[Vision2020] Rick Perry's Newest Problem

[Andreas Schou]

It's offensive. But the widely-believed explanation for why is a total
crock of shit -- it's an offensive _English_ word, not an offensive
word in any Native American language.

-- ACS

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 12:00 AM, Rosemary Huskey
<donaldrose at cpcinternet.com> wrote:
> If a Native American finds the word offensive, and many do, why do you offer
> a rebuttal with a pseudo-academic discussion of the Algonquin root (or lack
> thereof) of the word s****? In the interest of full disclosure, I have
> provided a link to the Wikipedia article which I am assuming is the source
> of your research.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw  It is to be hoped
> that we agree that a word used to describe gender, ethnicity, religious
> beliefs, physical, emotional, or intellectual challenges that is offensive
> to the individual toward whom it is directed, probably should not be used
> under any circumstances whether or not "it is/was serviceable."
> Rose
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andreas Schou [mailto:ophite at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 10:02 PM
> To: Rosemary Huskey
> Cc: Dave; vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Rick Perry's Newest Problem
>
> Much of this is widely believed. None of it is true.
>
> Though the word "squaw" is offensive, it's offensive for reasons quite
> apart from its etymology, which has nothing whatsoever to do with its
> being a hypothetical Algonquin obscenity. In most of the languages
> where it's used, the proto-Algonquin s-q-w (or s-q-th) roots mean
> "unmarried woman" or something similar. There's a poorly-attested
> Mohawk obscenity which refers to female genitals, but it's (a) from an
> entirely separate language family, and (b) doesn't show up in the
> language until the early 1970s. In other words, the evidence is quite
> slim that the word "squaw" actually ever meant anything obscene...
>
> ... in any language other than English. Just because (for instance)
> the root of the N-word didn't ever mean anything racially derogatory
> in Latin, doesn't mean that it hasn't picked up that meaning in
> English. Which the word "squaw" certainly has, which is a pity,
> because it was certainly a perfectly serviceable word in its language
> of origin.
>
> -- ASC
>
> On Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 10:01 PM, Rosemary Huskey
> <donaldrose at cpcinternet.com> wrote:
>> Sonya Reyes-Rosario did produce a documentary film about the issue in
> 2001.
>>  http://www.wocaonline.org/documents/press/031013.pdf
>>
>> I am hopeful that Tom Trail could update us on the status of the use of
> the
>> word S**** as a geographic term, and how the Idaho legislature has
> responded
>>  to the issue since 2002.  (They rejected bills in 2001 and 2002 which
> would
>> have mandated name changes. )
>>
>> Please note the federal websites below which apparently continue to use
> the
>> term.
>>
>> Rose
>>
>>
>>
>> I don’t know the date of the article below, but possibly sometime in 2003.
>>
>>
>>
>> Offensive language still plagues Idaho; Legislators slow to make place
> names
>> appropriate
>>
>> by Morgan Winsor. Argonaut staff
>>
>>
>>
>> Many Native American women refer to it as the "s" word. It's a
> five-letter,
>> one syllable vindictive name they have hated for nearly two centuries.
>>
>> The word "squaw" is a hurtful word, offensive and degrading to Native
>> American women, said Ruby Bernal, a Shoshone Bannock tribal member.
>>
>> Yet the word litters Idaho's map. More than 93 locations in the state
>> contain the word "squaw." And tribal members throughout
>>
>> Idaho want the name wiped off the map entirely. But that day may take a
>> while to come. Twice now the state Legislature failed to pass a resolution
>>
>> to eliminate the word "squaw" from the state's federal map.
>>
>> The first resolution was killed by one vote last year. The second
> resolution
>> went under the knife two months ago. Instead of voting to approve the
>> removal of the word "squaw," the house drafted a new resolution
> encouraging
>> Idahoans to suggest changing offensive names that they think are offensive
>> and
>>
>> present alternatives name changes to the State Historical Society.
>>
>> Some Native American women are offended that the word "squaw" was removed
>> from the resolution altogether. "It was an easy way out," said Sonya
>> Rosario, executive director of the Women of Color Alliance. "It takes the
>> responsibility off them (politicians). They're playing it safe."
