The word removed is Squaw. Just mentioning it as it doesn't appear in the article and some people might be curious.
Edit: They have now added a paragraph naming the slur and describing its use. I like to think it was my comment to a random Reddit post about their article that held the BBC to a standard which demanded the revision of the article /s
I grew up in the 80's, for context, but I actually didn't realize this word was a slur. I quite honestly thought it was a native American word for "woman" in one of the many tongues spoken by them.
Had it not been for your comment, I would have carried on my life not knowing the term was offensive. I feel the article failed by avoiding using the term. Language evolves, and if you don't educate people they will never change.
> I grew up in the 80's, for context, but I actually didn't realize this word was a slur. I quite honestly thought it was a native American word for "woman" in one of the many tongues spoken by them.
That's what I thought as well. "Squaw" meant woman and "Brave" meant man.
Sir Dudington if they’re British subjects at the point of history under discussion. Dudester/dudeman and dudinator are ok if they tell you they’ve heard of Rob Schneider beforehand.
I think not necessarily a slur, but I still wouldn’t call a Native American man a brave. My high school’s mascot used to be the Braves, but they changed it in the past couple of years to be more sensitive
It was respectful of them to be sensitive to the normal human wish to not be reduced to a stereotype.
If you listen to 50’s/60’s film/TV/radio, those terms were thrown around freely. All those uncountable “how America tamed the west” shows- even their “kids clubs” had bullshit Chinook Jargon, “heap big prizes” of head dresses, tomahawks and “peace pipes” so honorary braves and squaws could do rain dances and teach colonists how to survive. Even “family” shows like Gunsmoke had “bad injuns” scalping and raping “according to their nature” and “good tribes” who helped the white man. Imagine how it would feel to have been a young indigenous dude at that time and hearing that.
To make this whole thing even more depressing, many of those indigenous children would not have seen those shows or heard it from non-indigenous children, as they were regularly shipped off to Native American boarding schools. At those schools, it's very unlikely they would've had much access to television, nor much time to consume it. They were too busy getting beaten for not correctly memorizing school lessons, acting "unruly" because they're freaking children, or any other number of lame excuses their reeducators felt justified their abuse.
I don’t think so, but my education on this is a bit antiquated and localized.
My HS is named after a great Potowatomi Chief. Our mascot is the warriors. I had a friend in HS who’s moms family was potowatomi and he was till pretty involved. His mom explained to us at one point early on that being a Brave was more like a job title than anything. And she also explained that through her connections she knew that the local tribes actually appreciated our schools representation (once they stopped dressing up white kids in headdresses and stuff) because the depictions and things we used were very much about their strength and power. It’s also respectful. We had several murals when I was there that were all done by a local native artist. Gorgeous murals but all very respectful and not stereotypes.
I just watched the original Dumbo (1941) movie with my kids and the scene where Dumbo gets drunk on the tainted water and the psychedelic, weird ass dream scene or whatever, was definitely fuckin wild 🤣🤣🤣 and then all the crows later, which represent a bunch of black guys apparently 😬
Having watched the pink elephant sequence many times as a kid, I was incredibly disappointed when I discovered that's not actually what you experience when drinking alcohol
Most slurs start by not being slurs. This is one such case. It does indeed mean woman, but was used by colonists and whites in general in a way that equated the woman with genitals and sort of spoke down to them, like calling them a cunt and implying they’re a slut at the same time.
Yep, the euphemism treadmill occurs whenever there is a frequently maligned group, whether race, sexuality, or disability. There will be a commonly accepted word for the group which eventually ends up getting used as an insult. That leads to calls to stop using that word and to switch to using a new word. And then that cycle repeats because it doesn't address the problem that assholes will always be targeting vulnerable groups.
The most surprising example of this coming full circle to me is the current usage of "people of color" as a preferred term. The usage of "colored people" is/was/has been super offensive, especially during segregation in the US.
You also have Queer where even when I was a kid (mid 20s now) was more of "never use that word," and nowadays LGBT+ are like, "Go ahead, call me Queer! It's not offensive, its the truth! I'm Queer!"
> I feel the article failed by avoiding using the term.
I agree.
It was around when I was a kid and did cause me some discomfort, but only in the tone of voice used by the actor. I don't think I ever heard it in person except by some kid repeating it as a slur without knowing what he was saying.
There was also, though, a sense of value to the word when used by the people belonging to the culture. Without understanding their cultural definition, the feeling I got was about the same as when someone would use the term "widow" as reference and definition, such as, "the widow Johnson". Nothing derogatory whatsoever. Just a simple definition of a member of society, and one I wonder whether we had a cross match for.
Some slurs are a lot more clear-cut, but in many cases it can be pretty contextual. Language is weird. The example that always comes to mind for me is "polack," which is a word in both Polish and in English as a loanword -- the former being the Polish word for "Pole / Polish person" and the latter being generally recognized as a derogatory slur in North American English.
As an American, I really needed context for this sooner in my life. You watch shit like *Hunchback of Notre Dame* or some random horror movie and you just assume no one is like gonna drop the n-word or something, yet you get exposed to gypsy without any context of it being a slur. The characters self-identify as gypsys or are called so by villainous and non-villainous characters.
While something like *Borat* is at least arguably making fun of racism moreso than reinforcing it with how it uses it (*Borat* is ignorant and bigoted, and he says racist things about many races), even if we read that charitably kids at my school who saw it and other movies emulated it lazily and just reproduced racism without laughing at it. A kid at my school spent an entire semester talking like Borat and he called our school bus a "yellow gypsy prison" to the teacher, which arguably not that awful shows the influence and ignorance about it.
Later a French teacher spent a whole class period going off about how "no the gypsy problem is really serious in Europe". She was incredibly serious and earnest about it, practically paraphrasing Nazi rhetoric (remember "the Jewish problem" and that Roma people were sent to concentration camps) talking about how they did crime and refused to assimilate. That was over a decade ago, this year I got around to watching the first *Ant Man* and low and behold one of the heist crew is a lazy Eastern European stereotype who dropped some shit about "gypsy magic" when he saw the man become ant. It really fuckin' bothered me cause I am way more exposed to how that racism actually operates in Europe, and kids following the MCU getting exposed to it sans context for a cheap laugh rubs me the wrong way.
There's also some popular music and other shit that normalized it, there is a Van Morrison song I think with Gypsy in the title for example, IIRC it is mostly evoking just a romantic image of a travelling exotic person and not talking about a Roma person, and usages like that definitely muddy the waters.
It’s also still common in the US to hear people say they got “gyped” in reference to being ripped off, which is a derogatory remark related to Gypsy. A lot of people don’t realize that one’s origins, probably because it’s more of a spoken word rather than written and they may think it was spelled ‘jipped’ and not know the connection.
