Hypocritical Hippies

Many people think of California as a bastion of free thought. In fact, in many ways it is just the opposite. People are more sensitive than any other geographic region that I've visited. Yet, while they are super-sensitive about homophobia and racism, behind closed doors they are prime examples of those biases with which they claim to disagree.

I've heard the term "nigger" more times in my 3 months here than I have heard in 5 years in the conservative central region of Pennsylvania. I've heard more stereotypes about Asian drivers as well. Educated white women will lose their composure if one jokes that women can't drive well or should be cooking, yet the second they see a slow driver on the highway that happens to be Asian, they say,"Typical!"

So while Californians try to live in a progressive manner, they are merely closing their minds off from reason as much as a Southern bigot who still waves his Confederate flag. They see minorities as less than human. They see them as nothing more than the means to feel enlightened. That is to say, they feign an open mind to harness a sense of power.

Most recently, I had a discussion with an educated California woman about the correct terminology for American Indians. She claimed that both "Native American" and "American Indian" are completely acceptable terms and that there is no empirical evidence to prove otherwise. I can't disagree. But you also can't require "empirical" evidence for something like this. All you can do is ask the people that it affects what they prefer. And that has been done.
According to a U.S. Census Bureau poll in 1995, American Indians prefer that term over Native American by a wide margin. Thus, ever since the Census Bureau has used that terminology in its publications. So has the Smithsonian, which has opened the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. So due to the direct preference of the American Indians of the U.S., the correct term is now American Indian.

Many people think that either term is adequate, but Russell Means, probably the most prominent of modern-day Indian thinkers, strongly disagrees. Following is a quote from Mr. Means:
“I abhor the term Native American. It is a generic government term used to describe all the indigenous prisoners of the United States. These are the American Samoans, the Micronesians, the Aleutes, the original Hawaiians and the erroneously termed Eskimos, who are actually Upiks and Inupiats. And, of course, the American Indian.

I prefer the term American Indian because I know its origins. The word Indian is an English bastardization of two Spanish words, En Dio, which correctly translated means in with God. As an added distinction the American Indian is the only ethnic group in the United States with the American before our ethnicity.

At an international conference of Indians from the Americas held in Geneva, Switzerland at the United Nations in 1977 we unanimously decided we would go under the term American Indian. We were enslaved as American Indians, we were colonized as American Indians and we will gain our freedom as American Indians and then we will call ourselves any damn thing we choose.

Finally, I will not allow a government, any government, to define who I am. Besides anyone born in the Western hemisphere is a Native American.”


There can be no dispute over this issue anymore. And egomaniacal Californians need to look past their competitive "progressivism" to see the real truth.