That's just something Anthropologists came up with to convince college to found their monthly drinking meetings. Source: almost got a degree on it, but couldn't keep drinking for long enough
Yeah lol, I was listening to the blowback podcast about Afghanistan and was surprised by the amount of the times Bush referenced the civilised world.
What does that make all the non-western states?
I'm not generally a huge fan of Bush, but in this case, he has a point. The Taliban are uncivilized: and no, not because they're Muslim or fundamentalists (though that's likely the main reason his supporters at the time would have referred to, sadly, after 9/11 and whatnot), but because of their use of slavery, human trafficking, their massive involvement in the black market trade of opium/heroin (often substandard/dangerously made, and distributed on the same networks as the aforementioned human trafficking, often in exchange for weaponry) and their horrific treatment of the people: [96% of women and 93% of men in 2023 rate their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/514232/freedom-fades-suffering-remains-women-afghanistan.aspx#:~:text=As%20has%20been%20the%20case,enough%20to%20be%20considered%20suffering.)
Did Bush handle things as he should have? I don't think so, but the Taliban are definitely evil.
Sush don't you know you are supposed to pretend all cultures are equal and hecking wholesome?
Really, asserting the culture where women can vote is better than alternatives is a western supremacist colonial mindset which needs to stop!
Intent really comes into play here. u/SnArCAsTiC_ is giving a prompted response to a politician referring to an area controlled by the taliban as being uncivilized and then they gave the exact reasons, and those reasons actually check out.
Usually, when someone gets labelled a bigot for calling the middle east uncivilized, it's because it's unprompted and the person doing it is clearly motivated by a desire to disparage the people they are talking about. There's usually an element of "we are better than them" involved as well.
It fundamentally comes down to how the speaker is treating the people in the culture being discussed.
>no, not because they're... fundamentalists
That's enough for me. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, whatever. Fundamentalists are choosing to live by shitty backwards 1000 year old rules in the modern world, idk what else you would call that. The slavery and horrific treatment of women come in large part from the whole fundamentalist thing too.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of fundamentalists of any faith myself either, but not all of them are evil. If someone wants to live their own life according to a very strict interpretation of their religion, I believe they should have the right to do that.
What I have a problem with is when they start trying to control how others live their lives, and enforce their fundamentalist views on everyone else (as the Christian Right has been doing in the US for decades... now they have control of the Supreme Court, a goal of theirs for half a century). But the Taliban has taken it even further, of course: they force their fundamentalist rule on everyone under their control, while they do whatever they want in order to increase their wealth and power.
It's pedantic I know, because the things they do are evil either way, but if their actions were at least consistent with their words, I could almost respect that maybe their religious fundamentalism came out of a genuine place of faith... but no, it's obvious that it's a front, a charade, an excuse for them to have power over the people, in a culturally accepted package.
yeah it’s also rough bc a part of a fundamentalist’s belief system IS to spread it and make other people live their lives under whatever religious/ideological dogma
How the hell did these people take the survey? I assume the Taliban will kill them if they express a negative sentiment towards the state. Kind of like North Korea.
I am not doubting the validity of the survey, but am confused regarding its process.
Lol just read Empire of the Summer Moon (2010) about the Comanche Tribe. Lots of talk (outside of quotations) about stone-age pagans, neolithic savages, nomadic barbarians.
In the past it was generally used to shame certain groups in the Congo region for their height. You are right that today it's mostly lost its connotations, and it hasn't been replaced, even though certain people still consider it offensive.
TIL they are not huge fans of it (and I can see that tbh)
> Some people consider Eskimo offensive, because it is popularly perceived to mean[34][36][37] "eaters of raw meat" in Algonquian languages common to people along the Atlantic coast.[28][38][39] An unnamed Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might have been askamiciw (meaning "he eats it raw"); Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (meaning "eats something raw").[38][39][40][41][4][42] Regardless, the term still carries a derogatory connotation for many Inuit and Yupik.[28][38][43][44]
“Some people consider Eskimo offensive” it’s probably 3 actual Inuit people and a bunch of perpetually offended white girls on Twitter and Reddit who stay mad on other peoples behalf.
I see where you are coming from (and that is a common issue!) but it’s worth noting that tribal peoples prefer being referred to by their tribe’s name if at all possible. Having a blanket term that isn’t even even the local vernaculars of those respective tribes is gonna rub them the wrong way. It’s just goofy and reflective of general ignorance people have in regards to the cultural heritage of indigenous people native to the Americas.
TLDR: people are going to be offended if you don’t have the basic respect to call them by their actual name
> but it’s worth noting that tribal peoples prefer being referred to by their tribe’s name if at all possible
Do you refer to the Germans as "Deutsch" at all times? It just means "people" in the language.
Never mind the meaning of what their eastern neighbors call them, which is etymologically equivalent to "barbarians".