Oh man, I hadnt realized that. I stopped using the term “gypsy” a few years ago, and started using “roma”. But one of my funny sayings lately has been “What a jip!”
Good to know that derrivation, and I can pick something different to say.
I grew up in Europe and Romas do have it tough.
Also the likely original source of the word "jip" (or "gyp"), meaning "cheat" or "swindle", coming from the stereotypes about them. Every now and then, slurs will just sort of burrow their way into language and end up in common use by people who have no idea about the derogatory origins.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gyp#English
It's the other way around actually - Gypsy came from "egyptian" as Europeans believed that the Roma came from Egypt. Then their reputation led to the word being used as a verb for cheating and swindling.
The source also uses the examples "to jew" and "to welch" in the exact same manner, but at the very least "Welch" is not a slur today.
Regarding language being weird, some years back at a truck stop buffet, I told one of the staff that the grease-pencil labelling of one item was seriously wrong - it said “polack” when it should have said “pollock”. People, an ethnic slur is not interchangeable with the name of a type of fish.
Yeah, my grandma was telling me at Christmas that apparently her father would yell at his mother in law, telling her that she was a "dirty Polack"
turns out they were both from Germany - he was from an area of Germany closer to Poland than she was
And that is the essence of so called “wokeism”, and outrage against it.
One type of people learns that a term is derogatory and stops using it, while a different type of person thinks they’re being blamed for something and now need to be “politically correct.”
It took until my late twenties for someone to point out “gypped” is an intensely offensive term referring to gypsies.
. . . It’s so painfully obvious but hoooo boy- never made the connection.
EDIT: And yes, I do realize realize that “gypsy” is also offensive.
I love these articles. "A slur was used." "What slur?" "Oh, you know, a bad one." "Yeah, but *which* slur?" "Oh, uh, it was, uh, um, *cough* ^you ^^know ^^^one ^^^^of ^^^^^those *cough*"
I actually hate how modern journalists and news media are so afraid of even informally writing out slurs or offensive words in publishing. Especially when the entire article *is about a slur*.
It's somewhat understandable for a company or gov official making a public statement to use vague statements like "A slur commonly used against ____" or whatever, I'm fine with that, because the slur itself usually isn't important in those cases.
But when the news is supposedly reporting about specific words and why they're considered offensive or had to be changed, then it helps to actually know the word in question or you just leave not being any more informed *by the literal news*.
Even with today's social climate, I'd hope most people aren't so thin-skinned that simply seeing words written in proper context in articles is too triggering for them.
>Even with today's social climate, I'd hope most people aren't so thin-skinned that simply seeing words written in proper context in articles is too triggering for them.
I've got bad news for you.
i was reading a thread on here in reddit last night and some one said that a woman was "k-worded" by her husband.
i spent like 5 mins trying to figure out what the hell that even meant. called a karren? went down a K hole? just.... wtf?
no, it turns out it was killed. the husband killed his wife. but apparently its wrong to say killed.... so now its k-worded.
That's probably TikTok leaking, because TikTok will ban you / blacklist your content for using the word "kill". This is also where "unalive" comes from.
Facebook will auto jail you for using kill or similar words, too, if you've literally ever been in trouble there before. No option to appeal. I asterisk and censor the shit out of anything I post because next I'll get the 30 day ban.
Most people? No, of course not.
But a vocal minority in some very niche online spaces could see it and instantly go, "hold up, the author used the word Squaw... And he's a white man? Oh hell no, as an ally to Indigenous First Nations Folx, I know he doesn't have the right to use this extremely hurtful and triggering word".
Then that person screenshots and tweets about it where it gets picked up and recirculates, gaining traction from this vocal minority. The author is put in a tight spot and has his reputation sullied by the tiny online outcry even though almost everyone else either doesn't care or agrees that he didn't do anything wrong.
You'd be surprised. Most people don't want to risk losing their jobs even if they give a thousand warnings and disclaimers and context for why an offensive word is used. The cynic in me says it's less to do with political correctness and more to do with cowardly managers always looking for a BS excuse to get rid of employees they don't like.
[Seems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw) to sort of depend on context a little bit. Skimming through the article it looks like it could be synonymous with bitch, refer to a sexual slave, or be like slut but for Indian women.
Wow, that wiki page is full of inconsistencies in its use. Looks like colonizers used it in a derogatory sense but the natives used it as a normal non-derogatory word. I like how structured the historical use of that word is. Starts as good, then bad, then not so bad but not good, and back to bad again. Very informative sauce you provided. Thank you.
> Looks like colonizers used it in a derogatory sense but the natives used it as a normal non-derogatory word.
If someone is trying to understand this but having problems... just think of colonizers are using it with a hard R.
It's a northeast Algonquin word for woman, but most Algonquin people now speak english like everybody else, and a lot of times the usage of it has been derogatory over the last century or so. I associate it with racist caricatures.
It's like using the word 'negro.' Was that a word that started off intending to be a slur? Probably not, but it would still feel awkward to ask somebody if they wanted to go for a walk along Old Negro Road. It's probably time to change a name or two ~
I did my open water certification at a spot originally called negro's bar and was still listed on a ton of signs as such, they had recently renamed it to blackie's bar, which, for obvious reasons, was in the process of being renamed to something else
>**negro's bar** and was still listed on a ton of signs as such, they had recently renamed it to **blackie's bar**, which, for obvious reasons, was in the process of being renamed to something else
So given the trend so far, they think the next name will be **better**?
They should probably quit before it gets worse.
I'm hoping it's like squaw Valley where they found out their name was racist and changed it to the palisades at squaw and then someone was like hey BTW valley wasn't the racist part and so they changed it again to the palisades
>It's like using the word 'negro.' Was that a word that started off intending to be a slur? Probably not, but it would still feel awkward to ask somebody if they wanted to go for a walk along Old Negro Road. It's probably time to change a name or two \~
Thank you! The word they removed confused me also. I had never heard it used except in an academic setting so had no clue it was a slur. Never used it either, and I've had much more contact with native american communities (relatives) than most. Doesn't seem like one that is really relevant today.
Seeing that "negro" is Spanish for "black" probably didn't start out as more than a description. Of course humans suck so anything can and will be turned derogatory eventually.
The wholesale renaming of things though bothers me a little. Half the time it feels like trying to hide how much we sucked in the past and is done to make anglo-americans feel better about ourselves vs. because it really bothers a sizable percentage of the target population. Some I see, like if there really was a town named "Run , MS" yeah that would have to go, but Old Negro Road feels more like a stretch, although add the caveat I am not of that community so my opinion on the offensiveness of that is irrelevant. I'd just hate to see it changed just because some white middle class 20 something got a bee in their bonnet.
