, it's true white people did bad things, but to show the own evil face by saying "yeah, lose your money to us"... no style, somehow pathetic.
If people keep adding fuel to the fire it will continue to burn.
A says so, B replies, than A replies... neverending story...
Why don't people just stop pointing fingers at each other? Why do they keep on pushing each other? It is so unnecessary.

The stuff with the "Una gente in Dios" is not true.
Yes, India was known as Hindustan at that time. But nearly the complete continent was referenced at that time as India. Even the old greaks knew India as India long time before.
The Caribean Islands are known as Bristish West Indies.
The words "Una gente in Dios" appear nowhere in the letter Columbus wrote.
And as it seems Indian started "revolting" against "Native Americans" only after the US Goverment claimed it as correct term.

Interessting articles:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11380
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgenteindios.html
http://www.epcc.edu/Community/NMIP/4B.pdf

Personal opinion:
"Native American" is in my opinion correct since it it North America, the continent and not the "United Stated of America" which gives the name. You might wanna differ in "Native North Americans" and "Native South Americans".
After reading all this and seen that "Una gente in Dios" appears nowhere in Columbus letter (which is a real strong proof) I personal believe it is a myth and that they were named after something else (there are some way more plausible possibilities in the first linked article).

And whoever wants now: hate me.

LMAOOOOO
1. First of all my dear Bjoern, George Carlin is an American Comdian....sometimes they take "liberties" in order to get the humor and the point across...and I think he does it well here.

2. His point about Una gente in Dios was in reverence of his own feelings about Indian/Americans.

3. Yes the white man did give Natives the name indian or native american. Since we owned the entire North American Hemisphere the "old ones" just referred to each other by tribal affiliation...i.e. Sioux,Cherokee,Iriquois,Seminole,Nez Pearce etc...
another little known fact is that white trappers had a favorite word for women that word was "Squaw" however it is a horrible name for women and the loose translation for it is Cu*t. So an FYI don't ever call a true Native woman "squaw" or you may draw back a bloody stub of some sort. LOL
3. To compare what natives went thru to the travesty the Jews went thru isn't quite accurate....you see if memory serves me correctly there were over 6 million Jew slaughtered/tortured during the Holocaust. Carlin wasn't exagerating when he stated over 20 Million of my people were exterminated....and treated worse than dogs.
4. The reason this issue is important to Natives is simple we don't want the tribes who were wiped out to be forgotten. I don't think thats too far "out there" we call it tradition steeped in respect.
5. In a perfect world people would all play nice and stop kicking "dead horses" or racist....and you are right....it was racism at it's worst...not Carlins comedy but to take another group of people who may be a little different from you and all but destroy them...and where , my dear firend, would humorists like Eddie Murphy,Chris Rock or Cedric the Entertainer be without racism?
6.Not all tribes have casinos but being Native I can't say I am unhappy to see my race have lucretive buisness holdings no matter what the buisness might be.
Don't take the humor too literal.......and no I don't hate anyone.....I just am not fond of intolerance.

Ok, mea culpa... how should I know?

I would never compare what happend to the jews with what happend to the Native Americans. I just used it because it is something similar to what happend in North America. It is not the same. But similar.

Having casinos is postive for them, nothing against that.

If I would have knew that this was stated by a comedian... well, I would have react in another way... but I did take it seriuos and at least I looked into the subject and learned something.

About the Squaw thing: I knew that word, but I didn't knew the translation... good to know!

As a german it is "forbidden" in some way for me to make recist jokes because of the history. I think it is stupid, but if you do as german everybody calls you a nazi.
The most foreigners here in Germany are from Turkey. There some turkish comedians now and they are good, they too do the racist jokes. But if you would do something like that as german...

I love Chris Rocks humor (I know the other two but never saw a program of them). Yes, he does alot recist jokes, about black and white equally.

I would consider myself no ays racist, but my tollerence dropped alot since I moved to Berlin.
Many of the turkish teens treat other people not well. The have the idea of "I'm a foreigner here, you have to treat me like I'm your king" - and if you don't they spit on you or wanna hit you.

In front of the house where I live is officially a play street, so a 4 mph speed limit... most people drive slow... but many of the turkish youngsters drive way to fast and if you drive slow they honk and insult you, once one of them pass a woman once, stopped and confronted her why she was driving so slow... he wanted to bash her! But he tripped and everybody laughed at him so he got back to his car and drove away... but imagine this stupidity... I'm sorry, but such idiots are not welcome here in my opinion.

