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Help[Opinions] Re: Native American names (U.S. only)
in reply to a message by Theodora'sMommy
>Are you seriously suggesting that because my one common example happens to be female that I'm feeding the misogynists and neo-nazis and buying into their propaganda?
I certainly don't think you're buying into neo-Nazi propaganda! What I'm trying to say is that if, when addressing historic injustices (or, to be blunt, atrocities), you do it by being hostile to people of a particular race NOW, you're reinforcing racial division. Even if you are being a "good guy" and taking the side of a historically oppressed group, you're still portraying the situation as "white people today vs. Native Americans today." And I do think that mentality - while certainly not responsible for the neo-Nazi resurgence - reinforces the one-race-against-another worldview.
Acknowledged, it was only the one example that was female. To me it seemed very reminiscent of references to "Karen" or "Becky" that imply that white WOMEN are the primary perpetrators of racism and general entitlement.
>People also use "admiration" and a tenuous, vague "ancestor a few generations back" explanation to don headdresses and war paint and buckskins when they don't even remotely identify as Indigenous.
I've never seen that but I'll take your word for it. What if they do consider themselves to be partly Native American because of a definite ancestor a few generations back, though? I also think it's unkind to talk as though people doing this are just coming up with specious excuses to do something insulting, rather than acting out of naivete.
Getting back to names, though - I'd think a black person using a Native American name with some fake meaning from the internet would be just as bad as a white person doing it. I know I'd find "Tiger Lily" cringeworthy either way, for example.
>If you truly believe that and aren't just using it as a gateway to start a different set of arguments, then no amount of rational explanation or critical thinking on my part is going to allow us to agree.
So I'm either being disingenuous or I'm a cretin who is impervious to the power of your rationality and critical thinking? I hate it when people make jerk comments like that.
I just think you can comment on the inappropriateness/tackiness of non-Native Americans using Native American (or "Native American") names without acting like any white person who buys a dreamcatcher - or any white person, period, by virtue of possibly having ancestors who were mean to Native Americans - is racist or somehow responsible for things that were done generations ago. That's the same sort of mentality that leads to multi-generational things like the Hatfields and the McCoys, or the Troubles in Northern Ireland, to pick two non-race-based examples.
I certainly don't think you're buying into neo-Nazi propaganda! What I'm trying to say is that if, when addressing historic injustices (or, to be blunt, atrocities), you do it by being hostile to people of a particular race NOW, you're reinforcing racial division. Even if you are being a "good guy" and taking the side of a historically oppressed group, you're still portraying the situation as "white people today vs. Native Americans today." And I do think that mentality - while certainly not responsible for the neo-Nazi resurgence - reinforces the one-race-against-another worldview.
Acknowledged, it was only the one example that was female. To me it seemed very reminiscent of references to "Karen" or "Becky" that imply that white WOMEN are the primary perpetrators of racism and general entitlement.
>People also use "admiration" and a tenuous, vague "ancestor a few generations back" explanation to don headdresses and war paint and buckskins when they don't even remotely identify as Indigenous.
I've never seen that but I'll take your word for it. What if they do consider themselves to be partly Native American because of a definite ancestor a few generations back, though? I also think it's unkind to talk as though people doing this are just coming up with specious excuses to do something insulting, rather than acting out of naivete.
Getting back to names, though - I'd think a black person using a Native American name with some fake meaning from the internet would be just as bad as a white person doing it. I know I'd find "Tiger Lily" cringeworthy either way, for example.
>If you truly believe that and aren't just using it as a gateway to start a different set of arguments, then no amount of rational explanation or critical thinking on my part is going to allow us to agree.
So I'm either being disingenuous or I'm a cretin who is impervious to the power of your rationality and critical thinking? I hate it when people make jerk comments like that.
I just think you can comment on the inappropriateness/tackiness of non-Native Americans using Native American (or "Native American") names without acting like any white person who buys a dreamcatcher - or any white person, period, by virtue of possibly having ancestors who were mean to Native Americans - is racist or somehow responsible for things that were done generations ago. That's the same sort of mentality that leads to multi-generational things like the Hatfields and the McCoys, or the Troubles in Northern Ireland, to pick two non-race-based examples.
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