Doesn’t anyone else think so? November 5, 2007

Wow, two blogs in one week.
Well, I think I am going to try to blog whenever I get the urge to write what’s on my mind. I will also try to talk about cool events and things I do. Anyway, it will still be about my experience in Japan, because that’s where I’m living, and there are certain experiences one can have no where else — like the one I’m having now.
So two days ago I was presented with a member of a stack of ‘ABC’ flashcards, and asked if I felt it was okay to say ‘I’ as in ‘Indian’. I Wish I could leave room here for your response to that first question.
I was then asked if it is okay to say ‘Indian’, to which I responded “Yes, it is…yeah that’s okay and doesn’t bother me, though someone else might have a problem with it…But I do have a problem with the image…” The image on the card was of a young boy, dressed in leather pants and paint, holding a tomahawk war axe high, and his eyes were indeed crossed.
Failing to receive the needed answer, the same question was asked of other instructors. It came back around to me that night, in the form of a discussion on what ‘PCness’ (being politically correct) is doing to culture (I’m still not sure if by ‘culture’ he meant culture in general, or various cultures). But really it was more a less an obsure blast against being PC and the teacher who had a problem with the card (me). I dropped into this conversation somewhere near but not at the begining, so I got to hear part of the orators introduction. I agreed with what he said, to some extent, because I feel that PCness is just a cover, a safety blanket we use when we’re not sure if we are going to offend someone. Ultimately it does nothing to help us absolve those offenses, and people are often offended anyway. Besides what is deemed as PC changes with all the other latest trends. It’s really superficial and, as noted in this case, often causes anger or frustration. Anyway by the time he got to the card I could already sense where his speech was going. Then he brought up the card. He demanded to know why Indian was offensive, and how could using ‘Native American’ be better. I was not the only person there, but I was the only American — though I forgot that at the time — anyway I repsonded with “actually I think Indian is the best term, and I know many will agree, since it is the term prefered by every Indian I’ve ever met. It represents the fact that it is our oppressors who write history and choose what we are to be called.” I was then asked who gave the Indians that name, the British, the Spanish, or the Portugese. Of course the answer is “well I guess you could say Spanish, since they funded Colombus’s expedition, and it was he who was so determined to claim it was India that they later threw him in jail for his obsurdity.” (I wish I could have said it as well then as I can now, but when I’m a little drunk I often think I sound this good anyway. This is the gist of what I said, in less and more precise terms.) It was then stated that people at the time thought the world was flat (hmm, the anwer is no, which led to more discussion). I was having this conversation with two native English speakers, I felt pretty good, but I was leaving the original progenitor of this topic in the dust. (Well, I’ve sort of fallen into bragging here — haven’t I?). I said somewhere in this conversation “what bothered me about that card was the image,” which I explained. Unfortunatley, the point was lost. I’m afraid that no one else associates that image with the true problem that there is still a belittling of the culture obviously, for the card was purchased new. It was a throwback to the Disney cartoons that many have tried to forget. A little Hiawatha who can’t keep his pants up. So, where’s the card with the black, thick-lipped islander who wants to eat me for supper? Are there any other cards that use either ethnicity or nationality as a reference to phonetics? NO. If it were a whole alpahbet of nationality cards, the image would still be bad of course. So my orginal question: “Why can’t we just change it?” Why can’t we just say ‘I’ as in India, or indigo, or igloo? Or if you wan’t to say Indian, why not have a picture of Sitting Bull, or Crazy Horse? The occupation of Alcatraz in ‘69 would be a great way to represent the culture, at least for northern California. Better yet, why not something that represents the subcontinent?
Of course, I’d like to hear more opinions.