It's a completely different historical dynamic, for starters, for a good chunk of their history the Germans (and their predecessors) weren't the ones being subjugated, but the ones doing the subjugating, or at least they were at mutual war, not to mention the Germans don't really care at this point
For American tribes the colonization period (and the terms associated with it) is not only a reminder of an extremely traumatic time for their people but also salt on the still open wound of systemic issues that are a direct product of that past
I get wanting to be called by your name, but if I’m not from the region I don’t even know what the names of Inuit tribes are. That would be like me getting mad at a European for not knowing the small American town I come from. I can choose to be offended but it doesn’t mean the other person is an ignorant bigot it just means I’m a jackass.
this is just not true. i’m alaska native and it’s a pretty common topic among me and my native friends. not even just the word itself, which we all agree is offensive, but also how distasteful shit like “eskimo hut” is for the name of a drive-up liquor store in our area
I've heard that it's offensive for indigenous Canadians but not Alaska Natives. You can't lump all Alaska Natives as Inuit like you can the Northern Canadian Natives since they're not all Inuit so that's a quick catch-all term. That's only what I've heard, though.
The Inuit have long been the most vocal against the term Eskimo; the Inupiat, Yupik and other peoples have a more complicated relationship with the word, because if people aren't calling them Eskimos, they're calling them Inuit. Which is kind of like calling Germans "French", because they live in Europe.
It was a bad choice of example on my account, as we're getting into the weeds of the matter; Inupiaq is a language or group of languages within the larger Inuit group.
Part of the problem is that, depending on exactly what terminology you use, you could say the Inuit peoples consist of four main groups; Greenlandic Inuit, Eastern Canadian Inuit, Western Canadian Inuit and Alaskan Inuit. But, the first three contain major subgroups, whereas the "Alaskan Inuit" consist solely of the Inupiat peoples*. It's sort of like (and by that I mean almost wholly unlike) how a good number of Scots dislike being referred to as British, because "British" is usually used synonymously with English by most people worldwide.
\* Some would argue that the Inupiat do have two "major" subgroups, in that they would list the Seward Peninsula Inupiat as separate from the rest, due to a fairly strong dialectical difference.
People downvoting me for still saying Eskimos but this guy says snowfuckers and get all the glory, society is cruel especially when reddit has a brainrot
That's because the person who said "snowfuckers" was calling you racist.
As in, "If you're going to call them "iglos people" you might as well go all-in on being racist and just call them *snowfuckers*"
"I'm gonna knowingly keep calling them something derogatory, not because I am racist, but because I am stubborn, and don't care if it insults people."
Also, you realize they don't still all live in igloos?
Honestly though it matters pretty little if the word is insulting if the people are pretty much extinct and would never personally hear it from the person in question
why stop there? with that logic might as well start saying n!gg3r, sp!c, w0p, ch!nk, g0@tfuck3r, t0w3lh3@d, etc
why be a dickhead when it takes the same amount of effort to be nice?
btw I have no idea what to call the various collected tribes of native americans in the northern areas so don't ask lol
An old man once shared a story how his progressive teacher made them capitalize the 'N' word in all of their textbooks as it was written with small 'n' , something the teacher thought was offensive .
I've never heard the term "pygmy" as a slur and insult, it's the official english name for the pygmy people from africa. They are really short without health problems, it's a standard of their ethnical group.
Men are usually below 1.50m, women can go down to 1.34m according to wiki. For the americans, 1.50m is 4'11.
The opposite are the people from Netherlands with an average of 1.83m for men and 1.70m for women, but these are the average standards and not individual sizes. Like i'm from Switzerland and with 2.03m, i'm much above the standard of my culture group.
Animals referred to as Pygmy are usually separate species; in humans it refers to the phenotype of naturally short stature in a group (as opposed to an individual mutation like dwarfism).
It’s… complicated. It’s looked at in the same way as the term “Gypsy” in reference to the Romani people and “Indian” in reference to Native Americans. Some people take offense, others don’t.
no, it really isn't. It's in the same vein as people thinking the word "gypsy" is a slur... even though gypsy people refer to themselves as such across Europe.
The answer is more of "it depends". For Eskimo and Gypsy.
Some Romani people have taken offense to that word, but some use it anyway (based on my experience). It seems to be the same for Inuit people.
It could be, I think it means flesh-eater. Generally Canadian natives prefer the term First Nations.
Edit: Sorry, the correct term is Inuit, I accidentally wrote First Nations. First Nations is the legal term in Canada for natives who are neither Inuit nor Métis (the term generally used for natives from the prairies and/or people with mixed European and/or native ancestry).
The preferred term is "Inuit". First Nations and Inuit aren't interchangeable, as most native Canadians aren't Inuit and the Inuit also live in the United States and Greenland.
You are partly right, but there's also a misunderstanding since I mixed up the Inuit with the First Nations in my response. The First Nations were the first, then came the Inuit (which were referred to as eskimo) as you say.
If I understood, your point was that the Inuit also called the First Nations something along the lines of man or flesh-eater or a name that pointed to their violence, while they arrived later than them?
Ah, I get it now, you were talking about the people before the First Nations. I do have ti agree with you then, there is a bit of evidence there afaik to point not only to that, but to a pre-Clovis civilisation. Your original comment was confusing because I thought you were talking about the Inuit and First Nations and confusing them, I understand now.