And unfortunately such idiots form the image of the violent and unrespectful foreigner.

There are many, many of them who are not like them, they are kind and nice and respect other people. I respect them too.
But the bad ones... no respect from my side...

lol I understand it is that way here too if you are from a culture that is primitive like mine.......when I was a child it wasn't cool to be native now everyones grandmother was a cherokee princess.only one problem with that....there is no such thing as a cherokee princess hahahahahaha

have you seen the chris rock movie...i think it's called "Down to Earth"? where he comes back to life as an old white guy...with eugene levy as his angel. it's pretty good. the old white guy gets up in a comedy club and starts tellin' all these chris rock jokes, like he was black. you just can't do that.

canada is sadley known for it's treatment of native americans as well, with suicide/substance abuse rates high, the reserves are often without proper sewage/plumbing and other basic needs. we were verbally diciplined by the UN because, in general, the quality of natives lives are so poor. you often don't see them in large cities, and i have also lived in smaller, northern towns where the population of natives is larger, and the treatment is quite bad, as well as perceptions.

my brother-in-law moved from nova scotia to calgary, and he's the type of person whose politically right-leaning and believes people are at fault if they have not succeeded. but in nova scotia, you don't really see any natives, and when he got to calgary, we was surprised at the oppression puit upon these people.

many of the natives were put in residential schools where they were abused, and forced to abandon their culture and language and speak only english to conform. the government has literally moved entire communities to free up land for their own use.

it's hard to imagine an end to it all.

If I'm not mistaken Canada tho has taken good initutive in the right direction declaring them natives of north america etc. (other words they can free cross usa/canada) I always heard them as the ones to get blackmarket booze,cigarettes from (possibly because they can freely cross over from usa where they buy the stuff as luxory goods/stuff that is bad for you is heavily taxed.) they still make money selling booze cigarettes for half what you buy them for from regular stores. I saw some natives In the lowly populated area I was from in canada but didn't know very many of them and I travelled thru the politically unstable area where I think they have had the standoffs with the police and have stuff posted up everywhere with bad comments on the quebec police force. (like down with the cops type stuff tagged up on signs/buildings etc.) It is a shame what the white man did to the Native americans. Heck I still haven't fiinished reading bury my heart at wounded knee l I still cant stand to read that book. it's heart wrenching/sad makes you ashamed of your white ancestors.

I am a Metis woman from Saskatchewan, Canada. Which in case You did not know has the highest population of Native/Aboriginal/Indian/etc. in all of Canada. My ancestors, came from the Red River Valley, in Manitoba, and were responsible for bringing Louis Reil from the U.S. to Saskatchewan to start the Reil Rebellion. My Great x5 Grandpa, was the first man killed in the rebellion, Isidore Dumont, and his younger brother is Gabriel Dumont.

You better believe that with relatives like that I am very proud to be a Metis woman. There have been times for sure, that I was ashamed. I remeber being a kid, and as a Metis, was not "Brown " enough for the Native kids at school, and not "White" enough for the Anglo kids. You bet your knickers, it hurts a kids ego when things like that happen. You just feel like dying, as You just don't seem to belong. But eventually, You grow up, and realize that kids are cruel, and that no matter what anyone may say, YOU ARE IMPORTANT, and that YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL.

I think that the Native run casinos, and the TLE (Treaty Land Entightlement) that is going on is amazing, and it is about time. We were at one time a very self sufficient group of peoples. We need to get back to that. We also need to get over what the "whiteman" had done to all of our ancestors. I am not in any way saying that we should forget what has happened in the past, but we have to move beyond it.

The residential schools were awful. I could not imagine being told a a Cree Indian, that I was a savage for speaking the only language that I had ever known. I completely empathize, I have a friend who is not much older than me, and went to residential school. It just breaks my heart. (If anyone is interested, a book t6hat goes through a whole bunch of stories that are told by the people that it happened to is "The Dispossessed" by Geoffery York). There are stories in there that will make anyone shed tears.

Okay, I think that I am going to leave things there. Maybe a bit unfinished, in terms of my train of thought, but I am just getting worked up over that book. Please forgive me for stopping so abruptly.

Wow didn't realize that I wasn't the only one on the forum that went thru the ringer.....but I am glad to be grown and glad to be a "skin"

Toksa!!!

Re: Indians

Carriers Talk

Manufacturers Talk

Mobiledia Community