im no a politician, im a soccer player, a coach, and soon a sports journalist, i dont want anything to do with politics. you are an american "indian?" how so? salvadorans for the most parts are missing size, zelaya would run circles around any defender from anywhere in the world, we have too many good technical players in El Salvador.
You won't get very far as a "sports journalist" with your views on race unless you plan on writing for some of the yellow rags South of the Rio Grande. Right now, Lead and Depleted Uranium are trying to figure out how you came to be denser than them. Yes, as evidenced by the high amount of players being tracked in the "Salvadorans Abroad".
im going to be a soccer analyst so my job would have nothing to do with races. some of my family look white europeans and some others have african freatures on them so i could never be racist, of course if you insult me im going to respond, what people do when they are mad doesnt really reflect what they really are. from what tribe of native americans you come from? i have met navajo people already in the grand canyon, i also met a dude once that he claimed to be from a tribe in florida. there are plenty of great salvadoran players, we beat mexico, costa rica, lots of south american countries and the US tied us in the last minute, remember? again, i could never talk about the quality of salvadoran players with you bc i dont know if you were good at soccer, and i dont think you watch salvadoran soccer every weekend. whats up with the insults? you cant have a conversation like normal educated people?
Well, not if you plan on working in this country. You mean other than when you ripped on white people, when you thought I was white and talked about how bad of a brown boy you were? I think your comments to me when you thought I was white, reflect rather poorly on yourself. Your change in tone and candor now that you know I am not Caucasian, also, speaks volumes. I'm an American Indian. Native Americans are anyone born inside the US. Your usage of a misapplied PC term, speaks volumes about your lack of knowledge outside of academia. Yeah, imagine that, them living there, on their reservation. They call themselves Navajo, or Dine, not Native American. Seminoles. We're sending de Los Cobos back to you. Mid-level CONCACAF, just below the Chapines and Hondos What's up with playin' like we're buds now, now that you know I'm not white? Sorry, I can't dumb down to community college J-School levels.
Since we are flying off the rails in this thread, their are a good number of people who are descendants of people who were here before Columbus who get offended at the term Indian and prefer Native American. I don't think that should be surprising with over 500 different recognized tribes in the US. After being censured multiple times in my life, I've given up using any terms like American Indian, Amerindian, Native American, First Nations because they all find a way to offend somebody.
Maybe where you live, but they're pretty hard to find in Indian Country. Though, you're not going to get the reaction of dropping the N-Word/B-Word/W-Word, you'll just be mostly ignored for not taking the time find out who you're talking to. It's usually best if you just address someone by their name first and the group they identify themselves with, which is most typically their tribal group. Of course, that takes the work of actually finding that out. I mean, it literally shocks someone to find out that the Hopi & Dine aren't always on speaking terms and that referring to one as the other, or referring to them both collectively under some politically, but functionally incorrect identifier is offensive to both. Same goes for the various Pueblos and numerous other tribes and bands. But the sooner we all stop referring to each other as "ethnic qualifier"-Americans and actually just treat each other like human beings and Americans, the better.
So all those Navajos who I met at the U of A or ASU were disingenuous to themselves by using the self descriptive term "Native American?"
Like I said, some groups prefer the term. I believe an official survey put native American as the preferred term at 37%. Indian was around 50% if memory serves.
I grew up in Alaska, and many people called themselves Natives, or Native Americans. It obviously has a lot to do with the term Native Alaskan and the fact that Indian is often exclusionary of Inuits and Yupiks. My grandparents grew up just outside the standing rock reservation and the Lakota there called themselves Indians and when I called them (not directly personal, but referring to a large group) Native Americans they look at me like I was talking nonsense. That was the first time, I was maybe 7, that I realized Indian wasn't a derogatory term, which it was sort of frowned upon in Alaska. Fortunately I didn't meet Russell Means at the time or I might have been in more trouble. Obviously it is better to know the tribal affiliation and use it if you have the information about a person. I've met plenty of people that couldn't give a *** if you called them Mohawk, Iroquois, Yupik or whatever, but I've met plenty that really cared. That's why I say I've given up, and just now refer to them as descendants of people who were here before Columbus. I realize what you mean about "ethnic-qualifier"- Americans. But I don't think there is anything wrong with being proud of your heritage. My grandmother still makes lefse and lutefisk (BARF) from her Norwegian roots. And I have a friend from high school who is as proud as anybody could be about his Inuit roots. But on a more basic level sometimes you just have to refer to large groups of people. Sometimes you say Europeans and Indians/Native Americans/First Nations, sometimes you can be more specific, Mohawk and Dutch.
Given the generation, it's what they've heard most of their lives in reference to themselves from non-Navajo. I suspect if that if that survey were broken down by age, that 37% would skew highly to the 30 & under cohort. Most ethnographic surveys currently identify American Indian & Alaska Native (AIAN) having separated Pacific Islander out. One of my kids got mislabled as Pacific Islander. Largely the same in Oklahoma. Sadly, Russell has become somewhat of a parody of himself. He and the remnants of AIM took a real loss of face with the Ward Churchill disaster. In my line of work, with both tribal leaders, elders, students and cultural preservationists & language preservationists, it's vitally important to use the appropriate terms, names, motifs, colors, etc and to get it from the group rather than some outside source. There isn't, until said pride starts swelling one's head about the virtues of said ethnicity or you hear all the positive & negatives stereotypes parroted by either ill or well meaning individuals. My general rule is you be as specific as you can be without eroding the identity, which is what in my belief and most everyone I know feels the effect of "Native American" does.
I had a friend once who said the term he preferred was "native Indian". He had given the topic significant consideration.
Like I said, in my experience, that 37% skews heavily towards youth and I would suspect also between full blood & mix blood and as RC post implied, Rez & non-Rez and Alaska/Lower 48. Not to mention there are a significant number of people who are descendants of American Indians that either don't know they are, or can't be legally identified as Indian due to some ancestors decision to not get on the Dawes Rolls for a variety of very smart reasons at the times. Couple that with the fact that there are ten times as many people who do identify as being some degree of Indian descent, without the slightest shred of proof, other than some distant family memory, or more commonly, because it sounds cool or they think they can get some of that free money all us Indians allegedly get.