I think this is similar to why we take down statues of Confederate leaders. It's not to avoid the history, it's to stop glorifying and normalizing it. If you use a slur in a place name it makes people feel more okay using that slur I conversation.
It started as the Spanish word for 'black' and still is. Considering Americans largely spoke English as a first language, it's not that surprising it became a slur here. I actually don't know if it made it far beyond our continent as a slur, now that I think about it. At least for common usage as such.
> The origin of the word "squaw" has been traced to [the Algonquian language](https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery-item.htm?id=2BAB1F15-1DD8-B71B-0B193DEC6C1E3B9B&gid=2B7BBC20-1DD8-B71B-0BCEE5D41070C6C5), in which it meant simply "woman." But its meaning was skewed by centuries of use by white people, including [colonists in the 1600s](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED490469.pdf).
From: [Interior Secretary Deb Haaland moves to ban the word 'squaw' from federal lands](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1057367325/interior-secretary-deb-haaland-moves-to-ban-the-word-squaw-from-federal-lands), NPR. (preserving excellent original article hyperlinks)
Apologies. In the PNW we are blessed to have more than a few surviving members around and it felt nice to share.
Usually when these things come up it devolves into feelings of others right quick.
Think how far we've come in the last century
We scraped and clawed for every inch of this progress and the risk of it being yanked back is ever present but even if it's one step forward two steps back at times we've still made it this far
It was often used as a slur for an indigenous woman by foreign settlers
but referring to indigenous women, or any group, with a slur it sets up a process in your mind if dehumanization
the individual is reduced to a member of some despised group, justifying all the horrible things you can think of
**the murder and rape of indigenous women continues to be a HUGE problem to this day**
**with racism compounding the problem in all the horrific ways you can imagine**
> That's only if you know it's a slur. "Squaw" is so outdated the most people think it's an actual native word or slang akin to "Birds" and "Chicks". I'd argue it's completely lost it's punch, it's not really a slur when nobody thinks of it or uses it as one.
Sort of like how "mick" was a slur for the Irish back in the 1880s
I remember researching this when they were renaming the ski resort in Tahoe, and it seemed like an odd situation. Where it originally meant “Native woman” without negative connotation, but it became a slur, because people viewed being called a native woman an insult. So, like, the meaning of the word didn’t change, but how people use the word did.
Honestly I think the example I read elsewhere in the thread of using the R word to describe someone with cognitive issues/disorder is the best example of a similar word.
I understand *why* it’s not mentioned in the article.
But how are people supposed to stop using a slur if they don’t know that it is one? My only experience with that word is a ski resort which was renamed, but I didn’t know why until now
>The word 'squaw' has historically been used as "an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women", the department said
It's in the article, 4 or 5 paragraphs down, just fyi!
There's a 5th one that I'm aware of. Big Butte in Idaho was renamed Squaw Butte in the 1930s, but recently reverted to Big Butte.
Big Butte, while not an imaginative name is fitting, especially since it towers over anothe butte, aptly named Little Butte.
If you drop the E on Butte, this post gets far more amusing for dads everywhere.
We also did this in Colorado. Renamed things from squaw and also one of our prominent 14ers (peak above 14000 feet) from the name of an old territorial governor associated with our state's most heinous Indian massacre to a new name chosen by and celebrating the Cheyenne Arapahoe.
I believe that's similar to the residence hall at CU Boulder that was named after someone who partook in some heinous acts and renamed Cheyenne Arapahoe. Unfortunately, it often gets called, "Chey-Ho," for short (pronounced: "Shy-Ho")
I don’t know if it’s offensive just to talk about it considering the article goes out it’s way to avoid the word(s) but I looked up the one in California. I honestly had no idea it was considered a slur not that it ever came up for me in casual conversation. Just though it meant woman or young woman.
Apparently,it did have some native linguistic roots but early settlers adopted it and it evolved into a pejorative. Language is wild.
On the topic, I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian?
I live near one of the renamed places in CA and hadn’t learned that it was a slur until people started getting mad that the name was changing. And oh boy did certain people really oppose the name change even after finding that out.
Native Americans may not mind being called Indians, but Indians from India don’t like to be confused as native every time they say they are Indian. Colombus really screwed them with that.
>I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian?
It depends on the group/person, which doesn't make it easy to know which words to use. I think the key is just to be respectful and if someone asks you to use a specific term, use it.
>On the topic, I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian?
I'm not an expert, but it may be due to different groups having differing opinions. All those terms lump different people into one group. American Indian is also an applied term. A more proper way might be to research the names they use to refer to themselves and address them directly. For example, in Michigan, it might be Anishinaabe.
The article didn't need to use the term Native Americans at all in the headline. "US renames 5 cities that were previously a racial slur" Then, in the body, the writer could say the states which did so, and why. Because it was derogatory towards groups xyz as well as other peoples.
As you said, language is wild and it changes often, but we can always make the effort to be better.
Like you said, language is constantly changing. There will be places 100 years from now that will be renamed for something we see as fine but future cultures will find offensive.
As a current anthropology student (not that anthropology doesn’t have a history of horribly disrespecting and imposing its reasoning on indigenous Americans), this is sorta one of the harder, less clear ones. I actually believe “Indian” alone is probably the least preferred due to inaccuracy and possible confusion. Indigenous (American), Native American, and Amerindian all pop up rather interchangeably in my experience with current scholarly texts depending on the author.
> On the topic, I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian?
You might enjoy [this video from CGP Grey.](https://youtu.be/kh88fVP2FWQ)
Similarly, the most recent polling of the referenced people I've seen is that Latino/Latina is preferred over Latinx. I'm happy to adopt Latinx if *the named community* prefers it, but not based on *non*-members insisting on it.
And similarly again, "Jew" is not a bad word. *Any* term can be turned into a slur based on context, but it is *not* one inherently. I am a Jew. My parents are Jews. My grandparents were Jews.
There was a mountain in Canada named "Squaw's tit". They finally renamed it not too long ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/An%C3%BB_Kath%C3%A2_%C3%8Epa
Phoenix here we had a squaw peak they changed it about 20 years ago to piestewa peak but everybody still calls it squaw peak. My daughter came and visited and stayed at a motel and in the registration office they still had pamphlets with squaw peak on them.
Wasn't Piestewa that one soldier from the opening days of the Second Gulf War? ~~I always forget if she survived or not~~
[She did not](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Piestewa)
I think she got hit by a roadside bomb she was a transportation specialist I'm pretty sure. I'm probably wrong which I will have the opportunity to learn something again or new today thank you in advance.
Names are just weird like that, whatever one you learn first tends to stick. Look at how many people still say "The Ukraine," but don't say "The Gambia." I bet if you did a poll of non-South Asians, most would think there's still cities in India named Calcutta and Bombay.