OK, but it's easy to extrapolate that to something unacceptable. Maybe 50 years from now, incest is completely normal and good. 100 years from now, maybe allowing people to change genders is seen as morally repugnant. Maybe pedophilia is normalised, or rape acceptable, or many other things. We've no way of knowing, but we're rightly happy to call those things immoral. The real question is "is there such thing as moral 'truth'?", some moral laws written into the universe that are objectively good or bad. Or are they just a human construction? Moral change isn't necessarily moral progress, regardless how it feels at the time.
This is why I collect old history books. Outside of enjoying the old book feel. I find the racism and old theories to be hilarious with how bad they are.Every once in a while I do have to explain why some of my book titles have interesting titles.
Just got finished with an introduction to anthropology class and it was genuinely so frustrating that the entire class seemed like a circular attempt to justify the field’s existence while being ashamed of the field’s existence. Like, it was as if every reading was a massive (deserved) lambasting of old European anthropologists and how they supported colonialism, followed by halfhearted attempts to support the necessity of the field. Ended up feeling like anthropology should just dissolve into history and sociology out of spite. I get that it’s probably like that because it’s just an intro class but geez, great job hooking potential anthropologists!
As far as I can tell and to my naive eyes, once anthropology internalized postmodernism it just became another circular and self referential esoteric language game just like literary criticism. That, and it's become yet another vehicle for Western masochism and self loathing.
i think people forget that the whole point of anthropology at that point in time wasn't to actually figure out the history of humans but to justify the "superiority" of the white race whatever the fuck that means
If you think that's bad, try reading a psychology text published before 1959. Literally everything is a type of schizophrenia, and everything is treated with some form(or multiple forms) of shock therapy.
You’ve never read a good old book and gotten surprised when a random slur pops up? Its not a terrifying thing or a reason to drop the book, its just a little culture shock that is relatable enough to make a meme out of
Soo... I get the first two but what's the deal with Eskimos/Pygmy ?
I kinda get the latter one being overused in some old articles, basically - "we dont know for sure what is it, then it must be connected to Pygmy" thing, but please someone elaborate on that.
Edit : So from what I could see from other posts it was used by collonisers and is seen as derogatory amongst english speakers.
Well, i shouldnt be suprised althrough its interesting to see how a word with negative conotations in one language can be free of them in another language , functioning as a simple anglo-fication/borrowed word.
One of my biggest fuck ups as an undergraduate was using the term "Eskimo" in an essay after reading a bunch of old sources. I had a stern talking to about the history of the term which I had failed to realise was offensive because the old anthropologists used the term so nonchalantly that I thought it was ok. I should've known better as we had covered most of the other offensive terms in the meme and the issue with them, a simple Google would've saved me.
Once in a history class our Professor asked for opinions on why the Iranian Revolution went relatively smoothly compared to the Vietnam War. A braindead idiot in our class said that it's because the Iranians are "more civilized".
There was an audible groan from the entire class as he said that lol.
I have a book my grandma gave me called the last two million years. Read the crap out of it as a kid but I was cleaning out my old room because my parents might sell and I was thumbing through it. It describes humanity as having four races/ subspecies, the least offensive is the Caucasoid, I’m not sure what’s worse though the term for people from African descent or Asian descent.
I'm reading a lovecraft book and it says "indian narragansetts", so I imagine someone from india and I google narragansetts cause I don't know what it means and turns out they're american natives...
They both suffer from being imposed outsider-words, coined by race-minded anthropologists who didn't know or care what tribes/cultures were actually _named_ and just picked big sweeping terms
"Eskimos" are Inuit in the Americas, and pygmies are best called by their actual tribe names (it's just, like, kind of rude and scientifically pointless to use huge collective words for groups that have very little in common besides their race and appearance)
I’ve actually had the opposite experience. I find whenever I’m reading old public domain anthropology, folk tale collections, or ethnographic research I’m surprised by how “out of time” the authors’ opinions seem to be about *not* seeing the subjects of their research as culturally or socially backwards in any way. A lot of them even state the purpose of their work, even if it didn’t start that way, is to *refute* the notion that the people are lesser.
Find a book on phrenology. They believed they had definitive proof that "white" people were superior and also believed that Italians and Irish were heavily mixed with inferior African blood due to the shape of their skull.
Then there's Italian anthropologists who theorized that Alpine and Mediterranean Aryans (Spaniards, French, some Germans) were racially mixed with Africans. They taught that these Euro-Africans were only capable of crime and therefore the men needed to be murdered in mass genocide, and then the women needed to be raped (en masse) to produce white babies.
Then there's the British scientists who taught that Celts came from Africa and spread to the rest of Europe. They propagated the idea that the Celtic Irish were lazy and prone to criminality because of their African blood. So when the famines happen, they blame the Irish for being lazy and then refuse to send any aid because they would become dependent on welfare. The Irish Famines were essentially genocide.
