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Hate crime du jour
“Indian” might not be “nigger” but it’s
definitely “negro”—unless used by Indians
Greg Klein | September 25, 2022
Older people who haven’t had their cerebral matter completely flushed out might remember when “negro” and “coloured” were perfectly inoffensive terms. That changed suddenly with the 1960s replacement “black,” which became “Black” after the Minneapolis Martyrdom.
“Black” had formerly been an offensive term in this context. Its sudden and obligatory prominence surprised many well-meaning people and showed the power of social engineering.
Much more surprisingly “nigger” eventually became acceptable, although only when the pot addresses the kettle.
Of course “Indian” began as a colossal mistake but remained standard for centuries. The term suggested no malice—as languages evolve, an inaccurate appellation can gain new meaning through common usage. And if anyone could claim offence, might it more justifiably be people from central Asia? At any rate “Indian” was far less dumb than “First Nations,” an ideologically bureaucratic term applied to people who didn’t form nations and might not have been first.
But with the hysteria over “genocide” (a far more emotive term that’s monstrously but powerfully false) came a ban on not only “Indian” but also “native” and “aboriginal.” So another of those really cheap outpourings of PC anguish has erupted over “Indian.” Some kindergarten teacher, surprisingly out of touch but expressing nothing that can sanely be considered offensive, used an out-of-date word. She did so on a worksheet given to four-year-old kids in her Niagara-on-the-Lake class.
Further indication of the festering hysteria of our time came from this hyperbolic CBC caution:
Warning: This story contains the image in question.
Here’s the document that so shocked a native mother and the CBC:
The furor was incited by a parent who makes money running some kind of native program for local schools. “You'll hear the term ‘Indian’ used in very racist, hurtful ways from mostly non-Indigenous people, from the past,” she told the CBC.
A school board spokesperson declared, “We are making sure this item is destroyed.”
That’s just the beginning. Apologies and punishment will follow, while media seek out other trivial events to sensationalize. (Just don’t expect any acknowledgement of actual racism, systemic racism at that, in Canadian journalism. And compare this school board’s response to a nearby board that fully supported a teacher for his/her/its sick but ideologically correct spectacle.)
Of course the only acceptable term now is “Indigenous,” and with a rigidly compulsory upper-case initial letter. But that word, assuming it’s accurate in the first place, refers both to Inuit and the people formerly called “Indians.” So what do we call the non-Inuit indigenous?
People living near reserves might have a few choice terms, and native mobs roaming the Commercial Drive area don’t hesitate to voice counter-terminology. But we lack an officially acceptable word to replace “Indian.”
To achieve official acceptance, the new word should come from an indigenous organization. Just a few B.C. examples might include the Adams Lake Indian Band, Ashcroft Indian Band, Bonaparte Indian Band or Boothroyd Indian Band; the Lower Nicola or Lower Similkameen Indian bands; the Penelakut, Penticton or Popkum Indian bands; the Fraser Thompson Indian Services Society; the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs or any one of dozens and dozens of other groups that call themselves “Indian.”
Meanwhile an unfashionable kindergarten teacher faces public shame and employment jeopardy for using the supposedly racist word. This is just one of many, many symptoms of “genocide” mania, itself just one of the social revolution’s several concurrent streams of madness.
Update: Less than three weeks after the CBC vilified a kindergarten teacher for her supposedly offensive spelling assignment, the same “news” outlet provided an equally “offensive” arithmetic quiz: Can you count how many times this CBC story uses the word “Indian”?