Racial epithet makes news

[Victor Steinbok]

  I've been sitting on the sidelines on this discussion, but I don't
like the direction it has taken. Perhaps I am the only one who thinks
that the observation that "Honest Injun" should "reasonably be
understood" as less offensive than just plain "Injun" is ridiculous. But
this is how I see it. To me it's a qualifier that makes it more
offensive, not less. Consider, "He's a Jew, but he's an Honest Jew." To
me, at least, this is a far worse racial categorization than someone
simply saying, "He's a Jew." It does imply some kind of a distinction
that assumes that Jews--or "Injuns"--are, as a rule, dishonest. It seems
the earlier suggestion to this effect has been far too easily dismissed.

I give no discount for ignorance. There is no reason to call someone on
a stupid statement just because he's unaware of it being offensive.
Again, to use the same analogy, I've heard a small number of people use
the expression "to jew down", which has very unambiguous origins. None
of these people were in any way antisemitic, yet, they defended it as
"just an expression". Still, pointing out the discrepancy virtually
eliminated this usage from their vocabulary.

Consider another expression [OED]:
1. b. to make an honest woman (of): to marry (a woman) after seduction;
also without depreciatory reference, to marry. dial. and colloq. (The
sense may have been associated with 3b ‘chaste’.)

It seems suspicious to me. Perhaps this was written by stodgy old men
who were ill-positioned to tell the difference between "depreciatory"
and "non-depreciatory" references. And if an expression is used both
ways, how is one supposed to tell the difference?

Stepping back from criticism in such instances--which appear to me
completely justified (unlike the cases of "niggardly", "handicapped" and
"picnic"--the latter just cited by the Republican operative
"whistleblower" in his complaint about the non-action of DOJ on the
Philadelphia alleged voter intimidation case)--makes one pose as an
arbiter on the level of Swiss "neutrality". And, no, this is not a
positive comparison.

VS-)

On 7/7/2010 8:56 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> If I may play the devil's advocate, "Injun" may be rightly offensive in
> ordinary discourse for obvious reasons. That does not entail that the phrase
> "Honest Injun" is meant to be or should reasonably be understood as
> offensive.  For critics to jump on Steele with both feet for saying "Honest
> Injun" and for CNN implicitly to endorse that reaction (when it could have
> reported it without comment) strikes me as disproportionate to the offense.
> (Like that matters.)
>
> By the way, not every member of a given ethnic group is honest.  So what?
> Nobody is claiming, AFAIK, that Steele is an anti-Indian racist, despises
> Native Americans, or used the phrase in anything other than a spontaneous,
> humorous way - humorous because children appear to me to be/ have been its
> primary users; an adult's saying "Honest Injun!" implies to me a rhetorical
> assertion of truthfulness and lack of guile. It is not a way of saying, "Oh,
> I almost forgot!  Never trust an Indian! Now where was I?"

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