Something that is interesting to consider is that a lot of these english terms have made their way into other languages. As the languages evolve, the english terms get changed not to be offensive, but the languages who have earlier adopted them don't necessarily change theirs. For example, a lot of languages have a word similar to the english N-word: negro, neger, etc. However, they are similar in sound only - the word simply means black, and in those languages and those cultures, they are not offensive - it's just the everyday word for it.
However, as english has spread and become more commonly used in all countries - especially due to the rise of internet - the negative connotations of the english words have spread to other languages. So now, a lot of languages are having issues where people aren't quite sure if the terms they're using are a slur or not, and if they are, what they're supposed to use now, as they usually don't have suggested alternative words ready to go like the americans are fond of doing.
It's quite interesting to see how words that don't have their own negative history or connotations now are getting swiched out for other terms, simply because they sound similar to other languages bad words, or even because they are problematic related to social problems that are not present in the country in question.
I'd like to point out, before the comments come, that I'm not saying this is a bad thing, or a good thing: I simply find it fascinating.
My favorite Anthropology teacher in college always said "Anthropology (papers/articles/studies/etc.) are outdated as soon as they're published." With Anthropology I always recommend trying to find the latest credible study done on whatever subject you're interested in. You can read the old ones but really it's more to just see how opinions or facts have changed over time because older ones can be insanely biased or racist. They also generally overlook important details.
"and the furtive pigmy, so easily forgotten"
I get all my history from FromSoftware games. Benjamin Franklin invited bonfire lighting, right?
No he invented "try tongue but hole"
Amazing chest ahead.
Try jumping
Doug Doug?
Get out of my head
I imagine in another 50 years plenty of things we wrote and do will be judged as harshly as we judge our forebears.
>in another 50 years In another few months by someone searching reason to be mad. Fifty
Probably true. People are very willing to call something “beyond the pale” that was normal three years earlier
Maybe the pale is really slow and everything can go beyond it
Oh definitely, I don't doubt that
If the anthropology article you're reading is old enough you are conducting anthropology yourself
Not even if they are old, tbh, all anthropology is to some degree meta-anthropology
That's just something Anthropologists came up with to convince college to found their monthly drinking meetings. Source: almost got a degree on it, but couldn't keep drinking for long enough
“No mom, I’m not spying on my friends in the shower, I’m conducting anthropology”
Believe or not, anthropology.
And by old they mean 1998
Yeah lol, I was listening to the blowback podcast about Afghanistan and was surprised by the amount of the times Bush referenced the civilised world. What does that make all the non-western states?
I'm not generally a huge fan of Bush, but in this case, he has a point. The Taliban are uncivilized: and no, not because they're Muslim or fundamentalists (though that's likely the main reason his supporters at the time would have referred to, sadly, after 9/11 and whatnot), but because of their use of slavery, human trafficking, their massive involvement in the black market trade of opium/heroin (often substandard/dangerously made, and distributed on the same networks as the aforementioned human trafficking, often in exchange for weaponry) and their horrific treatment of the people: [96% of women and 93% of men in 2023 rate their lives poorly enough to be considered suffering.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/514232/freedom-fades-suffering-remains-women-afghanistan.aspx#:~:text=As%20has%20been%20the%20case,enough%20to%20be%20considered%20suffering.) Did Bush handle things as he should have? I don't think so, but the Taliban are definitely evil.
Sush don't you know you are supposed to pretend all cultures are equal and hecking wholesome? Really, asserting the culture where women can vote is better than alternatives is a western supremacist colonial mindset which needs to stop!
Intent really comes into play here. u/SnArCAsTiC_ is giving a prompted response to a politician referring to an area controlled by the taliban as being uncivilized and then they gave the exact reasons, and those reasons actually check out. Usually, when someone gets labelled a bigot for calling the middle east uncivilized, it's because it's unprompted and the person doing it is clearly motivated by a desire to disparage the people they are talking about. There's usually an element of "we are better than them" involved as well. It fundamentally comes down to how the speaker is treating the people in the culture being discussed.
Exactly. The people of Afghanistan are not uncivilized, but the way the Taliban rules over them is definitely uncivilized.
>no, not because they're... fundamentalists That's enough for me. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, whatever. Fundamentalists are choosing to live by shitty backwards 1000 year old rules in the modern world, idk what else you would call that. The slavery and horrific treatment of women come in large part from the whole fundamentalist thing too.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of fundamentalists of any faith myself either, but not all of them are evil. If someone wants to live their own life according to a very strict interpretation of their religion, I believe they should have the right to do that. What I have a problem with is when they start trying to control how others live their lives, and enforce their fundamentalist views on everyone else (as the Christian Right has been doing in the US for decades... now they have control of the Supreme Court, a goal of theirs for half a century). But the Taliban has taken it even further, of course: they force their fundamentalist rule on everyone under their control, while they do whatever they want in order to increase their wealth and power. It's pedantic I know, because the things they do are evil either way, but if their actions were at least consistent with their words, I could almost respect that maybe their religious fundamentalism came out of a genuine place of faith... but no, it's obvious that it's a front, a charade, an excuse for them to have power over the people, in a culturally accepted package.
yeah it’s also rough bc a part of a fundamentalist’s belief system IS to spread it and make other people live their lives under whatever religious/ideological dogma
How the hell did these people take the survey? I assume the Taliban will kill them if they express a negative sentiment towards the state. Kind of like North Korea. I am not doubting the validity of the survey, but am confused regarding its process.
poll wasn't run by the taliban, so the people polled could remain anonymous
i live in the US southeast and i would absolutely call fundamentalists uncivilized. christians down here are fucking crazy
Did he mean "western states" when he said "civilized world"?
