Visions of WAR!

“Oooookay. H.T.”

“H.T. ????”

“Okay, I give up. What is the H.T. reference???”

“Aw sh!t. I'm on the same wave length with the wild one!”

“LOL”

“what a bunch of gitterheads ;P

H.T.=happy trails
come on guys, pay attention...he only says it every other post.”

“Lotta help you are!!!!

What is this. An enigma wrapped in a mystery?”

“Well, the way I see it is a field of red
A lot of mothers crying because of an empty bed
bodies blown all to bits, others are broken and real sore
and then there`s the ones that won`t be going home anymore
and I see these young boys asking what it`s all for
I could be wrong, but that`s my vision of war”

“I think Wild Child is making a point about Americans complaining about illeagal immigrants comming into the country, when the white people invaded the Indian's lands. The use of the word pilgrim makes reference to this and seperates it from all other possibisities. It also creates a reversed situation where the person is using the term used by the oppressers of the Native Americans back against them. This indicates a reversal of situation. That's my read into it, and I'm stickin to it.”

“That's a fine interpretation deathmarch.”

“99-66=33”

“Baumarch 33? Never heard him.”

“Think OUTSIDE of the box, man!”

“What does it take to be a Native American? How long?, How many?”

“I think the term you want is Aboriginal American . If you were born here, then you are native. Trinity, I think it takes a casino and a fireworks license here in Michigan to be considered "native", oh yeah that and gill netting.”

“I don't think I like the image aboriginal brings to mind. I'm part Blackfoot and on the roles in both the US and Canada but can also trace kin back 11 or so generations on the white side. But as I see it I am an American and so were all the rest of my kin, some just got an earlier start.”

“Also; that dude in the pic, he's a Mexican, Aztec by the looks of his headdress. Real blood thirsty group. Probably a hard core backpacker.”

“You know I can always tell which posts WC is resposible for starting before I look at them.”

“Trinity, you made my point for me "I dont think I like the image aboriginal brings to mind". That is EXACTLY why the term isnt used. Cause we think of Curly haired,fat-lipped,broad-nosed and gulp...BLACK folks from Ausrtalia.Many folks (i am not singling out any individual here!) have the attitude that their ancestors were above aboriginals,more advanced more civilized, LESS BLACK. I stand firm that folks (again no one particular here) are a bit rascist with their langauge.

The term "aboriginal" is the most fitting term that applies for the first/original inhabitants of any given place.
For years many folks have controlled debate by controlling language,this is a wonderful example of such control.”

“Hyper, in anthropology, aboriginal has a specific meaning and refers to a level of technology not to far above no technology. Not to be confused with Aborigine, which are the first human inhabitants of an area, And has no technology tied to it. The white folks that settled Pitcairn Is. had a sailing ship, gun power and could read and write but are still the aborigines of the island.

The problem is who uses the word and how it is used. Ignorance is more powerful then knowledge when most people are also ignorant or wish to be. A good example of that is the word wop, in the beginning it stood for "with out papers". At the time the US was experiencing a large influx of immigrants mostly from Ireland but from all over Europe and most did not have papers. The general public pick up the bureaucratic notation WOP and for some reason applied it only to Italians. The point here is we often know not what we speak”

“So the correct phrase would be Aborigine American?I think we are plitting hairs at this point regarding the deleted "al" at the end. The intent and point is still the same. My point is that Native is misleading and incorrect. AboriginE is the most appropriatte and descriptive word that applies.”

“Tinity, according to www.askjeeves.com who uses the "Brittanica" dictionary as its source. ABORIGINAL is the appropriate word for the first inhabitants of an area. I figured I didnt want to be ignorant and "know not what we speak". So i looked it up.”

“Hyper, just for the record, aboriginal is an adjective, aborigine is a noun. I can tell you though that if you called any of my relatives aboriginal, aborigine or native American you could find yourself with a problem, they are Bloods first and Blackfeet second. The same goes for the groups around here; they are Hoopa, Klamath or Yrock not native anything.

Me; I am an American of English, French, Scottish, Blackfoot and Sioux descent and not in any order.”

“Trinity, I am not trying to call names or squabble.I am not calling anybody anything, I am merely stating that folks who call folks(exclusively) native are wrong. Perhaps they ought to be warned about calling your kin names. This happens to be a pet-peeve of mine. The whole hyphenated american and native deal just urks me. IMHO the more folks focus on their differences and make their historical cultures a primary focus touble happens. Hutus and Tutsis, Anglophones and Francaphones, Serbs Croats and Muslims, Irish and British the list is huge. You are not the past.”

“BTW thanks for the correction on whole noun/adjective point taken, we drop the "AL" and keep the "E". For what its worth I am Polish,English,Welsh and Scotch/Irish.”

“I agree Hyper; I am an american and really nothing more. But it is written that those who ignore the past etc., etc,

You brought up the hyphen thing. Did you know that it is/was used on passports to define your citizenship. A Chinese-American is one who was born in China then became an American, where as an American-Chinese was born in America to Chinese-Americans. I'm glad to say this going away.”

