FWIW (not FBFW), My BIL is Havasupai. When refering to his people I usaully say "you 'Supai" or more casually, "y'all injuns". When I refer to him personally, I just call him Ed.
A dear friend and occasional co-worker of mine is a half-breed; Yuki and Blackfoot. A potentially deadly combination when combined with firewater. (Think Irish drinking with Italian attitude). He's affectionately known around here as John Redcorn (from KOTH). We have great fun with this. Once we were in a hardware store in a very small town in KY. County seat, and not even a stoplight, think Mennonite country. Redcorn was giving me shit about something as we were at the checkout. He's one large injun, got an easy 100lbs on me. I turned to him and said "Watch it there Tonto, we ain't played Hippies and Indians yet." He reared back as if to deck me, and the poor kid at the counter ducked for the floor. He was sure he was gonna see this big redskin fold me in half. We laughed about that kids reaction all the way back to the jobsite. Another time we went into a small bar/casino in Eastern NV. As we got to the door, Redcorn asked me if since we were in the wild wild West would they serve firewater to an indian. I told him I'd cover for him and walked in and asked the barmaid if it was OK to bring my faithful indian friend in. She caught onto the joke and pretended to ponder the situation. I assured her that the rest of my posse (we were a crew heading out to Reno to do the Outdoor Games for ESPN) was next door grabbing ratburgers, and would come a runnin' if our injun got out of hand. We had great fun making light of all the stereotypical presumptions about indians (and hippies too I might add). Point being, it seems that some folks walk around looking for things to be offended by. WTF?!? If someone is truly bigoted, does it make it any better because they say or print "n word" rather than "nigger"? Same with f-word, s-word and all the rest. Why all the uproar over the word when the meaning is clear? Seems we've created an entire class of professional victims. Can I start taking offense at being called "Hippie"? I know that some use it as a derogatory term, and I'm fine with that. I just grin about it like Hopper in "Easy Rider". Pawpaw is 93 years old, and uses the word nigger to refer to black people. That's what they were called in his era. Nothing to it. I've seen him cringe a little when his great grandchildren affectionately call me Hippie. To his peers, that was a put down. (He's a country music pioneer) Now, for him to hear the little ones (and the big ones) say that is kind of a joke on the stereotype, just like me and Redcorn. With all that we could improve about our world, to run around bitching about the way that people imply their prejudices seems a waste of time and effort to me. You ain't gonna change some folks. What's it matter if you shame them into using euphemisms? I find all of this intolerance intolerable, and I'm not going to tolerate it.