>>
>> The meaning of the word "squaw" has deep roots in history, dating back to
>> the mid-1800s when the white men who worked as trappers and hunters hiked
>> through the region and traded goods for sexual services from women, whom
>> they called "squaws." Bernal, who works a payroll technician for the Boise
>> National Forest, said the word refers to the genital area of women.
>>
>> "It was a way to communicate between the white settlers," Bernal said.
> "When
>> the white man wanted to have a woman for the night they would ask for a
>> squaw. They traded horses, furs, guns, liquor and food." Bernal, a member
> of
>> the Inner Mountain American Indian Advisory Council for Region No. 4,
>>
>> said the word "squaw" has disturbed her since childhood. "They (white
> males)
>> would drive by while I was walking to school and yell the name (squaw) out
>>
>> the window at me," she said. "I don't want to worry about that happening
> to
>> my children." Lori Edmo-Suppah, a journalist-in-residence at the
> University
>> of Idaho and a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe, said the same
>> name-calling happened to her as a youngster. "The word was always used in
> a
>> manner that was hurtful and degrading," Edmo-Suppah said. Janet Ward, a
>> member of the American Association of University Women, supports
>> confiscating
>>
>> the name. "We definitely support changing squaw names," Ward said. "And
>> people have to realize that the name isn't just offensive to Native
> American
>> women, it offends all women." Bernal said abolishing the word is "highly
>> controversial" and a "touchy subject" because some tribes, such as the
>> Navajo, have accepted the word as part of their language. Ward said the
>> process of eliminating any offensive geographical name could be
> frustrating.
>>
>> "The forms are complicated," she said. "And you need to have a lot of
>> support." But having enough support doesn't seem to be a problem when it
>> comes to the 's' word. "Most tribal members and leaders feel the same,"
>> Bernal said. When and if the National Geographical Name Sight Board in
>> Washington, D.C., does approve removing the name, Bernal said she'll begin
>> her work first by changing some of the "really offensive geographic names
> on
>> the map."
>>
>> She said for example, Squaw Tit in Custer County and Squaw Hump in Benewah
>> County will be the first names to go. Montana, Oregon, Minnesota, Maine
> and
>> Oklahoma have removed the names. "Let's take the 's' word off all forest
>> service maps," she said. "We need to make a difference in our
>>
>> life and for our kids."
>>
>>   http://www.wocaonline.org/documents/press/020402.pdf
>>
>>
>>
>> the following sites we googled up in under a minute.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> http://trails.mtbr.com/cat/united-states-trails/trails-idaho/trail/squaw-cre
> ek-trail/prd_167750_4544crx.aspx
>>
>> http://www.blm.gov/id/st/en/fo/owyhee/special_areas/wsas/Squaw.html
>>
>> http://www.hookandbullet.com/squaw-creek-storage-bait-shop_208-628-3578/
>>
>>
> http://www.usbr.gov/pn/programs/fcrps/thp/srao/littlesalmon/completion/sqawc
> rk-culvert.pdf
>>
>>
>>
>> Rose Huskey
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Dave [mailto:tiedye at turbonet.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 7:06 PM
>> To: Rosemary Huskey; vision2020
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Rick Perry's Newest Problem
>>
>>
>>
>> I thought that all the creeks, bays, etc. have been renamed (at least in
>> Idaho). Due mostly to the work of a young lady from up north.  There was
> an
>> excellent story on it on Yin Radio on KRFP.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> On 10/02/2011 01:45 PM, Rosemary Huskey wrote:
>>
>> This must read article is a reminder not just of Rick Perry and his ilk,
> or
>> our local defender of Southern Slavery As It Was, but also our “I am not a
>> racist”  knuckleheaded neighbors who still find the term sq**w an
>> appropriate name for a mountain or a creek right here in our very own
>> private Idaho.
