[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by mlmpetert

Skins guy:

I agree that wiki can be edited by anyone for most entries, but i would say most of the content is sourced, reviewed and can be trusted. There are a lot more people that edit wiki in a serious context then there are pranksters that edit in order to manipulate stuff.

Native is a broad term while indigenous is much more specific and precise.

I don’t think most American Indians find the term Native American offensive, but less preferable when given the options of American Indian or just Indian. And its not that the “white man” named them Native American it’s that the American Government did, and according to wiki that’s the main issue. I don’t think American Indians like the American Government all that much.

Everyone knows the term Indian came about unintentionally but after hundreds of years the meaning of the word became what we know it as today. When it became necessary to make the distinction between people from India the term was organically modified to American Indian. Latter the US government endorsed the Native American label for some reason, and it is thought that another naming mistake, although trivial, was made when they used the modifier native instead of the more specific indigenous or aboriginal.

So basically you can find offenses in any of the terms we use to describe them. Indian, because it was a mistake. American Indian for the same reason in addition to the fact that they are not indigenous to America rather indigenous to the area that was conquered and named without their input or consent. And Native American, for the American name issue before, plus it was endorsed by the government that screwed many of their people over, and there was a trivial additional naming mistake made when trying to eliminate the first naming mistake. In addition all the terms have a imperialistic or colonialism connotation to them, which I think is the issue with the term Oriental.

Indigenous peoples might work, although if I was a Indian I would be pissed if you called me that.....

I see what you're saying.