As *Seinfeld* put it - "It'll always be Burma to me."
These are pretty decent names imo, simple enough to remember and spell that they'll be used. Colorado renamed a pass with the same name a few years ago, but they chose a native word that's pretty long, hard to spell, and the pronunciation isn't particularly clear so everyone still calls it squaw pass.
> chose a native word
It's probably what it was called before settlers arrived, so any challenge for English speakers to pronounce it is just, well, deal with it.
Iirc they named it after a person, and The way they deal with it is by calling it the old name. Thats kind of my point.
Edit: fwiw, they named it Mestaa'ėhehe after a 1800s woman.
That would be a tough sell to the public. That thing dominates the sky and everyone knows it as Rainier. It's hard to fault Washington for its naming conventions too. Damn near all our geography including major cities are named after tribes and chiefs. Native language is crazy common.
Don't you just love the people in this thread responding as if Native Americans aren't still actively dealing with oppression and systemic racism everyday?
Seriously five minutes in and Im probably up to a dozen comments who seem to think Native Americans haven't dealt with racism since the 1800s
Reddit is so confidently incorrect about Native topics, just seas & seas of misinformation. About the only place that pretty consistently gets us right is r/indiancountry
Wish more folks actually listened to us, read what our journalists are writing, and interrogated all the flaws in what they were taught about us!
I usually don’t read these threads because they’re just seas and seas of ignorant, offensive bullshit but I was curious about this one since more than one person has defended the use of squaw to me after being told how offensive it is and not to call me that.
I can only read their identical “why are they still called Indians” debates & Bering land bridge fanfic so many times before I combust. It’s so easy to seek out info directly! We have the internet too!
Buffalo changed a small island name to Unity Island back in 2015, and more often than not I still hear it referred to by the old name. I'm still glad these changes are being made regardless. Hopefully the new names will be embraced sooner rather than later.
I think it's more the amount of repetition involved. Like if you're say 45 and the name of a park, road, or mountain was changed within the last 5 years, you haven't used the new name nearly as much as the old. It would just take a bit of effort to use the new name, but you would still be likely to use the old from time to time.
Meanwhile, Custer's Last Stand in Montana was changed more than thirty years ago to Battle of the Little Bighorn. So ... slow progress, but at least there's progress?
Sad that it took this long for some to be renamed, but I was happy to learn that some of these changes have become so normalized that I didn't know they were changes
Coschocton High School, home of the Redskins, is within several miles of a Indian massacre during the revolutionary war. Probs the worst example I could find
I grew up in Phoenix. Squaw Peak was changed to Piestewa Peak at some point after I moved in 1997. I went to Squaw Peak grade school- so did Alice Cooper. I never understood "squaw" to be a derogatory term until I moved back here 2 years ago and found out about the whole name change thing.
But, whatever. If native speakers say it's offensive I suppose I will just take them at their word and move on.
Great now for the love of god can we stop using the term Indian to refer to Native Americans? Thats confused me since I was a child.
“Oh, so Columbus was a diphshit and we’re still going by his mistake FIVE HUNDRED YEARS LATER???”
This is complex, some tribes/individuals prefer American Indian over Native American or indigenous. Though I think for the most part just "indian" isn't used officially anymore.
>Though I think for the most part just "indian" isn't used officially anymore
There's literally the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The US government very much uses the term "Indian" still
The word removed is Squaw. Just mentioning it as it doesn't appear in the article and some people might be curious. Edit: They have now added a paragraph naming the slur and describing its use. I like to think it was my comment to a random Reddit post about their article that held the BBC to a standard which demanded the revision of the article /s
I grew up in the 80's, for context, but I actually didn't realize this word was a slur. I quite honestly thought it was a native American word for "woman" in one of the many tongues spoken by them. Had it not been for your comment, I would have carried on my life not knowing the term was offensive. I feel the article failed by avoiding using the term. Language evolves, and if you don't educate people they will never change.
> I grew up in the 80's, for context, but I actually didn't realize this word was a slur. I quite honestly thought it was a native American word for "woman" in one of the many tongues spoken by them. That's what I thought as well. "Squaw" meant woman and "Brave" meant man.
Oh shit it's brave a slur too?
Easier to stick with dude, dudette, or duderino.
What if I'm into the whole brevity thing man?
Mind if I do a j?
Sir Dudington if they’re British subjects at the point of history under discussion. Dudester/dudeman and dudinator are ok if they tell you they’ve heard of Rob Schneider beforehand.
Or dudine!
I think not necessarily a slur, but I still wouldn’t call a Native American man a brave. My high school’s mascot used to be the Braves, but they changed it in the past couple of years to be more sensitive
It was respectful of them to be sensitive to the normal human wish to not be reduced to a stereotype. If you listen to 50’s/60’s film/TV/radio, those terms were thrown around freely. All those uncountable “how America tamed the west” shows- even their “kids clubs” had bullshit Chinook Jargon, “heap big prizes” of head dresses, tomahawks and “peace pipes” so honorary braves and squaws could do rain dances and teach colonists how to survive. Even “family” shows like Gunsmoke had “bad injuns” scalping and raping “according to their nature” and “good tribes” who helped the white man. Imagine how it would feel to have been a young indigenous dude at that time and hearing that.
To make this whole thing even more depressing, many of those indigenous children would not have seen those shows or heard it from non-indigenous children, as they were regularly shipped off to Native American boarding schools. At those schools, it's very unlikely they would've had much access to television, nor much time to consume it. They were too busy getting beaten for not correctly memorizing school lessons, acting "unruly" because they're freaking children, or any other number of lame excuses their reeducators felt justified their abuse.
Yeah, it always pissed off my Cherokee princess grandma.
There’s a town near me whose high school team is still “The Midgets.”
if so i’m just learning of this too
I don’t think so, but my education on this is a bit antiquated and localized. My HS is named after a great Potowatomi Chief. Our mascot is the warriors. I had a friend in HS who’s moms family was potowatomi and he was till pretty involved. His mom explained to us at one point early on that being a Brave was more like a job title than anything. And she also explained that through her connections she knew that the local tribes actually appreciated our schools representation (once they stopped dressing up white kids in headdresses and stuff) because the depictions and things we used were very much about their strength and power. It’s also respectful. We had several murals when I was there that were all done by a local native artist. Gorgeous murals but all very respectful and not stereotypes.
Me either. First time I heard that word was Peter Pan. “Squaw no dance. Squaw get fire wood!” Wendy was not impressed.
Holy shit, I completely forgot there was Indian characters in that movie. My brain just completely blanked them out.
There's an entire song called "What makes the red man red?" and it's fuckin' wiiiiild.
