Dumb Liberalspeak: Indians not Native Americans

 Driving along, listening to Rush Limbaugh, in the old days, I used to laugh a lot. He was just so absurd, so enjoying himself, and one could only imagine what most of his audience was like--and they, clearly, could not matter.  They had to be the boy with the banjo in the holler. How many of them could there even be, people who bought what he was selling?

The actor was actually Italian

But now, with Rush in charlatan heaven, I listen to National Public Radio (NPR) and the experience is not a laugher. It's the agony of fingernails scratching on a blackboard--but, wait. I'm dating myself. Nobody has known what a blackboard is for decades. 

NPR is so relentlessly politically correct, it has become so precious, it is almost impossible to listen to without shouting, "Oh, SHUT UP!"

Most common words and phrases on NPR are, in no particular order: "The most vulnerable,"  "economically disadvantaged," and "terrified" and "challenged"--as in "vertically challenged" (short), or "intellectually challenged" as in stupid or even retarded--and "urban poor" as in Black, African American or Negro (which is vintage Martin Luther King), also "scared" and "frightened" and "scary" and "unprecedented" and the overall gestalt is that of a radio network portraying the world as a threatening place, and its listeners weak, cowering, terrified, mostly feminine, and often prepubertal, unable to defend themselves, except by whimpering and huddling helplessly together,  and hoping some benign, big hero will ride to their rescue.

But one word you will never hear on NPR (or PBS) is "Indian."

Because, you know, "Native Americans" are hurt deeply by being called "Indians" and they find it insulting, and they fall to one knee and tears roll  down their cheeks at such overt racism, and insensitive, predatory language. 

But then, I remember the irreplaceable George Carlin, who had this to say about "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 Dios. Indians. It's a perfectly noble and respectable word.

So let's look at this pussified, trendy bullshit phrase, Native Americans. First of all, they're not natives. They came over the Bering land bridge from Asia, so they're not natives. There are no natives anywhere in the world. Everyone is from somewhere else. All people are refugees, immigrants, or aliens. If there were natives anywhere, they would be people who still live in the Great Rift valley in Africa where the human species arose. Everyone else is just visiting. So much for the "native" part of Native American."

So, there you have it. "Indian" is derived from indigenous people of God. What's wrong with referring to a people or peoples who are people of God?

And that whole idea of "Native" really irks me. As Carlin points out, "Natives" don't own this continent because they got here first. They did not arise from the soil in New England or the Great Plains. They likely migrated here across the Bering Straight, or in boats. They often look quite a lot like Asians, because that's where they migrated in from. But they are not native, as in originating here. They were clearly displaced, but they did not own the land any more than anyone else can "own" land. Ownership is a construction of government.

Kids Who Really Did Need Protection

Just a brief digression: there are no native people and there are no native fish or grasses or trees. Things arrive in some area of geography, and they find a climate, temperatures, food sources amenable to their genomes and so they exploit a niche and flourish. But then some other living thing arrives, a snake fish, a Norway maple tree, a rat, a snake and they are then "invasive" species which are BAD and we must eradicate.

No: Every species is an invasive species. We just like some more than others.

In New Hampshire the beautiful Norway maple with its maroon leaves are illegal: no nursery can sell them, and you cannot even transport them across state lines.

Why? Because some arborists at the University of New Hampshire, do not like maroon trees, and they testified before some legislative committee of bowling alley owners, retired postal workers and restaurateurs and they called Norway maples "an invasive species."

Norway Maple

Of course, you almost never see Norway maples growing free in the forests or parks or free spaces in New Hampshire. You see them around schools, houses and other places where people who love their lovely maroon leaves (which turn bright crimson in the Fall,) have planted them--before the legislature was enlightened by the UNH faculty of horticulture. If this is an invasive species, it is a remarkable docile, well behaved invasion, only appearing where it was invited, or in this case, deliberately planted.

Now back to the Indians.

During the COVID lockdown, the New Hampshire Democrats opened their virtual convention with a group of Native Americans pounding on drums for the longest fifteen minutes in the history of time, to remind us that they were here first and "we," an invasive species, displaced them.

Now, I'm not saying what European immigrants did to the Asian immigrants they called "Indians" or "redskins" was a blessing or a good thing. White, European Americans ruthlessly murdered not just Indians, their children and wives but also the buffalo, and all that was dreadful and movies like "Little Big Man" and "Dances with Wolves" and books like "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" and "Custer Died for Your Sins" have made this case.

But Indians are Indians, as far as I'm concerned and I can hardly abide NPR nowadays. I may get desperate enough to start listening to network news. At least there you have the open hucksterism of commercial news. They are selling stuff, but at least they have few pretensions they are actually dealing in the truth. "Coming up, a story which could save your life!" Or, "Miss this story and you may well seal your doom!" Or, "And now a heartwarming story from Topeka, Kansas..."

"Wait a moment, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Now, THAT would be news.