Re: It did happen on a Friday...

[Al Geist <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>]

I understand the confusion, and before I got to know more about the 
Native American side of our history, I really didn't think much about 
Chief's/Indians, baseball teams called the Redskins, or why anyone would 
get upset over John Wayne killing all those pesky Indians attacking the 
settler's wagon train.  I think the problem rests with the fact that 
there are no common terms in our language for master/slave, 
chief/indian, etc. that involve non-Native American or non-African 
American ethnic groups.  Have you ever heard hard drives referred to as 
King/Knight/Serf, or German/Bavarian, or French/Coriscan?  And why not?  
Ironically, I am about the most politically incorrect person you'd ever 
meet.  Yet, I've been thinking lately that maybe that political 
incorrectness is also a conservative (I shudder at even using the word) 
way of maintaining the status quo.  Sure, we can say that master/slave 
or chief/indian has nothing to do with skin color or ethnic background 
and question why in the world anyone would be upset, but in a sense 
isn't that a way of looking down on the individuals that do equate those 
terms to skin color and ethnic background.  Until I married a wonderful 
woman with Indian blood, I had no idea of the impact of certain words on 
their culture.  "Indians" in this sense may refer to those subordinate 
to the Chief, and for most of us, we cannot figure out how someone can 
get offended by the use of the "chief/indian" or for that matter 
"master/slave" combination.  I agree with Bryan in that there probably 
is no culture that has not played the part of master/slave.  Even the 
Native Americans were guilty of this; however, the point is not that 
this relationship did or did not exist, it's understanding the 
sensitivity that certain terms have on different cultures.  I think this 
is what I was trying to get at.  My background is German/American with a 
splash of Hungarian tossed in for good measure.  Do I get upset when PBS 
portrays Atilla the "Hun" and his warriors as brutal thugs?  Not really 
because I was raised on a farm outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan and I have 
absolutely no connection to my heritage other than my last name is 
German and we ate a lot of bratwurst at our family reunions.  Some 
people have a much closer connection to their ancestors and are much 
more sensitive about word usage than I am in that respect.  Like Zola, I 
also believed at one time that this application of PC-ness in this case 
was rather silly, especially since I've been writing for a living for 
nearly 30 years, but our craft is communication.  Regardless of what us 
old-timers think, we need to be aware of the constant evolution taking 
place in our society and the language it uses.

I'd like to discuss this matter further, but I am heading out the door 
for an interview and hopefully a successful one.


--

Al Geist, Geist Associates
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E-mail: al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com <mailto:al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
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