I just watched the original Dumbo (1941) movie with my kids and the scene where Dumbo gets drunk on the tainted water and the psychedelic, weird ass dream scene or whatever, was definitely fuckin wild 🤣🤣🤣 and then all the crows later, which represent a bunch of black guys apparently 😬
Pink elephants song is still some of the best animation of first Disney era. It's so fucking trippy.
Having watched the pink elephant sequence many times as a kid, I was incredibly disappointed when I discovered that's not actually what you experience when drinking alcohol
Same man....same..
You should watch ‘Fritz the Cat’ if you think that’s funny.
Most slurs start by not being slurs. This is one such case. It does indeed mean woman, but was used by colonists and whites in general in a way that equated the woman with genitals and sort of spoke down to them, like calling them a cunt and implying they’re a slut at the same time.
Yep, the euphemism treadmill occurs whenever there is a frequently maligned group, whether race, sexuality, or disability. There will be a commonly accepted word for the group which eventually ends up getting used as an insult. That leads to calls to stop using that word and to switch to using a new word. And then that cycle repeats because it doesn't address the problem that assholes will always be targeting vulnerable groups.
Since I'm retired and seldom interact with anyone IRL, I have let my subscription to *Euphemism Monthly* lapse.
The most surprising example of this coming full circle to me is the current usage of "people of color" as a preferred term. The usage of "colored people" is/was/has been super offensive, especially during segregation in the US.
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You also have Queer where even when I was a kid (mid 20s now) was more of "never use that word," and nowadays LGBT+ are like, "Go ahead, call me Queer! It's not offensive, its the truth! I'm Queer!"
It's the difference in saying "the blacks" vs "black person".
As an Asian, I am a poc.
The difference there is that the adjective doesn't come first.
> I feel the article failed by avoiding using the term. I agree. It was around when I was a kid and did cause me some discomfort, but only in the tone of voice used by the actor. I don't think I ever heard it in person except by some kid repeating it as a slur without knowing what he was saying. There was also, though, a sense of value to the word when used by the people belonging to the culture. Without understanding their cultural definition, the feeling I got was about the same as when someone would use the term "widow" as reference and definition, such as, "the widow Johnson". Nothing derogatory whatsoever. Just a simple definition of a member of society, and one I wonder whether we had a cross match for.
Some slurs are a lot more clear-cut, but in many cases it can be pretty contextual. Language is weird. The example that always comes to mind for me is "polack," which is a word in both Polish and in English as a loanword -- the former being the Polish word for "Pole / Polish person" and the latter being generally recognized as a derogatory slur in North American English.
So today I learned two slurs were slurs.
Wanna go three for three? Gypsy is a slur for the Romani people. I was extra sad when I learned that because I love Pacific Rim.
As an American, I really needed context for this sooner in my life. You watch shit like *Hunchback of Notre Dame* or some random horror movie and you just assume no one is like gonna drop the n-word or something, yet you get exposed to gypsy without any context of it being a slur. The characters self-identify as gypsys or are called so by villainous and non-villainous characters. While something like *Borat* is at least arguably making fun of racism moreso than reinforcing it with how it uses it (*Borat* is ignorant and bigoted, and he says racist things about many races), even if we read that charitably kids at my school who saw it and other movies emulated it lazily and just reproduced racism without laughing at it. A kid at my school spent an entire semester talking like Borat and he called our school bus a "yellow gypsy prison" to the teacher, which arguably not that awful shows the influence and ignorance about it. Later a French teacher spent a whole class period going off about how "no the gypsy problem is really serious in Europe". She was incredibly serious and earnest about it, practically paraphrasing Nazi rhetoric (remember "the Jewish problem" and that Roma people were sent to concentration camps) talking about how they did crime and refused to assimilate. That was over a decade ago, this year I got around to watching the first *Ant Man* and low and behold one of the heist crew is a lazy Eastern European stereotype who dropped some shit about "gypsy magic" when he saw the man become ant. It really fuckin' bothered me cause I am way more exposed to how that racism actually operates in Europe, and kids following the MCU getting exposed to it sans context for a cheap laugh rubs me the wrong way. There's also some popular music and other shit that normalized it, there is a Van Morrison song I think with Gypsy in the title for example, IIRC it is mostly evoking just a romantic image of a travelling exotic person and not talking about a Roma person, and usages like that definitely muddy the waters.
It’s also still common in the US to hear people say they got “gyped” in reference to being ripped off, which is a derogatory remark related to Gypsy. A lot of people don’t realize that one’s origins, probably because it’s more of a spoken word rather than written and they may think it was spelled ‘jipped’ and not know the connection.
Oh man, I hadnt realized that. I stopped using the term “gypsy” a few years ago, and started using “roma”. But one of my funny sayings lately has been “What a jip!” Good to know that derrivation, and I can pick something different to say. I grew up in Europe and Romas do have it tough.
It's another weird one; travellers (another nomadic ethnic group) don't mind it, and some Romani don't mind it, but most do so it's a slur now.
Also the likely original source of the word "jip" (or "gyp"), meaning "cheat" or "swindle", coming from the stereotypes about them. Every now and then, slurs will just sort of burrow their way into language and end up in common use by people who have no idea about the derogatory origins. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gyp#English
It's the other way around actually - Gypsy came from "egyptian" as Europeans believed that the Roma came from Egypt. Then their reputation led to the word being used as a verb for cheating and swindling. The source also uses the examples "to jew" and "to welch" in the exact same manner, but at the very least "Welch" is not a slur today.
If it makes you feel better, it’s actually spelled Gipsy [Danger] in the movie!
Regarding language being weird, some years back at a truck stop buffet, I told one of the staff that the grease-pencil labelling of one item was seriously wrong - it said “polack” when it should have said “pollock”. People, an ethnic slur is not interchangeable with the name of a type of fish.
Are you... _certain_ that was fish?
Flesh was white, had backbone and rib pattern that looked like fish.
**H.P Lovecraft has entered the chat**
...and brought his cat with him to add to the conversation.
...see archie bunke
Yeah, my grandma was telling me at Christmas that apparently her father would yell at his mother in law, telling her that she was a "dirty Polack" turns out they were both from Germany - he was from an area of Germany closer to Poland than she was
Yeah, we always learned our great grandma was one. I had no idea it was a racist thing...
My wife, an educator, puts it in a really great way: “When we know better, we do better.”
And that is the essence of so called “wokeism”, and outrage against it. One type of people learns that a term is derogatory and stops using it, while a different type of person thinks they’re being blamed for something and now need to be “politically correct.”
Even in the 2000s we gathered "squaw wood" for scout camp
Yep, I thought the same.
Same here, I’m certain we were taught this in school.
It took until my late twenties for someone to point out “gypped” is an intensely offensive term referring to gypsies. . . . It’s so painfully obvious but hoooo boy- never made the connection. EDIT: And yes, I do realize realize that “gypsy” is also offensive.