>>
>> Rose Huskey
>>
>>
>>
>> Posted by Chauncey DeVega at 11:49 am
>> October 2, 2011
>>
>>
> http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/02/rick-perrys-newest-problem-hi
> s-fond-memories-of-niggerhead-and-growing-up-in-a-sundown-town/
>>
>>
>>
>> Rick Perry’s Newest Problem: His Fond Memories of “Niggerhead” and Growing
>> Up in a Sundown Town
>>
>> Posted by Chauncey DeVega on @ 11:49 am
>>
>> Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy
>>
>> URL to article:
>>
> http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/02/rick-perrys-newest-problem-hi
> s-fond-memories-of-niggerhead-and-growing-up-in-a-sundown-town/
>>
>> It was a mostly white world. In 1950, the census counted about 900 black
>> residents out of a population of about 13,000 in Haskell County, numbers
>> that have declined steadily. Most blacks worked as maids or field hands
> and
>> lived in an across-the-tracks neighborhood in the city of Haskell, the
>> county seat, about 20 minutes from Paint Creek.
>>
>> Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located, was for years
>> considered a virtual no-go zone for blacks because of old stories about
> the
>> lynching of a black man there, locals said. The 1950 Census listed one
> black
>> resident in Throckmorton County out of a population of about 3,600. In
> 1960,
>> there were four; in 1970, two; in 1980, none. The 2010 Census shows 11
> black
>> residents.
>>
>> Mae Lou Yeldell, who is black and has lived in Haskell County for 70
> years,
>> recalled a gas station refusing to sell her father fuel when he drove the
>> family through Throckmorton in the 1950s. She said it was not uncommon in
>> the 1950s and ’60s for whites to greet blacks with, “Morning, nigger!”
>>
>> “I heard that so much it’s like a broken record,” said Yeldell, who had
>> never heard of the hunting spot by the river.
>>
>> And you wonder why black folks had to use The Green Book as a guide for
>> safety while touring this country?
>>
>> Rick Perry’s family retreat was/is named “Niggerhead.” The Washington
> Post’s
>> cover story is a distraction of course from more important issues such as
> a
>> failing economy, Perry’s questionable record on jobs and the environment
> in
>> Texas, and a far-Right leaning Republican presidential field that would
>> combine Ayn Rand with the Christian Taliban. But a distraction can still
> be
>> instructive and productive.
>>
>> For the Left and other critics, Rick Perry’s Niggerhead hunting camp is
> more
>> proof that he is a racist and a bigot. For the Right, this story will be
>> greeted as “gotcha politics” and more bias from the “mainstream media.”
>> Lockstep, the Right-wing media will revert to form and argue that “all of
>> this race stuff” is playing the “race card” against white people. Who
> cares
>> anyway since Perry’s dad was a Democrat and he originally owned Niggerhead
>> anyway? Predictably, there will be more spin from Conservatives and a
>> recurring blindness to political history, i.e. Southern Democrats aka
>> “Dixiecrats” are now the base of the Tea Party GOP.
>>
>> And of course, black Republicans such as Herman Cain will be trotted out
> to
>> dance on the stage while they answer questions about Rick Perry and
> racism.
>>
>> All in all, theatrics that are par for the course of what counts as
>> reasonable discourse in the 24 hour opinion driven news cycle.
>>
>> I would suggest that Rick Perry’s Niggerhead family retreat is important
> in
>> so far as formative childhood and adult experiences impact political
>> attitudes and beliefs. Rick Perry is from the Jim and Jane Crow South and
>> has advocated for secession. He also panders to the Tea Party with all of
>> their “take my America” pleadings and is part of a cultural movement that
>> possesses an almost deranged hatred for the country’s first black
> President.
>> Racism and Conservatism overlap in America; the Conservative political
>> imagination yearns for a return to the “good old days” and is blinded by a
>> myopic White nostalgia for the past.
>>
>> In all, why should anyone be surprised that there is a Niggerhead skeleton
>> in Rick Perry’s closet? Moreover, I would bet that there are many
> Niggerhead
>> skeletons in many white folks’ closets in this country.
>>
>> We must also be cautious and not paint with too broad a brush, or suggest
>> that Rick Perry is somehow unique in this regard. He is not alone in a
>> willful denial of white supremacy and the Slaveocracy/Jim and Jane
>> Crow/Confederacy’s hold on American popular imagination even into the 21st
>> century.
