this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
99 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

1454 readers
38 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Nemo@midwest.social 16 points 11 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] ArtieShaw@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

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

[–] florge@feddit.uk 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Could you explain the firewater one?

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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).

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] DemBoSain@midwest.social 6 points 11 months ago

Indian^*^ here, and I don’t know anyone offended by Indian summer.

^*^It says Indian on my ID.