“I was unaware of the passport thing. As much as I dislike the "hyphen", in the case of a person who was actually born out of the US its understandable. But for folks born here its gibberish.”

“My kinda talkin!!!

Jefferson said something about hyphenated Americans, something along the lines as there is not such thing as a hyphenated american.

I think the term Native American is a media type of catch phrase or whatever you want to call it. Politically correct or a over generalization for the masses to use like white and black use to be. This provided some cultural identity (something more to be proud of) and futher separation for that matter. They(N.A.) use to be called Indians among other names but that is no longer the case because we have a whole slew of other Indians from the sub-continent of India that like to be Classified as Indian.

Not to nit pick about the word aboriginal but I have never heard of it tied to technology or used in a way to infer a level of technology. I have heard words like primative, archaic and others instead but never aboriginal to describe/classify a groups level of technology especially here in the Americas because the word(adj.) means something else according to you all.

Something like aboriginal technology, sounds to me like, the technology of the first inhabitants. Which was primitive/archaic compared to western european standards. Doubt that made sence, but anyways that is how I see it so forget about it.

What erks me is all these "indian" wannabes. Those individuals that look more european than anything, with no phenotypic similairaties to the real deal but cling to some waterdown heredity line if at all. Their 1:32 or worse, but call themselves Shawnee, Cherokee and alike. This is not directed to any one here, so before your paint the pony just relax.

I am proud of my heredity no matter where it comes from. Until they put a Irish/Anglo/Native American box for me to check off, I will always be a caucasian and damn proud of it.”

“Hay Rabbit all those things the NA call themselves, all mean about the something--
"We the people" in their own language. Now if that phrase sounds like something Thomas came up with, oh well.

Now on that caucasian thing, check out the article in this week's US News Tracing Your Genetic Roots. We an't as different as we think or would like to be. http://www.usnews.com/”

“wow, this is quite a contrast to "my thread"”

“Ya, it's hard to belive that Wild Child started it too.”

“Yep, so what is the point Trinity. You pointed that article out, I read it and learned they have made futher advancements in genetic research since my college studies but not a whole lot more.

So some researchers are throwing out the "race" card whats new. That is basically a catch word now-a-days like caucasian, use to classify groups of people. Not everyone will speak or choose to speak the same jargon as the researchers and those interested, so we have words like "race, caucasian" to simplify things. You keep it simple so others will have a better understanding of it. It may not be just to speak in those terms but that is what you have to do in order to appease the masses

Did you bring that article up enlight of the phenotypic statement of mine. Some of the DNA reseach will lead nowhere, it is just like the fossil record, as stated in that article. There are just to many missing pieces to formulate a definite conclusion. Our genetic closets are HUGE. I mean really big. I'm having flashbacks to that evolution thread.

And yes I did know that there is more genetice diversity within a group then among groups. But you know that may all be changing as we speak. Slowly but sharely. The natural barriers(oceans, mt.'s etc.) that once separated people hundreds of thousands yrs. ago no longer pose the challenge they once did. And lets not forget the linguistic, "color" or religious barriers to name of few that factor in as well. Though some of those may not be as pertinent as the other they are still barriers today that keep the genetypic groups from mixing.”

“it wasn't Jefferson:

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism... A hyphenated American is not an American at all.... Americanism is a matter of the spirit, and of the soul... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans... each preserving its separate nationality... The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American."

-Theodore Roosevelt”

“Thanks Rad, I wonder about that, always thought it was T.J. but I guess not. Jefferson was to busy making the hyphenateds so I stand corrected. You da' man.”

“I AM an American first, but my dad is a naturalized citizen from Belgium. I have Flemish relatives in Europe. And there are cultural things that have been unconsciously passed on to me - food, speech patterns, core beliefs - that are Flemish and not "American."

And I regret not learning the language. We lose something if we don't acknowledge the cultures that we have a foot in.

BTW, my family - none of whom spoke any English when they arrived on the boat - has started businesses, been leaders in local churches and generally been a positive to the nation. America would not be what it is without the efforts of generations of newcomers.”

“Rabbit, my reason for bringing up the article was in response to the hyphen. People are pulled apart by 1) wanting to be different and 2) a desire to belonging. Science is showing that below the skin, we are mostly the same, so the hyphen should be going, going, gone.

So why is it not? In a world that is getting small people seem to want to be more different. Am I not FIRST a human? Why are you so " proud to be a Caucasian" does that make you some how better? A cultural heritage at least gives one definition, some thing to draw from. Caucasian brings forth a stereotype, things like "White mans burden", Social Darwinism and colonialism.

I feel that we need to lessen the hyphen, maybe to a slash. To paraphrase a wise old sailor; I am what I am; I just want to know why.”

“It's more of a South America / North America issue.”