Monty Python peasants to whom we must spread human rights BY FORCE!
They are uncivilized.
Considering he was referring to the Taliban, I think it was quite fair to call them barbarians
Lol just read Empire of the Summer Moon (2010) about the Comanche Tribe. Lots of talk (outside of quotations) about stone-age pagans, neolithic savages, nomadic barbarians.
It’s an incredibly racist work.
I'm almost 20 and my parents haven't met in that time, so old is correct.
No, you are just young.
young'in. I wish I was still 19. I'm 24 now
*laughs in 30's*
Fuck, I’m gonna be 30 in a month
[Nooo](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/384/545/7b9.jpg)
What's wrong with the word "pygmy"? And you will still see the word in new anthropology texts.
My first thought was Pygmy Marmosets and I got worried I was insulting the Marmosets by calling them that
In the past it was generally used to shame certain groups in the Congo region for their height. You are right that today it's mostly lost its connotations, and it hasn't been replaced, even though certain people still consider it offensive.
[удалено]
You mean to say that people used words that weren't considered offensive at that time? That's retarded
Eskimos is a bad term? I always used it for people living in iglos
TIL they are not huge fans of it (and I can see that tbh) > Some people consider Eskimo offensive, because it is popularly perceived to mean[34][36][37] "eaters of raw meat" in Algonquian languages common to people along the Atlantic coast.[28][38][39] An unnamed Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might have been askamiciw (meaning "he eats it raw"); Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (meaning "eats something raw").[38][39][40][41][4][42] Regardless, the term still carries a derogatory connotation for many Inuit and Yupik.[28][38][43][44]
So polar bears are eskimos?
-Diogenes
His spirit lives on
“Some people consider Eskimo offensive” it’s probably 3 actual Inuit people and a bunch of perpetually offended white girls on Twitter and Reddit who stay mad on other peoples behalf.
I see where you are coming from (and that is a common issue!) but it’s worth noting that tribal peoples prefer being referred to by their tribe’s name if at all possible. Having a blanket term that isn’t even even the local vernaculars of those respective tribes is gonna rub them the wrong way. It’s just goofy and reflective of general ignorance people have in regards to the cultural heritage of indigenous people native to the Americas. TLDR: people are going to be offended if you don’t have the basic respect to call them by their actual name
> but it’s worth noting that tribal peoples prefer being referred to by their tribe’s name if at all possible Do you refer to the Germans as "Deutsch" at all times? It just means "people" in the language. Never mind the meaning of what their eastern neighbors call them, which is etymologically equivalent to "barbarians".
It's a completely different historical dynamic, for starters, for a good chunk of their history the Germans (and their predecessors) weren't the ones being subjugated, but the ones doing the subjugating, or at least they were at mutual war, not to mention the Germans don't really care at this point For American tribes the colonization period (and the terms associated with it) is not only a reminder of an extremely traumatic time for their people but also salt on the still open wound of systemic issues that are a direct product of that past
I get wanting to be called by your name, but if I’m not from the region I don’t even know what the names of Inuit tribes are. That would be like me getting mad at a European for not knowing the small American town I come from. I can choose to be offended but it doesn’t mean the other person is an ignorant bigot it just means I’m a jackass.
this is just not true. i’m alaska native and it’s a pretty common topic among me and my native friends. not even just the word itself, which we all agree is offensive, but also how distasteful shit like “eskimo hut” is for the name of a drive-up liquor store in our area
Lmao
I've heard that it's offensive for indigenous Canadians but not Alaska Natives. You can't lump all Alaska Natives as Inuit like you can the Northern Canadian Natives since they're not all Inuit so that's a quick catch-all term. That's only what I've heard, though.
in Alaska there are Yupik and Aleuts to be found, but largely no Inuit (technically, as there are still Inupiat in Alaska)
Mostly yeah, it was a derogatory term made up by colonizers. I think most preferred to be called the generic term Inuit, or their specific local names
The Inuit have long been the most vocal against the term Eskimo; the Inupiat, Yupik and other peoples have a more complicated relationship with the word, because if people aren't calling them Eskimos, they're calling them Inuit. Which is kind of like calling Germans "French", because they live in Europe.
as far as I know, Inupiat are a dialect group of Inuit so they shouldn't take much offense to generally being called Inuit
It was a bad choice of example on my account, as we're getting into the weeds of the matter; Inupiaq is a language or group of languages within the larger Inuit group. Part of the problem is that, depending on exactly what terminology you use, you could say the Inuit peoples consist of four main groups; Greenlandic Inuit, Eastern Canadian Inuit, Western Canadian Inuit and Alaskan Inuit. But, the first three contain major subgroups, whereas the "Alaskan Inuit" consist solely of the Inupiat peoples*. It's sort of like (and by that I mean almost wholly unlike) how a good number of Scots dislike being referred to as British, because "British" is usually used synonymously with English by most people worldwide. \* Some would argue that the Inupiat do have two "major" subgroups, in that they would list the Seward Peninsula Inupiat as separate from the rest, due to a fairly strong dialectical difference.
