Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 08:11:29PM +0530, Deepa Mohan wrote: >> Touche, Perry.... but.....I must tell you that when someone here saw a >> photograph of the person who has now become my son in law, he >> exclaimed, "Oh! He is an American American!" > > That would be Red Indian, I presume ;p
The autochthonous population prefers the term "Native American" -- the terms "Red" for such people and "Yellow" for East Asians are now considered impolite (and besides, factually wrong given what colors those terms usually mean), though for whatever reason "Black" is still considered polite for discussing people of African descent (who are not actually not what one would call "Black" in any other context). "White" is also still polite, although I am sort of a medium beige and not anything like the shade of paper, and even people who produce only pheomelanin and no eumelanin (colloquially "redheads" though the color of their hair is more orange than red) are more pink than white in shade. My friends (both those with lots of melanin, and the melanin deficient like myself) have taken to using the term "Brown" when speaking ironically in the voice of bigots -- as in "Oh my God! The Supreme Court is going to allow prisoners at Guantanamo to have access to the courts! What horror is next, allowing brown people to vote?" Perry
