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[OT] Inuit? Eskimo?

Geoff Gerrietts geoff at gerrietts.net
Wed Oct 22 13:31:52 EDT 2003 
Quoting Anton Vredegoor (anton at vredegoor.doge.nl):
> Erik Max Francis <max at alcyone.com> wrote:
> 
> >I'm still not sure what you're objecting to in the bigger issue. 
[...]
> 
> Since you cut away the problem my post was about in your first reply
> to my post it's not a surprise you are now having difficulties seeing
> the bigger issue, which IMO was about solving this analogy problem. 

I think there's a misunderstanding growing here. If I can summarize
what I've discovered by reading this interesting but grossly off-topic
thread, I will. Maybe someone else who's been reading the whole thing
can summarize.

> >    "Native American" is to "American Indian" as ______ is to "Eskimo".

This analogy puzzle tries to use "Native American" as an example of a
more politically sensitive term replacing an older, less politically
sensitive term (in this case, "American Indian"). There are several
problems with this formulation, though. There's also a problem with
the term we're being asked to fill in a value against: "Eskimo" can be
meant in a couple different ways, one correct and one incorrect.

The relationship between "Native American" and "American Indian" is
not clear-cut. A great deal of political sentiment is tied up in both
terms. While most Americans, particularly those who are accustomed to
making an effort at political sensitivity, tend to regard "Native
American" as a politically sensitive replacement for "American
Indian", this is not entirely true.

For many people who would be labelled "Native American", this is not
an acceptable formulation. Probably for the same reasons, they would
object to my use of the word "indigenous" in preceding paragraphs.
Also, according to the precise definition of the term "Native
American", this term may well represent a superset of what was
previously intended by "American Indian" -- in particular, there's
some concern that native Phillipinos might be included in "Native
Americans", but are definitely not included in "American Indians".

Further, it appears that "Eskimo" is not as clearly understood as we
thought it was. Some portion of our audience believes Eskimo to be a
pejorative term. Some portion of our audience regards Eskimo as a
tribal name.

Where the original question tried to sort out "What term has replaced
Eskimo in the same way Native American has replaced American Indian?"
But it appears that Native American hasn't really replaced American
Indian in the simple way we thought it had. Meanwhile, for some prior
usages of "Eskimo", that term is still correct: it identifies a
specific cultural/ethnic/tribal group. In other ways, there doesn't
appear to be a real equivalent. While "all descendents of indigineous
peoples" seem to have some kind of collective identity, it does not
appear that "all descendents of indigineous peoples that lived north
of the Arctic" do.

--G.

-- 
Geoff Gerrietts                <geoff at gerrietts net>
"I have read your book and much like it." --Moses Hadas
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