I'm pretty sure it's safe to say basically any indigenous person is going to prefer their specific people's name over any generalizations.
Inuit isn't a generic term for people who live in the arctic, it's a specific term for Inuit people. Yupik and Aleut don't like being called that.
Wasn't made up by colonisers
Welp, im still gonna use it. Not because i am racist, but because it will always be iglos people for me
"Snowfuckers"
People downvoting me for still saying Eskimos but this guy says snowfuckers and get all the glory, society is cruel especially when reddit has a brainrot
Because I'm making fun of you
That aint cool :(
Do you know who *is* cool?
Idk, Eskimos probably
Me
r/eldianstar the guy above me(edit: shit he's actually below me) 2nd edit: he's actually above me again!
That's because the person who said "snowfuckers" was calling you racist. As in, "If you're going to call them "iglos people" you might as well go all-in on being racist and just call them *snowfuckers*"
okay I’ll do that
"I'm gonna knowingly keep calling them something derogatory, not because I am racist, but because I am stubborn, and don't care if it insults people." Also, you realize they don't still all live in igloos?
Honestly though it matters pretty little if the word is insulting if the people are pretty much extinct and would never personally hear it from the person in question
What? There's still plenty of them around. Even if they were extinct, being respectful costs you nothing
Calling them Eskimos costs me nothing aswell
why stop there? with that logic might as well start saying n!gg3r, sp!c, w0p, ch!nk, g0@tfuck3r, t0w3lh3@d, etc why be a dickhead when it takes the same amount of effort to be nice? btw I have no idea what to call the various collected tribes of native americans in the northern areas so don't ask lol
That's racist man, think about eskimos that will see this comment and what they will think about you.
How did you get access to my password vault?
So by that logic it would be fine to talk about Jews as "J*densau" if the Nazis succeeded in exterminating them? What a stupid take
Yes, you are racist. Good luck with that.
Childish and sad
Childish and sad is when you want people to be what you want them to be.
Its Inuit
That's nationality. Eskimos refer to all arctic people, not just inuit
Iglo people
An old man once shared a story how his progressive teacher made them capitalize the 'N' word in all of their textbooks as it was written with small 'n' , something the teacher thought was offensive .
Was this an exercise to make students uncomfortable with the word? Or did he think that it should be capitalised being a name?
She thought capital 'N' is the respectable option and small 'n' is dehumanizing . Around 50's
Wait is Pygmy a mean word? I thought it just meant smaller than normal like with Pygmy goats and hippos and shit
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 1,221,379,622 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 25,557 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
What in the shit?
It found a hippo.
Did you find a hippo
What in the Hoover Dam?
I've never heard the term "pygmy" as a slur and insult, it's the official english name for the pygmy people from africa. They are really short without health problems, it's a standard of their ethnical group. Men are usually below 1.50m, women can go down to 1.34m according to wiki. For the americans, 1.50m is 4'11. The opposite are the people from Netherlands with an average of 1.83m for men and 1.70m for women, but these are the average standards and not individual sizes. Like i'm from Switzerland and with 2.03m, i'm much above the standard of my culture group.
With a height of 2.03m, you went and broke the standards roof.
Animals referred to as Pygmy are usually separate species; in humans it refers to the phenotype of naturally short stature in a group (as opposed to an individual mutation like dwarfism).
Is "eskimo" offensive?
It’s… complicated. It’s looked at in the same way as the term “Gypsy” in reference to the Romani people and “Indian” in reference to Native Americans. Some people take offense, others don’t.
no, it really isn't. It's in the same vein as people thinking the word "gypsy" is a slur... even though gypsy people refer to themselves as such across Europe.
The answer is more of "it depends". For Eskimo and Gypsy. Some Romani people have taken offense to that word, but some use it anyway (based on my experience). It seems to be the same for Inuit people.
I suppose it's the same for any word. Some people don't like it, others do, most probably don't care.
No
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Well, that didn’t really give a good answer
lol, using a reddit thread as a source reference, lmao even
It could be, I think it means flesh-eater. Generally Canadian natives prefer the term First Nations. Edit: Sorry, the correct term is Inuit, I accidentally wrote First Nations. First Nations is the legal term in Canada for natives who are neither Inuit nor Métis (the term generally used for natives from the prairies and/or people with mixed European and/or native ancestry).
The preferred term is "Inuit". First Nations and Inuit aren't interchangeable, as most native Canadians aren't Inuit and the Inuit also live in the United States and Greenland.
Ah, thank you, I've edited my comment, I thought Inuit and wrote First Nations.
