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 George
Carlin - 'On Indians' A bit of whimsy from one of America 's great
humorists. Now, the Indians. I call them Indians because that's
what they are. They're Indians. There's nothing wrong with the word
Indian. 'First of all, it's important to know that the word Indian
does not derive from Columbus mistakenly believing he had reached
India . India was not even called by that name in 1492, it was
known as Hindustan . 'More likely, the word Indian comes from
Columbus 's description of the people he found here. He was an
Italian, and did not speak or write very good Spanish, so in his
written accounts he called the Indians, 'Una gente in Dios.' A
people in God. In God. In Dios. Indians. It's a perfectly noble and
respectable word. 'As far as calling them 'Americans' is concerned,
do I even have to point out what an insult this is? ----- We steal
their hemisphere, kill twenty or so million of them, destroy five
hundred separate cultures, herd the survivors onto the worst land
we can find, and now we want to name them after ourselves? It's
appalling. Haven't we done enough damage? Do we have to further
degrade them by tagging them with this repulsive name? 'You know,
you'd think it would be a fairly simple thing to come over to this
continent, commit genocide, eliminate the forests, dam up the
rivers, build our malls and massage parlors, sell our lenders and
whoopee cushions, poison ourselves with chemicals, and let it go at
that. But no. We have to compound the insult. "I'm glad the Indians
have gambling casinos now. It makes me happy that people are losing
their rent money to the Indians. Maybe the Indians will get lucky
and win their country back. Probably they wouldn't want it. Look at
what we did to it.'  |
