Or should I have asked “Why don’t American Indians want to be called Native Americans?” Or perhaps some other formulation.

Here’s the thing. As a general principle, you should call people what they want to be called. Right? But problems occur when a group name becomes confusing or offensive or otherwise inappropriate. Two obvious examples have taken place during my lifetime:

• Should we say colored or Negro or black? Or perhaps Afro-American? Or African-American? As someone who is generally considered white — although that’s a separate issue for another time — I’m not one who has the right to answer this question. But I often have to.
  
• Should we say gay or homosexual or queer? As a straight cis male, it’s not up to me to answer this question. But I often have to.

In my subculture, it is politically correct to say black or African American, to say gay or queer. But that’s not really the point. The point is what people who self-identify as ________ want to be called. And I’ve long been told that Indians are people from South Asia, not indigenous Americans. It was Columbus’s error that caused the mixup.

I’m not going to rehash what is already adequately covered in Wikipedia, so go read the relevant article for a lot of useful info. What surprised a lot of white friends and relatives was hearing that most Native Americans apparently prefer to be called Indians! So chew on that for a while.

Categories: Linguistics