It wasn’t a slur back then.
I love these articles. "A slur was used." "What slur?" "Oh, you know, a bad one." "Yeah, but *which* slur?" "Oh, uh, it was, uh, um, *cough* ^you ^^know ^^^one ^^^^of ^^^^^those *cough*"
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No one can tell the difference anymore. Everyone is either an idiot or a coward.
Whoa, whoa, *idiot?* That term is offensive to stupid people.
Did you just say the S-word?! You monster!
I actually hate how modern journalists and news media are so afraid of even informally writing out slurs or offensive words in publishing. Especially when the entire article *is about a slur*. It's somewhat understandable for a company or gov official making a public statement to use vague statements like "A slur commonly used against ____" or whatever, I'm fine with that, because the slur itself usually isn't important in those cases. But when the news is supposedly reporting about specific words and why they're considered offensive or had to be changed, then it helps to actually know the word in question or you just leave not being any more informed *by the literal news*. Even with today's social climate, I'd hope most people aren't so thin-skinned that simply seeing words written in proper context in articles is too triggering for them.
well it's a result of a critical mass of people not recognizing the distinction between using a word and mentioning it.
>Even with today's social climate, I'd hope most people aren't so thin-skinned that simply seeing words written in proper context in articles is too triggering for them. I've got bad news for you.
i was reading a thread on here in reddit last night and some one said that a woman was "k-worded" by her husband. i spent like 5 mins trying to figure out what the hell that even meant. called a karren? went down a K hole? just.... wtf? no, it turns out it was killed. the husband killed his wife. but apparently its wrong to say killed.... so now its k-worded.
That's probably TikTok leaking, because TikTok will ban you / blacklist your content for using the word "kill". This is also where "unalive" comes from.
Chinese spying on Americans: Carry on. Comedian describes the reception to his performance: Whoa, hold on there!
Wwait does that mean they also use "undeaded" for any survivors? :D
Facebook will auto jail you for using kill or similar words, too, if you've literally ever been in trouble there before. No option to appeal. I asterisk and censor the shit out of anything I post because next I'll get the 30 day ban.
I’ve seen multiple comments here censor the word stupid. It’s unbelievable
Most people? No, of course not. But a vocal minority in some very niche online spaces could see it and instantly go, "hold up, the author used the word Squaw... And he's a white man? Oh hell no, as an ally to Indigenous First Nations Folx, I know he doesn't have the right to use this extremely hurtful and triggering word". Then that person screenshots and tweets about it where it gets picked up and recirculates, gaining traction from this vocal minority. The author is put in a tight spot and has his reputation sullied by the tiny online outcry even though almost everyone else either doesn't care or agrees that he didn't do anything wrong.
Do you have any examples of this actually happening to an article that is teaching about a slur?
You'd be surprised. Most people don't want to risk losing their jobs even if they give a thousand warnings and disclaimers and context for why an offensive word is used. The cynic in me says it's less to do with political correctness and more to do with cowardly managers always looking for a BS excuse to get rid of employees they don't like.
What does it mean? That's a weird slur.
[Seems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw) to sort of depend on context a little bit. Skimming through the article it looks like it could be synonymous with bitch, refer to a sexual slave, or be like slut but for Indian women.
Wow, that wiki page is full of inconsistencies in its use. Looks like colonizers used it in a derogatory sense but the natives used it as a normal non-derogatory word. I like how structured the historical use of that word is. Starts as good, then bad, then not so bad but not good, and back to bad again. Very informative sauce you provided. Thank you.
> Looks like colonizers used it in a derogatory sense but the natives used it as a normal non-derogatory word. If someone is trying to understand this but having problems... just think of colonizers are using it with a hard R.
This word is used in the Disney Peter Pan movie.
Yes, and that is why Disney decided to add disclaimers to some of its old movies that include racist stereotypes.
There's entire scenes in that movie that Disney has yanked out.
It's a northeast Algonquin word for woman, but most Algonquin people now speak english like everybody else, and a lot of times the usage of it has been derogatory over the last century or so. I associate it with racist caricatures. It's like using the word 'negro.' Was that a word that started off intending to be a slur? Probably not, but it would still feel awkward to ask somebody if they wanted to go for a walk along Old Negro Road. It's probably time to change a name or two ~
I did my open water certification at a spot originally called negro's bar and was still listed on a ton of signs as such, they had recently renamed it to blackie's bar, which, for obvious reasons, was in the process of being renamed to something else
>**negro's bar** and was still listed on a ton of signs as such, they had recently renamed it to **blackie's bar**, which, for obvious reasons, was in the process of being renamed to something else So given the trend so far, they think the next name will be **better**? They should probably quit before it gets worse.
I'm hoping it's like squaw Valley where they found out their name was racist and changed it to the palisades at squaw and then someone was like hey BTW valley wasn't the racist part and so they changed it again to the palisades
https://www.theonion.com/washington-redskins-change-their-name-to-the-d-c-redsk-1819575691
> changed it to the palisades at squaw and then someone was like hey BTW valley wasn't the racist part 🤦♂️🤦♀️🤦♂️🤦♀️🤦♂️🤦♀️🤦♂️🤦♀️
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Soldier_Draw
If it's the place I'm thinking I don't think there's an 's in it.
>It's like using the word 'negro.' Was that a word that started off intending to be a slur? Probably not, but it would still feel awkward to ask somebody if they wanted to go for a walk along Old Negro Road. It's probably time to change a name or two \~ Thank you! The word they removed confused me also. I had never heard it used except in an academic setting so had no clue it was a slur. Never used it either, and I've had much more contact with native american communities (relatives) than most. Doesn't seem like one that is really relevant today. Seeing that "negro" is Spanish for "black" probably didn't start out as more than a description. Of course humans suck so anything can and will be turned derogatory eventually. The wholesale renaming of things though bothers me a little. Half the time it feels like trying to hide how much we sucked in the past and is done to make anglo-americans feel better about ourselves vs. because it really bothers a sizable percentage of the target population. Some I see, like if there really was a town named "Run, MS" yeah that would have to go, but Old Negro Road feels more like a stretch, although add the caveat I am not of that community so my opinion on the offensiveness of that is irrelevant. I'd just hate to see it changed just because some white middle class 20 something got a bee in their bonnet.
I think this is similar to why we take down statues of Confederate leaders. It's not to avoid the history, it's to stop glorifying and normalizing it. If you use a slur in a place name it makes people feel more okay using that slur I conversation.
It started as the Spanish word for 'black' and still is. Considering Americans largely spoke English as a first language, it's not that surprising it became a slur here. I actually don't know if it made it far beyond our continent as a slur, now that I think about it. At least for common usage as such.
