Squaw in place names

[chomp]

And if anyone cares about my opinion... this seems to be a case of keeping up with the Jones. As we have evolved as a society and decided not to accept truly offensive and hateful words being used an longer. Now I get the feeling that all sorts of people want to jump in on the action. Think about it - what gets better press than making some outrageous claim? In the last year PETA asked that Fish be officially renamed to Sea Kittens. Outrageous, stupid, impractical? You bet, but it got a ton of press.

Seems like every day someone is doing something more insane to get 15 minutes of fame. IMO - claiming that a word like Squaw is offensive seems like an attention-grab to me, not a legitimate complaint about a current issue in our society.

Remember, there is a difference between someone feeling offended and saying something that is truly hateful. I've got no problem offending people, but I never want to be hateful.

Since I've decided to give myself a vote, I vote to have the word Squaw stick around for a while.

 

[Little Rickie]

I wouldn't offend anyone intentionally, I put my foot in my mouth to easilly enough now, unless I was looking to rumble and that wouldn't be right either.

I don't think this is about getting attention. I think it's about showing respect to other people that history hasn't treated well. If a group of people want to change something and I have no objection if it doesn't have any impact on my life, who cares.

Now if I had an objection to the name of a place that I felt was derogatory to Italians and it bothered me, then I'd like the same privilege of petitioning for a name change.

This is America.

 

[ColdRiverRun]

I don't think this is about getting attention.

Apparently you haven't run into many of this type who bring up these issues. Certainly not all or even many but some it seems there entire life goal.

 

[Little Rickie]

Certainly not all or even many but some it seems there entire life goal.

Sad but true. I'll give you that but you'll see that on any issue.

 

[Paradox]

Remember, there is a difference between someone feeling offended and saying something that is truly hateful. I've got no problem offending people, but I never want to be hateful.

Words to live by.

 

[Stash]

I don't think this is about getting attention. I think it's about showing respect to other people that history hasn't treated well. If a group of people want to change something and I have no objection if it doesn't have any impact on my life, who cares.

I would hope, though, that there was a way to confirm that the group wanted the change and not just some self-empowering subset deciding for that group.

 

[Chip]

Someone needs to update the "book" occassionally also. These offences can be a bit "fluid". I don't have any Native American friends and I seriously doubt I'd refer to a wife or daughter as a Squaw if I did, but I honestly had no idea it was considered so degrading. I think it was a Seinfeld episode where the girl is Native American and Jerry keeps sticking his foot in his mouth using words that had even the slightest negative connotation. I believe there has to be a hateful intent, as mentioned, to offend, not an innocent or historic one.

 

[mookie]

I think it has to do with how these words are spoken.
Why do we always have to be so PC these days?

 

[Tom Rankin]

I would hope, though, that there was a way to confirm that the group wanted the change and not just some self-empowering subset deciding for that group.

My kids went to a high-school that had a muscular looking Indian as its mascot. Some (I assume small) group complained and the school board gave it the boot. This caused such an uproar, that the school board was voted out by a pro-indian-mascot group that re-instated the Indian.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/14/n...lture-war.html?scp=1&sq=onteora indian&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/25/o...an-424668.html?scp=2&sq=onteora indian&st=cse

 

[DSettahr]

While we're at it, we can change the names of Negro Brook and Negro Hill in the Adirondacks!

http://docs.unh.edu/NY/srnc55nw.jpg

 

[Jay H]

I went to Syracuse U, before it was the Orange, it was the Orangemen, and before that, the Saltine warriors... Which, except for the fruit, were references to Native Americans...

Jay

 

[Little Rickie]

I would hope, though, that there was a way to confirm that the group wanted the change and not just some self-empowering subset deciding for that group.

If it was important to me I'd find a way to do that. If I didn't care and someone else did then let them ask for the change. If 50 years from now they want to change it back so what. Change is the only constant.

This PC thing is getting out of control and it's hard to tell if it's genuine or not but at some time when it becomes too much it will get slapped down.

I may not like it or find it annoying but there is a lot of stuff that bugs me. If I spent all my time gripping about it I'd have no time to be happy.

Sometimes you just have to pick your battles and let the rest roll of your back.

Don't worry be happy.

 

[Stash]

This PC thing is getting out of control and it's hard to tell if it's genuine or not but at some time when it becomes too much it will get slapped down.

I don't think "PC" and "genuine" can be used in the same sentence without it being a contradiction.

Slap away. Especially if it makes you hapy!

 

[lumberzac]

While we're at it, we can change the names of Negro Brook and Negro Hill in the Adirondacks!

http://docs.unh.edu/NY/srnc55nw.jpg

Those probably are the changed names.

 

[DSettahr]

Those probably are the changed names.

Looked it up, and you are correct:

http://docs.unh.edu/NY/srnc04nw.jpg

 

[Daniel Eagan]

I believe that "squaw" has always been a derogatory term, similar to (but worse than) the way someone might refer to his girlfriend as a "ho." Sensitivities were different two or three hundred years ago when "squaw" started being used in place names. Look at the Grand Tetons, for example, and ask yourself if even as innocuous a name as "Nippletop" would pass muster today.

What I find offensive is the claim that it should be all right to use "squaw" today because someone did two hundred years ago.

It took about three hundred years for blacks to convince whites that terms like "boy" were offensive. What you say in private is your own business, but I think few whites would knowingly address an African-American as "boy" in public today, even as a joke.

I'm not going to knock Loretta Lynn for writing "Your Squaw Is on the Warpath," but I am also going to try to be more sensitive in my use of the word.

 

[DSettahr]

Look at the Grand Tetons, for example, and ask yourself if even as innocuous a name as "Nippletop" would pass muster today.

I remember reading somewhere that a group of concerned mothers at Elk Lake Lodge were so incensed at the idea of calling a mountain "Nippletop" that they campaigned for its name to be changed to Dial instead. They failed in this campaign, but their legacy lives on in the name of the mountain immediately to the north of Nippletop.

 

[RoySwkr]

I believe that "squaw" has always been a derogatory term, similar to (but worse than) the way someone might refer to his girlfriend as a "ho."

I would be interested in any references you might have to that effect, and in particular, what term a Native American man might have applied to an esteemed spouse.

If there is such a term, then we could change all "Squaw" names to that term. Or are you saying that in the culture of that time, all references to women were derogatory?

 

[Daniel Eagan]

I would be interested in any references you might have to that effect.

The Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw) provides an adequate overview with plenty of references.

My opinion is based more on how I've seen the word used in popular culture. For example, Francis Parkman used the term almost exclusively in a negative or sexual sense in The Oregon Trail:

"Some were on horseback, some on foot, but all were alike squalid and wretched. Old squaws, mounted astride of shaggy, meager little ponies."

Referring to a hung-over fur trader: "'He'll look well when he gets among the squaws, won't he?' observed the captain, with a grin."

Authors of Westerns like A.B. Guthrie, Elmore Leonard, Alan LeMay; filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh; singers and songwriters--all used squaw in either negative or sexual terms.

 

[SteveHiker]

Have you seen the Cleveland Indians' logo? Now we are talking about something seriously offensive.

Washington Redskins anyone?


more on topic: My highschool's team names used to be the Chieftains and the Squaws. Sometime around 1980 or so, they realized that woman could be Chieftains too.