Politically Correct

Between the last two emails it was brought to my attention that I’d changed the spelling of the Islamic scripture from Koran to Quran. This was an accommodation, a sort of surrender, to the way I’d seen it spelled in the print media in the intervening days. What the hell. I’m not intransigent when it comes to substituting three letters for two.

But we all have some limits to our political correctness. I’ve yet to hear anybody use the word “Iranian” to identify a breed of cat or a style of rug, or the term “Thai twins. But for me there are gray areas. If I ever have a hankering for Peking duck I might be ornery enough to order it that way rather than as Beijing duck listed on the menu.

This leads to a pet peeve regarding political correctness, particularly when it comes to geographic imprecision or historical myths requiring extra syllables. In the first case I refer to the word “Asian,” formerly “Oriental,” now used to identify people with ancestors from nations such as China, Japan or Korea. The Continent of Asia, probably the world’s largest, includes India, Saudi Arabia, and all the “’stan” nations. It even covers what was once Palestine, with descendants there including both Lancemen and Goyim. I’ll grant that the old fashioned “Oriental” is less than perfect. To Marco Polo, China was east. But today when we fly there we head west. It’s all a question of where you’re coming from. But then isn’t that true of life?

The second case involves the necessity to refer to what were once called “Indians” as “Native Americans.” Well hold on a minute! I am literally a native American. I was born here as were my parents, although I’ll grant that we’re less native than the folks who squared off against the cowboys.

The appellation “Indian” is supposed to have come from Columbus’s mistaken notion that he was in India. The only thing wrong with this story is that what is now India was then called Hindustan. The natives he encountered got their name because they were friendly, so much so that his crew referred to them as “en Dios” or “in God.” As we are reminded yearly, Columbus was Italian and spoke Spanish with an accent, hence “in Dios” and eventually “Indians.”

Columbus never set foot in America and didn’t land on the continent in Central America until his third and last trip. The natives he met were from the Bahamas and the Caribbean, and they all lived on islands. Any “Native Americans” he saw must have gotten there on a vacation cruise.

I don’t expect you take my word for all this. If you have any doubts just check with my source, Hop Choy Brave Eagle.