Squaw Daffiness (sociolinguistics)

[Phil CashCash]

I really like your take on this word Scott.  It is an interpretation I
have not yet seen and it is quite appropriate since the male counter
part to squaw is "buck" which would support rather than deny the animal
reference.

One other dehumanizing aspect present in the use of the term squaw is
the reference on the sexual availability of native women to white
males.  It seems to be more a romanticized notion of the west due in
part to movies like "Squaw Man" by Cecile B. Demille (1914, 1931) and
other popular American culture.  Squaw Man even has an entry in the
American Heritgae Dictionary.  Nonetheless, its use is dehumanizing
because it objectifies native woman and denies them their essential
humanity.

thanks, yóx kál'o (that's all),

Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce)
UofA


> ----- Message from delancey at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU ---------
>     Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 10:52:20 -0700
>     From: Scott DeLancey <delancey at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU>
> Reply-To: Indigenous Languages and Technology
<ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
>  Subject: Re: Squaw Daffiness (sociolinguistics)
>       To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
>
> The reason why "squaw" is offensive has nothing to do with its
> origins.
> And it's not just a matter of who thinks or doesn't think that it's
> offensive, either.  In English, we have separate words for the male
> and female of barnyard animals, but not for ethnic groups of people.
> We have 'mare' and 'hen', but no 'Frenchette' or 'Russianess'.  And
> because of that, English uses a separate word, like "squaw", as a
> way of diminishing the humanity of the people being referred to.
>
> Not that long ago, the English language had two other words of the
> same
> kind--"Negress" and "Jewess".  It's no coincidence that it is exactly
> those
> two groups that the language made up special female forms for--people
> said "Jewess" but not "Germaness" because they thought of Germans as
> just people who spoke a different language, but of Jews as something
> different--not quite the same as real people.
>
> Nowadays no one would use either of these words, and anyone hearing
> them would immediately recognize them as racist.  This isn't because
> of their origin or etymology.  There's nothing racist about "Jew" or
> "Negro" (even if that one is kind of out of fashion), but to use a
> special, distinct word for the women of a group is automatically
> racist,
> because it's treating that group like animals instead of people.
>
> Scott DeLancey
> Department of Linguistics
> 1290 University of Oregon
> Eugene, OR 97403-1290, USA
>
> delancey at darkwing.uoregon.edu
> http://www.uoregon.edu/~delancey/prohp.html
>
>
> ----- End message from delancey at DARKWING.UOREGON.EDU -----