This is a political view that I find has gone too far. I just watched an episode of FYI with Murphy Brown on political correctness and how everyone sees words differently. I have talked with people all over the country and I find the most confusing and interesting question is who they are.
I have talked with people from different Sioux Tribes and they like “Native Americans.” Apache and Navajo seemed to agree on “Indian” and are upset by the term “Native American” as it implied a lesser intelligence. None liked Canada’s “First Nation” designation. The husband of a silversmith jeweler, who had twenty years in the Marines, was the most adamant in his designation – “American!”
Those people who have dark skins are almost militant in their terminology of their race. Some think of themselves as “Black” while others like the continental “African-American!”
I grew up in an all-white county which had hundreds of people hating German-Catholics. Oh yes, I almost forgot some sects of Baptists hated other sects. Everybody told Polish and blonde jokes because we didn’t have any of those.
The term I find most interesting is “girls.” It may be an age, geographic, gender, and cultural term that some females like or hate to be called. I grew up with girls, ladies, and women being interchangeable after their early twenties. Now I have to be careful not to offend females by using the wrong word.
We aren’t born with the idea that we are different. We adopt a term and take offense when someone uses a different one. I am an old, heterosexual, white man whose fraternal side has been in this country since the late 1600’s. I’m an American man, not a white senior citizen – unless I get a discount!
Commentary About the Blue Marble 