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Don et. al.<BR>
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I must have failed to be clear in my original post regarding the buffalo joke.<BR>
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What Native Americans want or do not want to be called is not the issue. <BR>
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The issue is that the joke about the buffalo was cruel and insensitive given the historical facts about the buffalo and its meaning to some of the indigenous people and cultures of this continent. The ruthless slaughter of the buffalo hunted to near extinction, primarily by white Caucasians, was a deliberate attempt by the European culture to displace the indigenous native culture, via destroying an animal that was critical to the cultural and physical survival of some indigenous cultures<BR>
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Therefore to place a Native American in the role as a senseless killer of buffalo raises serious questions. Why did the author of the joke place a Native American in this position? Why not a drunk Irishman, a stuffy Englishman, a rapping Black man, etc.? And why not a cow or a pig? Apparently the author thought there was some meaningful connection between Native Americans and buffalo. But the author was either deliberately being cruel, a common tactic in humor, or did not know about the history between the buffalo and Native Americans regarding the ruthless slaughter of the buffalo by the invading European culture as a tactic to destroy Native American culture.<BR>
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Perhaps the author intended the brutal irony implied by placing a Native American in the role of a senseless killer of buffalo, when historically this animal was respected and depended upon for survival by some Native American cultures, and was nearly wiped out by the invading white European culture as a deliberate tactic to destroy native culture.<BR>
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I find it very common for even so called "progressive" minded people to downplay and declare mostly irrelevant to modern times the genocidal campaign that was carried out against the indigenous people of North America. But the cultural worldview that justified this genocidal campaign is still with us, expressed in part in our recent invasion of Iraq.<BR>
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Ted Moffett</FONT></HTML>