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This may seem kind of stupid but I am kind of stupid, is there a list somewhere of phrases that are stupid or insensitive racially or gender biased? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said "well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip." And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.

Sadly, it hadn't occurred to me until it's already said.

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[–] snowe 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You can still be called Indian, there's no reason they get a monopoly on the name... Just like people call people from USA "Americans" even though that literally applies to 35 countries, you can still call canadians "americans" or peruvians "americans". Context clues give people a lot of information, you don't need to always be explicit. You can also do exactly what I did above and specify "American Indian", which clearly gave you enough information to proceed to make the comment you did..

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is a very dumb argument. Using proper identifiers for citizens of different countries is not a matter of monopoly. Nobody calls the indigenous people of other countries "Indians", so why should Native Americans be called "Indians"? Ever heard of Australian Aboriginals or Canadian Wet'suwet'en or other people being called "Indians"? This argument is so dumb, should Pakistanis start calling themselves Germans and Russians should start calling themselves Africans, because no monopoly?

America spans 2 whole fucking continents and islands surrounding them. India is not a continent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

so why should Native Americans be called “Indians”

Because that is what they were primarily called for hundreds of years, and what many still prefer to be called today.

Note that the American Indian Movement, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian reservations, etc all still use the term.

Ever heard of [...] Canadian Wet’suwet’en or other people being called “Indians”?

It's been changing there much quicker than in the US, but, yes. And Canada's Indian Act is still in force (and still called that) today.