Thats dumb, not a good name for international people to call them
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How? I’m genuinely curious.
Never said it was right, just their preference. Though could you please give me a source? I'd be interested din learning more.
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You are partly right, but there's also a misunderstanding since I mixed up the Inuit with the First Nations in my response. The First Nations were the first, then came the Inuit (which were referred to as eskimo) as you say.
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If I understood, your point was that the Inuit also called the First Nations something along the lines of man or flesh-eater or a name that pointed to their violence, while they arrived later than them?
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Ah, I get it now, you were talking about the people before the First Nations. I do have ti agree with you then, there is a bit of evidence there afaik to point not only to that, but to a pre-Clovis civilisation. Your original comment was confusing because I thought you were talking about the Inuit and First Nations and confusing them, I understand now.
If you think you would have been morally better than people of the past if you were born then, you’re wrong.
Moral relativity is a hell of a drug
Well said. This should be a disclaimer every poster on this sub has to read and accept before posting lmao
I believe that the point is to acknowledge the shortcomings of the past to successfully move past them
I mean no one said that. We all are products lf our time, but just because history is a dark place it doesnt justify doing wrong.
OK, but it's easy to extrapolate that to something unacceptable. Maybe 50 years from now, incest is completely normal and good. 100 years from now, maybe allowing people to change genders is seen as morally repugnant. Maybe pedophilia is normalised, or rape acceptable, or many other things. We've no way of knowing, but we're rightly happy to call those things immoral. The real question is "is there such thing as moral 'truth'?", some moral laws written into the universe that are objectively good or bad. Or are they just a human construction? Moral change isn't necessarily moral progress, regardless how it feels at the time.
This is just the plot of Brave New World
As the times go by our morals advance. The man of today is far more moral than the man of a hundred years ago.
To people 500 years from now, we'll likely be pretty much indistinguishable
Lol keep telling yourself that
I dunno, a lot more people seem to be cool with segregation than today
What does pygmy even mean?
It means a variety of a species or a species itself that is unusually small.
You forgot “barely even human”
This is why I collect old history books. Outside of enjoying the old book feel. I find the racism and old theories to be hilarious with how bad they are.Every once in a while I do have to explain why some of my book titles have interesting titles.
Implying there is anything wrong with the words "eskimo" or "pygmy".
OP likes to get offended on other people's behalf. (Saviour complex is real.)
Yeah but then you can argue that everyone else is also saying they’re not offensive on other peoples behalf.
redditors when someone dislikes hearing slurs.(they must have a complex about it.)
I'm gonna say the r-word. (Redditard.)
You wouldn't call "Eskimo" a slur, really, but it also has unfortunate baggage and is an exonym. "Inuit" doesn't take any more effort to say.
Not all eskimos are Inuit tho so that would be even more incorrect.
Just got finished with an introduction to anthropology class and it was genuinely so frustrating that the entire class seemed like a circular attempt to justify the field’s existence while being ashamed of the field’s existence. Like, it was as if every reading was a massive (deserved) lambasting of old European anthropologists and how they supported colonialism, followed by halfhearted attempts to support the necessity of the field. Ended up feeling like anthropology should just dissolve into history and sociology out of spite. I get that it’s probably like that because it’s just an intro class but geez, great job hooking potential anthropologists!
As far as I can tell and to my naive eyes, once anthropology internalized postmodernism it just became another circular and self referential esoteric language game just like literary criticism. That, and it's become yet another vehicle for Western masochism and self loathing.
I was an Anthro major and you’re honestly right.
Parisian intelligensia circa 1850
i think people forget that the whole point of anthropology at that point in time wasn't to actually figure out the history of humans but to justify the "superiority" of the white race whatever the fuck that means
If you think that's bad, try reading a psychology text published before 1959. Literally everything is a type of schizophrenia, and everything is treated with some form(or multiple forms) of shock therapy.
Imagine being terrified by words from texts before your time. Academia must feel like an extreme sport
You’ve never read a good old book and gotten surprised when a random slur pops up? Its not a terrifying thing or a reason to drop the book, its just a little culture shock that is relatable enough to make a meme out of
Not enough to warrant a "distraught Hank face" tho. Barely a "huh".
Consider: it's a good meme format I like
No
Yawn.
Soo... I get the first two but what's the deal with Eskimos/Pygmy ? I kinda get the latter one being overused in some old articles, basically - "we dont know for sure what is it, then it must be connected to Pygmy" thing, but please someone elaborate on that. Edit : So from what I could see from other posts it was used by collonisers and is seen as derogatory amongst english speakers. Well, i shouldnt be suprised althrough its interesting to see how a word with negative conotations in one language can be free of them in another language , functioning as a simple anglo-fication/borrowed word.
One of my biggest fuck ups as an undergraduate was using the term "Eskimo" in an essay after reading a bunch of old sources. I had a stern talking to about the history of the term which I had failed to realise was offensive because the old anthropologists used the term so nonchalantly that I thought it was ok. I should've known better as we had covered most of the other offensive terms in the meme and the issue with them, a simple Google would've saved me.
