Anyway I’m 1/4 inuit living in a place where they’ve never heard of Inuit (new england)
me: “yea I’m a 1/4 Inuit”
some dude: blank look “is that asian?”
me: “well I suppose if you go back far enough.”
them: “oh what is it?”
me: “white people generally call them eskimos”
Never been really offended by it but always make sure people know the right term.
My ex though, use to call these pink parka things with artificial pink fur “eskimo coats”. Always wanted to start calling English tea “cracker juice” around her cause it’d have been about as accurate.
-netsplit (proudly 1/4 Freedom Eskimo)
Okay, first off, there are tons of Alaskan Natives (FTR, the “preferred” overall term) other than just Inuit up here. There are Tlingits, Inupiat, Inuit, Aleut…etc. Most native populations are organized under native corporations. Where by their region and what type of native they are keeps its own native laws, and also interacts with the federal and state government in order to not be screwed out of their land and resources. The corporation is also who pays them their corporation checks from the Feds. For instance in Cook Inlet (where a lot of oil rigs are located), there is CIRI (Cook Inlet Regional Corporation).
The natives that own that land where Prudhoe Bay is located is the ASRC (Arctic Slope Regional Corporation), that is the one I’m most familiar with, having worked for ASRC. That is the Inupiat native.
Most of us do not use the term Eskimo, but by the same token, it’s not really considered (that I’ve ever seen in my 37 years here) as being super insulting or akin to the “N” word. It’s generally just thought of as being not well-informed or “touristy”. As in everyone thinks Alaskan Native automatically equals Eskimo.
What I can’t figure out is where or when you think a person would need to address a native by their correct native corporation at all? For instance, you’d just say “Hi George and Gladys Henry, nice to meet you” or whatever (Henry being a rather popular last name among some corporations, and super old-fashioned first names being pretty popular amongst natives as well). You’re not going to walk up and say, “Saaaaaay, you’re an inupiat aren’t you?” Or “Hi there Inupiat!” anymore than you’d walk up to a black or hispanic person and address them by their nationality, or race.
I think we’re missing the point here…Say you want to REALLY be sure that you are insulting the largest group of native people north of here, what term could you use?
No…I was thinking of the K word (or does it start with C?, I think it’s Klutch, pronounced clooch for those of you dying to know). I haven’t heard it since HS, but I know it’s still around, Bob and Mark (Kwhale) were complaining about it the other day. I have to admit Gussuck I hadn’t heard.
“Gussuck” is the Native word for “whitey”. “Klootch” has been around for a very long time and has become pejorative in the hands of teenagers and the ignorant. It’s actually an Indian word and Wiki says:
Jack London used the word in some of his writings, though not in a hateful way.
You and Chefguy are northern Alaskans Down in southeast, the ugliest term I can think of is “cheechako”, which is more equivalent to, say, “doofus”. What it actually means is “newcomer” (in the “I’m from the Lower 48, therefore I can be forgiven for not knowing my ass from my elbow” sort of way), but “doofus” is probably the closest usage equivalent.
I can’t imagine addressing anyone by their ethnic nomenclature, but I have certainly encountered discussions about ethnic groups. Anything from talking about the relative culinary offerings at Irish or Slovenian cultural festivals to the prevalence of Tay-Sachs among Ashkenazim and French Canadians. People tend to cluster in groups (some of which shift and change, gather and dissolve), and to the extent that they have group identities, it is much more convenient to refer to them by name than to say “I really like the food that originated in the land South of the Baltic Sea among the people who carved out the moderately large kingdom, there, before it was threatened by Asian cavalry, then then successively (and alternately) dominated by the large empires to the East and South while suffering periodic attack by people from the peninsula to the Northwest and, later, the people to the West and most recenly by the empire to the East, again.” It is much simpler to say “I like Polish food.”
It probably appears that way to those more removed. Have you called any Northumbrians “Scot” lately?
As noted, earlier, distant people will assign names based on characteristics that they perceive that may be fairly inaccurate when inspected more closely. The habit throughout the Commonwealth to refer to citizens of the U.S. as “Yanks” (while downplayed as a silly mistake, these days), was a source of serious offense to a number of Alabamans, Texans, and Mississippians during WWI and WWII. Those soldiers had ancestors, some of whom lived long enough for the soldiers to know, who had expended a lot of energy and suffered a lot of tribulation fighting “Yankees” (or dam’yankees) and they did not enjoy being identified by the name they associated with aggression against their homes. (Of course, many of them and their actual Yankee fellow soldiers reciprocated the insult by referring to Scots and Welsh as “English.”)
So, when a bunch of European invaders wander into the countryside assigning names to people, it really is not that difficult to figure out why, once those people had access to modern venues of communication, they might want to let other people know the names they use for themselves.
This does not mean that there are no people who make too much of such issues. And it certainly does not mean that some well-intentioned people cannot get their facts wrong, making the matter even worse. (Examples are easily found in the thread that prompted this one and the early posts, here.)
However, to write off the whole discussion as one of seeking to take offense is to take the actions of a few loud persons and ascribe their motives to everyone in the discussion.
Not here. I know people with Native blood who have none of the traditional features. It’s in no way offensive to ask someone “Are you Alaska Native?” By the way, and just to confuse things further, you can be either an Alaska Native or a native Alaskan or both. I’m a native Alaskan, but not an Alaska Native.
Hmmm, we always (well, can’t speak for Chefguy here) think of “cheechako” as “idiot Floridians who go out hunting in nothing but a Tshirt in 50 degree weather and then die of hypothermia”.
Come to think of it, I think at least one of those instances happened down in your neck of the woods no?
As Chefguy also answered, not that I’m aware of. I posted my comment on that based on what seemed to be (from the OP and other posters) a sense of “addressing” someone with their particular heritage.
To me, that would mean something along the lines of, as I said “Hi there, Mr. Tlingit” or the like. Merely asking what someone’s specific type of native may be doesn’t, (again to me) denote "addressing them as their ethnicity). I hope I didn’t make that too terribly confusing.
FTR, I’m sad that I wasn’t born an Alaskan, but happy that I’m far from cheechako status, I’m a full on Sourdough as of about 7 years ago (sourdough status used to be given at 30 years, there even used to be little ceremonies and such). But both of my kids were born here.