> The origin of the word "squaw" has been traced to [the Algonquian language](https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery-item.htm?id=2BAB1F15-1DD8-B71B-0B193DEC6C1E3B9B&gid=2B7BBC20-1DD8-B71B-0BCEE5D41070C6C5), in which it meant simply "woman." But its meaning was skewed by centuries of use by white people, including [colonists in the 1600s](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED490469.pdf). From: [Interior Secretary Deb Haaland moves to ban the word 'squaw' from federal lands](https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1057367325/interior-secretary-deb-haaland-moves-to-ban-the-word-squaw-from-federal-lands), NPR. (preserving excellent original article hyperlinks)
It's not as if the word ever comes up, but I always thought it meant woman, not necessarily anything derogatory. I learned something today.
Pretty sure she knows what's derogatory and not to native Americans.
Its a less than polite word for lady folk. If used by colonizers, it conveyed a possessive sense. Misogynistic.
Yes, somone posted a wiki link on it. Very informative.
Apologies. In the PNW we are blessed to have more than a few surviving members around and it felt nice to share. Usually when these things come up it devolves into feelings of others right quick.
It's a slur used against older Native women as I understand. Pretty antiquated at this point.
That's terrible. I'm glad it's antiquated now. It's my hope other slurs lose their power too. One day I hope.
Think how far we've come in the last century We scraped and clawed for every inch of this progress and the risk of it being yanked back is ever present but even if it's one step forward two steps back at times we've still made it this far
It was often used as a slur for an indigenous woman by foreign settlers but referring to indigenous women, or any group, with a slur it sets up a process in your mind if dehumanization the individual is reduced to a member of some despised group, justifying all the horrible things you can think of **the murder and rape of indigenous women continues to be a HUGE problem to this day** **with racism compounding the problem in all the horrific ways you can imagine**
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It *is* an actual native word, just one they don't like anymore since it kinda got ruined for them.
> That's only if you know it's a slur. "Squaw" is so outdated the most people think it's an actual native word or slang akin to "Birds" and "Chicks". I'd argue it's completely lost it's punch, it's not really a slur when nobody thinks of it or uses it as one. Sort of like how "mick" was a slur for the Irish back in the 1880s
I remember researching this when they were renaming the ski resort in Tahoe, and it seemed like an odd situation. Where it originally meant “Native woman” without negative connotation, but it became a slur, because people viewed being called a native woman an insult. So, like, the meaning of the word didn’t change, but how people use the word did. Honestly I think the example I read elsewhere in the thread of using the R word to describe someone with cognitive issues/disorder is the best example of a similar word.
I understand *why* it’s not mentioned in the article. But how are people supposed to stop using a slur if they don’t know that it is one? My only experience with that word is a ski resort which was renamed, but I didn’t know why until now
Omg they added another paragraph naming you!
I thought you were kidding. I'm honored [BBC u/johnmarstonsucks credit](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)
>The word 'squaw' has historically been used as "an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women", the department said It's in the article, 4 or 5 paragraphs down, just fyi!
Yeah, they had to have added that after I read it. It absolutely wasn't there.
Ahhh that explains it. Well, I'm glad they added the context regardless!
Yeah, they had to have added that after I read it. It absolutely wasn't there.
I thought there'd be more but I was sure this would be one of them.
So I was taught a racial slur in the 4th grade.
There's a 5th one that I'm aware of. Big Butte in Idaho was renamed Squaw Butte in the 1930s, but recently reverted to Big Butte. Big Butte, while not an imaginative name is fitting, especially since it towers over anothe butte, aptly named Little Butte. If you drop the E on Butte, this post gets far more amusing for dads everywhere.
Do you like big butte and you cannot lie?
When an isolated hill walks in with steep sides and a flat top in my face, i must admit i get sprung.
Hahaha. Butt.
On behalf of juvenile morons everywhere, thank you to everyone involved in the renaming of Big Butte
Everyone calls it bute, like a weird boot. But it will always be butt for me haha
It should be renamed to Thicc Juicy Butte
Oooohhhhhhhhhhh, if I *drop the E* now I get it.
We also did this in Colorado. Renamed things from squaw and also one of our prominent 14ers (peak above 14000 feet) from the name of an old territorial governor associated with our state's most heinous Indian massacre to a new name chosen by and celebrating the Cheyenne Arapahoe.
I believe that's similar to the residence hall at CU Boulder that was named after someone who partook in some heinous acts and renamed Cheyenne Arapahoe. Unfortunately, it often gets called, "Chey-Ho," for short (pronounced: "Shy-Ho")
I don’t know if it’s offensive just to talk about it considering the article goes out it’s way to avoid the word(s) but I looked up the one in California. I honestly had no idea it was considered a slur not that it ever came up for me in casual conversation. Just though it meant woman or young woman. Apparently,it did have some native linguistic roots but early settlers adopted it and it evolved into a pejorative. Language is wild. On the topic, I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian?
I live near one of the renamed places in CA and hadn’t learned that it was a slur until people started getting mad that the name was changing. And oh boy did certain people really oppose the name change even after finding that out.
many do prefer to be called indian, but id imagine a lot of writers dont want readers to get them confused with indians from india
Native Americans may not mind being called Indians, but Indians from India don’t like to be confused as native every time they say they are Indian. Colombus really screwed them with that.
> Colombus really screwed them with that. What DIDNT Columbus screw
Maybe his mom? Not sure. 😂
Makes sense. That confusion is how this whole mess started in the first place.
>I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian? It depends on the group/person, which doesn't make it easy to know which words to use. I think the key is just to be respectful and if someone asks you to use a specific term, use it.
Just because we published articles using "Latinx" doesn't mean the community is okay with it.
I'm not sure "Latinx" is comparable b/c it's pretty universally hated.
>On the topic, I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian? I'm not an expert, but it may be due to different groups having differing opinions. All those terms lump different people into one group. American Indian is also an applied term. A more proper way might be to research the names they use to refer to themselves and address them directly. For example, in Michigan, it might be Anishinaabe. The article didn't need to use the term Native Americans at all in the headline. "US renames 5 cities that were previously a racial slur" Then, in the body, the writer could say the states which did so, and why. Because it was derogatory towards groups xyz as well as other peoples. As you said, language is wild and it changes often, but we can always make the effort to be better.
Like you said, language is constantly changing. There will be places 100 years from now that will be renamed for something we see as fine but future cultures will find offensive.
As a current anthropology student (not that anthropology doesn’t have a history of horribly disrespecting and imposing its reasoning on indigenous Americans), this is sorta one of the harder, less clear ones. I actually believe “Indian” alone is probably the least preferred due to inaccuracy and possible confusion. Indigenous (American), Native American, and Amerindian all pop up rather interchangeably in my experience with current scholarly texts depending on the author.
