i really don't know how to express to folks that like. the term indian is apolitical on fucking indian reservations.
a podcast i like recently was discussing a native issue and began unfortunately going on for a while about how the term indian is politically incorrect now, and folks should use native american.
let me first just say. i will chill out about people (especially mostly well-meaning white folks) correcting me or anyone else who says "american indians" the second the united states federal agency responsible for administering and implementing the law in regards to sovereign tribal nations is re-named to the Bureau of Native American Affairs.
but this is not just bc the term native american is newfangled and therefore somehow wrong, it's also because the term itself should often not be used the way people are telling others to use it.
the political crux of the argument against the term native american comes from the idea of 'over-inclusivity' -- folks from the united states of america tend to say 'native american' and picture 539 federally-recognized tribes. they do not tend to picture or know much about even our closest relatives north and south of us and they sure as shit are not picturing the Aymara, the Mapuche, the Kariña. native american means american. the american imperialist project has truly done a nearly uncountable number of harms to the 'native american' community as a whole when we look across fucking America, and. leaving out groups who are suffering doubly if not triply than us because of the philosophy of american exceptionalism that the term "native american" maintains. there is violence inherent in who you believe is an 'american'!!
but also, let's all be for real and acknowledge that we're just pushing ANOTHER EXONYM on native peoples, making our elders and our tribal governments play the euphemism treadmill game and change their language to make other people feel more comfortable. and i believe the group of peoples whose land is still occupied and whose people are still oppressed deserve to use whatever language they choose to use when they are trying to talk about the colonial genocidal violence imposed by the united states against them and how it divided and united a collective of peoples who are still, to this day, surviving and thriving in the face of cultural genocide.
and ultimately the thing tribes understand is that it will always be an act of racist colonial violence to refuse to learn our names and identities, and instead demand that we collapse the histories and languages and cultures of hundreds of independent nations into a clean little box. and whether or not you pick that clean little box's exonym as "indian" or "native american" or whatever. you still won't learn the names of the tribes that call your land home. do you know what year religious gatherings were de-criminalized for your so-called 'native americans'? do you know the name of the activist group that included elders like leonard peltier and led the Trail of Broken Treaties to washington? would you be able to say their name without flinching?
you want to help native people? go out and LEARN.
the name 'alabama' comes likely from a mvskoke (exonym 'creek' or 'muscogee') band that lived near present-day birmingham, who called themselves 'albah amo' -- the thicket-clearers. and motherfuckers, the mvskoke did not vanish. they are alive here today, and ffs there's folks right here in alabama, you personally could go try to learn more about native culture and support native businesses by visiting the public events of the Poarch Creek Band of INDIANS. and while you're there, ask them how you can help to support their fight to protect their sacred land against water pollution from the 'old' problems of agriculture-related soil issues / nutrient runoff availability / foodweb collapse AND the 'new' problems of data centers seeking to buy up tribal land to dump their extra-hot wastewater into!