>>
>> The white racist Southern Redemptionist fantasy and lie that is Gone with
>> the Wind is still beloved by millions of people (all those happy black
>> folks; white people in big houses and fancy clothes; what good fun!). Lady
>> Antebellum is an acclaimed musical group (where are the Auschwitz singers?
>> Or the Trail of Tears emo band?). A significant percentage of Americans do
>> not believe that the Civil War was fought over slavery and the rights of
>> White people to hold Black people in perpetual bondage. The Whiteness of
>> history is glaring. Rick Perry, as demonstrated by his love for
> Niggerhead,
>> is just one of many Americans who are transfixed by it.
>>
>> Nevertheless, Rick Perry’s Niggerhead moment is teachable history. For
> that
>> reason it is important.
>>
>> Rick Perry grew up in a sundown town. As James Loewen exhaustively and
>> masterfully documents, there were thousands of these communities across
> the
>> country where blacks (and in some cases Jews, Mexicans and other
> non-whites)
>> were not allowed to live, journey through, or be present in after dark.
>> These towns were often created by racial violence and the wholesale ethnic
>> cleansing of non-whites through murder, forced exile, rape, banishment,
>> theft, and violence.
>>
>> When we wonder why some neighborhoods look the way that they do, why there
>> are no black folks or other people of color living there, or stand vexed
> by
>> the intergenerational wealth gap in the United States, part of the answer
>> lies in American Apartheid. Sundown towns were a key part of the Racial
>> State’s apparatus and how it structured the day to day lives of all
> people.
>>
>> Racial terrorism was a tool of economic exploitation. Because many in
> White
>> America are loathe to acknowledge the power of structures and institutions
>> as they cling to the lie that is the myth of meritocracy, Niggerhead is a
>> reminder of lived history in the present. Yesterday wasn’t even yesterday;
>> it created the present terms of political, cultural, economic, and social
>> engagement.
>>
>> While some Americans have a limited knowledge of the relationship between
>> housing segregation and the maintenance of the colorline, fewer know about
>> sundown towns and America’s history of ethnic cleansing. This history
> hides
>> in plain sight. It lives on in debates over the racialized names of
> rivers,
>> towns, mountains, and other public places. It is present when real estate
>> agents refuse to show people of color homes in certain communities. It is
>> the ether and lifeblood of whitopia.
>>
>> Ignorance of race and racism’s historic role in structuring life chances,
>> and basic geographies such as where one lived, married, worked, and
>> traveled, is especially common among the post-Civil Rights generation.
> This
>> dynamic is especially true for Millennials who would be aghast at the
>> reality of white supremacy as the norm for American history where their
>> imagined multicultural moment is indeed an aberration–a very recent
>> development–and one that works through conservative colorblindness as
>> opposed to a deep and radical engagement with human difference, identity,
>> justice.
>>
>> Rick Perry’s Niggerhead moment will be a short-lived blip on the news
> radar.
>> Niggerhead will confirm what his detractors already believe about Rick
>> Perry. Niggerhead will encourage his supporters to circle the wagons and
>> double down their support because their “culture” is under assault.
>> Unfortunately, Niggerhead will be a missed opportunity. This could be a
>> teachable moment where White Americans could choose to look in the mirror
>> and see the collective ugliness looking back at them. Whiteness, for most
>> people in America, and indeed the world, was the face of terror. It was
> ugly
>> and not beautiful.
>>
>> Folks of all colors should know their shared history; instead it is easier
>> to look away, make up fun fictions, and tell yourself easy lies and
>> platitudes about “post-racial” America.
>>
>> Remember folks, there is a little Niggerhead in all of us…for some like
> Rick
>> Perry, a good deal more than others.
>>
>> Editor and founder of the blog We Are Respectable Negroes which has been
>> featured by the NY Times, the Utne Reader, and The Atlantic Monthly.
> Writing
>> under a pseudonym, Chauncey DeVega's essays on race, popular culture, and
>> politics have appeared in various books, as well as on such sites as the
>> Washington Post's The Root and Popmatters.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>