NPR's "native" = (partly?) ancestral

[James Harbeck]

>   I'd ignore this as mere lazy thinking except that it so clearly
>ties into the whole PC idea of "real" identity being genetically
>determined. And minority ethnicity is always somehow "realer." Past
>attempts to promote this assumption have been uniformly less
>well-intended.

This reminds me of one time when someone declared in a presentation
to a group (of which I was a part) that Japan had an indigenous
group, too (I say "too" because North American indigenous groups had
been the topic up to then). I thought, "Well, yeah! The Japanese!"
But apparently they aren't indigenous enough for him -- "indigenous"
must mean minority, disadvantaged, underappreciated? He was talking
about the Ainu, who are indigenous to Hokkaido and whose culture is
somewhat different and certainly does deserve recognition. But,
really, since when are the Japanese not indigenous to most of Japan?
Do they really not count just because they're the dominant society?
I'm not sure I like that trend of thought... Seems kind of fuzzy to
me, too...

James Harbeck.

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