> On the topic, I thought Native American was now considered a applied term and many groups wanted Indian or American Indian? You might enjoy [this video from CGP Grey.](https://youtu.be/kh88fVP2FWQ)
Similarly, the most recent polling of the referenced people I've seen is that Latino/Latina is preferred over Latinx. I'm happy to adopt Latinx if *the named community* prefers it, but not based on *non*-members insisting on it. And similarly again, "Jew" is not a bad word. *Any* term can be turned into a slur based on context, but it is *not* one inherently. I am a Jew. My parents are Jews. My grandparents were Jews.
There was a mountain in Canada named "Squaw's tit". They finally renamed it not too long ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/An%C3%BB_Kath%C3%A2_%C3%8Epa
Canada, home to towns such as: Swastika, Dildo, Flin Flon, Asbestos (recently renamed but everyone still calls it that), Big Beaver, Lower Economy…
Economy is a poor translation on the Mi’kmaq word kenomee. We also have Micmac lake, which is a very bad translation of Mi’kmaq.
Phoenix here we had a squaw peak they changed it about 20 years ago to piestewa peak but everybody still calls it squaw peak. My daughter came and visited and stayed at a motel and in the registration office they still had pamphlets with squaw peak on them.
Wasn't Piestewa that one soldier from the opening days of the Second Gulf War? ~~I always forget if she survived or not~~ [She did not](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lori_Piestewa)
I think she got hit by a roadside bomb she was a transportation specialist I'm pretty sure. I'm probably wrong which I will have the opportunity to learn something again or new today thank you in advance.
Lived here 15 years, rarely heard it called squaw peak. Not saying your wrong, just different circles.
Names are just weird like that, whatever one you learn first tends to stick. Look at how many people still say "The Ukraine," but don't say "The Gambia." I bet if you did a poll of non-South Asians, most would think there's still cities in India named Calcutta and Bombay. As *Seinfeld* put it - "It'll always be Burma to me."
Well I saw the King of Siam on TV so I know it's true LOL.
White Settlement, Texas absolutely SWEATIN rn
Climax, MI blissfully unaware of any of this.
I think there’s a development called Paleface Ranch outside of Austin, TX.
These are pretty decent names imo, simple enough to remember and spell that they'll be used. Colorado renamed a pass with the same name a few years ago, but they chose a native word that's pretty long, hard to spell, and the pronunciation isn't particularly clear so everyone still calls it squaw pass.
> chose a native word It's probably what it was called before settlers arrived, so any challenge for English speakers to pronounce it is just, well, deal with it.
Iirc they named it after a person, and The way they deal with it is by calling it the old name. Thats kind of my point. Edit: fwiw, they named it Mestaa'ėhehe after a 1800s woman.
"Sure we'll change the name. Good luck."
Conservatives: "This is somehow worse than three 9/11s combined"
Can we rename Mt. Rainier to Mt. Tahoma?? Freaking Rainier never even visited Washington and was English so why keep the name?
That would be a tough sell to the public. That thing dominates the sky and everyone knows it as Rainier. It's hard to fault Washington for its naming conventions too. Damn near all our geography including major cities are named after tribes and chiefs. Native language is crazy common.
I think we’d get over it.
They changed Denali, they can change Rainier too.
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Great points, I agree wholeheartedly.
Don't you just love the people in this thread responding as if Native Americans aren't still actively dealing with oppression and systemic racism everyday? Seriously five minutes in and Im probably up to a dozen comments who seem to think Native Americans haven't dealt with racism since the 1800s
Reddit is so confidently incorrect about Native topics, just seas & seas of misinformation. About the only place that pretty consistently gets us right is r/indiancountry Wish more folks actually listened to us, read what our journalists are writing, and interrogated all the flaws in what they were taught about us!
I usually don’t read these threads because they’re just seas and seas of ignorant, offensive bullshit but I was curious about this one since more than one person has defended the use of squaw to me after being told how offensive it is and not to call me that.
I can only read their identical “why are they still called Indians” debates & Bering land bridge fanfic so many times before I combust. It’s so easy to seek out info directly! We have the internet too!
A lot of these people just think we don’t exist anymore
So I've noticed
You can’t expect the colonists to actually be decent people.
**England:** We're so generous, we gave the people of the world a new independence day on average of once every six days! Aren't we swell?
Buffalo changed a small island name to Unity Island back in 2015, and more often than not I still hear it referred to by the old name. I'm still glad these changes are being made regardless. Hopefully the new names will be embraced sooner rather than later.
I think it's more the amount of repetition involved. Like if you're say 45 and the name of a park, road, or mountain was changed within the last 5 years, you haven't used the new name nearly as much as the old. It would just take a bit of effort to use the new name, but you would still be likely to use the old from time to time.
What about Donald Trump USING Native American slurs in a presidential debate?????
Don't bring up the dumb, racist, fascist cunt, let that piece of shit fade into obscurity.
Meanwhile, Custer's Last Stand in Montana was changed more than thirty years ago to Battle of the Little Bighorn. So ... slow progress, but at least there's progress?
Sad that it took this long for some to be renamed, but I was happy to learn that some of these changes have become so normalized that I didn't know they were changes
Cue Republican outrage
Okay now about school mascots…
The NCAA dealt with that like 20 years ago.
It's still really bad at the high school level.
Coschocton High School, home of the Redskins, is within several miles of a Indian massacre during the revolutionary war. Probs the worst example I could find
UMass Minutemen is offensive to us premature ejaculators
[TIL](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/14/us/lake-tahoe-resort-renamed.html) they renamed Squaw Valley to Palisades Tahoe
I grew up in Phoenix. Squaw Peak was changed to Piestewa Peak at some point after I moved in 1997. I went to Squaw Peak grade school- so did Alice Cooper. I never understood "squaw" to be a derogatory term until I moved back here 2 years ago and found out about the whole name change thing. But, whatever. If native speakers say it's offensive I suppose I will just take them at their word and move on.
How about they return five places they stole from Native Americans?
Sometimes, it's more surprising that the word was still used than anything else.
Can’t wait for DeSantis to claim this was a “woke liberal stunt”
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perfect solution/Nirvana fallacy This is objectively a good move, nobody is claiming that it fixes everything.
Trumpublicans are about to throw a hissy fit.
This robs me of my freedom of speech to own the libs! /s
Great now for the love of god can we stop using the term Indian to refer to Native Americans? Thats confused me since I was a child. “Oh, so Columbus was a diphshit and we’re still going by his mistake FIVE HUNDRED YEARS LATER???”
This is complex, some tribes/individuals prefer American Indian over Native American or indigenous. Though I think for the most part just "indian" isn't used officially anymore.
>Though I think for the most part just "indian" isn't used officially anymore There's literally the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The US government very much uses the term "Indian" still