I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said “well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip.” And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say.
Sadly, it hadn’t occurred to me until it’s already said.
The two that really make me wince are “Indian giver” and the related “Indian summer” and of course calling hooch “firewater” isn’t great either.
I always thought “Indian summer” sounded very poetic, maybe related to the climate of the Indian subcontinent.
But it’s just garden variety American racism?
That’s so disappointing!
Does anyone know more about the etymology?
Indian summer (n.)
“spell of warm, dry, hazy weather after the first frost” (happening anywhere from mid-September to nearly December, according to location), 1774, North American English (also used in eastern Canada), perhaps so called because it was first noted in regions then still inhabited by Indians, in the upper Mississippi valley west of the Appalachians, or because the Indians first described it to the Europeans. No evidence connects it with the color of fall leaves, or to a season of renewed Indian attacks on settlements due to renewed warm weather (a widespread explanation dating at least to the 1820s).
Source: Etymonline
That’s not so bad!
I followed up the etymology of “zipper head” above so I was prepared for waaaaaaaaay worse.
That’s so interesting. Like @vzq I had the wrong sense of the word “Indian” - I thought it was something the British came up with after they colonized India.
Well, and specifically, it’s related to the concept of an Indian giver: The warm weather is “taken back” and impermanent.
Not so much an etymology, but how it was used in pop culture:
Our local paper used to publish a cartoon and poem every fall. The piece was called Injun Summer, and it was printed every October from 1907-1992.
It’s very much a relic of its era, which is to say “it was weird; really fucking weird.” The image is lovely. The text is an old man telling a young boy a totally made up story. It’s folksy, wistful and nostalgic. It talks about the past and how native spirits (literally ghosts) return to the land each fall. It’s also written in the vernacular of what an old man in 1907 might sound like.
Personally, I don’t think the complaints about racism were what caused them to stop printing it. I think it was the weirdness that just didn’t appeal to anyone under the age of 50 (in 1992!).
The fist link shows the image with text. The second shows how it would have looked in print.
http://www.sewwug.org/images/injun_summer_2.pdf
https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-history-of-john-t-mccutcheons-1907.html
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Idk about that. I’ve met “Native Americans” who prefer the term Indian over Native American.
That’s pretty much all American Indians. Their governmental orgs literally have Indian in their name. My wife does most of her work on a reservation and they all want to be called Indian, not Native American
Is that the same as a “Chinese Burn” where you twist someones arm-skin?
Yup it’s the same
Indian* here, and I don’t know anyone offended by Indian summer.
*It says Indian on my ID.
Could you explain the firewater one?
It’s sort-of an antique trope whose main thrust is implying Native cultures are backward and unworldly because they don’t have distilleries (though, point in fact, some of them did ferment alcohol).
Firewater and other drinking stereotypes were about the myth of Native Americans all being raging alcoholics, which are as racist as saying black people are inherently violent or Jewish people inherently coveting money.
The alcohol abuse rates of Native Americans aligns with poverty issues, just like everyone else.
I honestly had no idea until now that firewater had anything to do with Native Americans. I just thought it was a term for alcohol, and don’t use it myself anyway.
Never heard it that way. It is a calque of a Native American name from the northern plains. I always thought a white person using it was offensive due to negative stereotypes about native Americans and drinking (and also mocking somewhat, like walking about saying “how” or speaking pidgin).
Ok I’ve thought about it a bit and I need to know. What’s wrong with Indian summer?
It’s related to the concept of an “Indian giver”: the warm weather seems like a gift, but is taken back.
I have never heard it described that way. It’s the last warm weather of the year before winter. It was something to look forward to.
It originally referred to a specific meteorological phenomenom that occurs in North America consisting of late warm weather that native tribes would take advantage of to hunt. It’s definition has become more general, and it’s taken the place of similar phenomena around the world, but it’s not related to the concept of taking gifts back.
I’ve never heard of it used with that connotation. Even the most PC people I know use the phrase. Just because it uses the word “Indian” doesn’t automatically make it a pejorative. Some native Americans/first people call themselves Indian.
Most Natives call themself “Indian”. You’ve misunderstood my objection if you think that’s the problem.
The misunderstanding of your objection comes from the fact that I’ve just never heard of it in the context of “giving good weather and taking it away” as in “Indian giver”. The fact that they both have the word Indian the only connection I can make to what you’re saying. The only references I can find to a pejorative origin is in articles from years ago saying that the phrase possibly needs to be changed because of possible negative origins. Obviously culture hasn’t decided it’s necessary to change the phrase (yet). The fact that it’s used as a positive metaphor for non-weather things should be considered too.
Yes, but it still reeks of colonial insensitivity when a white person says it. Non-indigenous Americans should have replaced that word with Native by now.