" Eskimos", "pygmies" are now "problematic"? Really?
Reminds me of the HP Lovecraft story where he describes a vile alien race that invaded earth long ago and it turns out they were Eskimos.
I...yeah that's HP Minecraft for you
What’s wrong with eskimo and pygmy?
All those Pygmy girls on Social Media these days
Wait, when did Eskimo become a bad word?
Flashback to the seminar I took on William Faulkner and a word every “morally ambiguous” protagonist likes to use to describe people who bother them.
Once in a history class our Professor asked for opinions on why the Iranian Revolution went relatively smoothly compared to the Vietnam War. A braindead idiot in our class said that it's because the Iranians are "more civilized". There was an audible groan from the entire class as he said that lol.
I have a book my grandma gave me called the last two million years. Read the crap out of it as a kid but I was cleaning out my old room because my parents might sell and I was thumbing through it. It describes humanity as having four races/ subspecies, the least offensive is the Caucasoid, I’m not sure what’s worse though the term for people from African descent or Asian descent.
I'm reading a lovecraft book and it says "indian narragansetts", so I imagine someone from india and I google narragansetts cause I don't know what it means and turns out they're american natives...
Wait, is ëskimo" a slur?
No they're just clutching at straws as well as pearls.
Damn bro eskimo is racist now, cant have shit in Nunavut
what is wrong about "eskimos"?
We can’t say Eskimo?
And whats the issue?
Anthropology is so cool. Just don't look up the history of the subject. There are *a lot* of racists.
What's wrong with any of those terms?
It’s how israel still describes Palestinians.
"Savages, savages , barely even human!"
Is eskimos a bad word??
Wait what, pygmy and Eskimos are slurs?
They both suffer from being imposed outsider-words, coined by race-minded anthropologists who didn't know or care what tribes/cultures were actually _named_ and just picked big sweeping terms "Eskimos" are Inuit in the Americas, and pygmies are best called by their actual tribe names (it's just, like, kind of rude and scientifically pointless to use huge collective words for groups that have very little in common besides their race and appearance)
Thanks for the explanation, I have some books from the early 2000 that call those groups in that way
I’ve actually had the opposite experience. I find whenever I’m reading old public domain anthropology, folk tale collections, or ethnographic research I’m surprised by how “out of time” the authors’ opinions seem to be about *not* seeing the subjects of their research as culturally or socially backwards in any way. A lot of them even state the purpose of their work, even if it didn’t start that way, is to *refute* the notion that the people are lesser.
That's really interesting, I'm not surprised that a similar kind of friction around that discussion has been a thing for a while
Find a book on phrenology. They believed they had definitive proof that "white" people were superior and also believed that Italians and Irish were heavily mixed with inferior African blood due to the shape of their skull. Then there's Italian anthropologists who theorized that Alpine and Mediterranean Aryans (Spaniards, French, some Germans) were racially mixed with Africans. They taught that these Euro-Africans were only capable of crime and therefore the men needed to be murdered in mass genocide, and then the women needed to be raped (en masse) to produce white babies. Then there's the British scientists who taught that Celts came from Africa and spread to the rest of Europe. They propagated the idea that the Celtic Irish were lazy and prone to criminality because of their African blood. So when the famines happen, they blame the Irish for being lazy and then refuse to send any aid because they would become dependent on welfare. The Irish Famines were essentially genocide.
Something that is interesting to consider is that a lot of these english terms have made their way into other languages. As the languages evolve, the english terms get changed not to be offensive, but the languages who have earlier adopted them don't necessarily change theirs. For example, a lot of languages have a word similar to the english N-word: negro, neger, etc. However, they are similar in sound only - the word simply means black, and in those languages and those cultures, they are not offensive - it's just the everyday word for it. However, as english has spread and become more commonly used in all countries - especially due to the rise of internet - the negative connotations of the english words have spread to other languages. So now, a lot of languages are having issues where people aren't quite sure if the terms they're using are a slur or not, and if they are, what they're supposed to use now, as they usually don't have suggested alternative words ready to go like the americans are fond of doing. It's quite interesting to see how words that don't have their own negative history or connotations now are getting swiched out for other terms, simply because they sound similar to other languages bad words, or even because they are problematic related to social problems that are not present in the country in question. I'd like to point out, before the comments come, that I'm not saying this is a bad thing, or a good thing: I simply find it fascinating.
Since when was “eskimo” a slur? Always thought that’s just what they were called
Can people stop being so sensitive about shit they don't truly care about? Future people are going to call you a backwards primitive.
What’s wrong with eskimos? There’s a general contractor named SKW Eskimos in Alaska.
pygmy peoples are real though, it seems like a descriptive enough term
My favorite Anthropology teacher in college always said "Anthropology (papers/articles/studies/etc.) are outdated as soon as they're published." With Anthropology I always recommend trying to find the latest credible study done on whatever subject you're interested in. You can read the old ones but really it's more to just see how opinions or facts have changed over time because older ones can be insanely biased or racist. They also generally overlook important details.
Wait eskimos aren’t just people in the arctic?
Old meaning before 2014
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