Wow Coll, I have been feeling a need to respond to this subject but
certainly don't need to now. You have said everything I wanted to express
and much better than I would have done, I'm sure.

So now I'll proceed to emphasize one point - Sometimes when something is
"difficult" to accomplish (especially when it is so because of PEOPLE) that
might serve as an indicator or symptom that this particular thing NEEDS to
be changed.

>From one white (and also gay) person to the others.

D Jhueck
South Whidbey
djhueck-chhip at uswest.net


-----Original Message-----
From: TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu
[mailto:TWEETERS-owner at u.washington.edu]On Behalf Of C. Thrush
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 12:08 PM
To: MBlanchrd at aol.com
Cc: Tweeters Birding List
Subject: Re: Places, People, the Past (not about birds!)



Michelle,

> I think I have to agree with you on changing the names of things that
> are today thought of as inappropriate. BUt it won't be easy. For
> instance, look at the stink that goes up every time someone proposes
> we change the name of Mt. Rainier back to what the First Americans
> called it..."Tahoma". Boy, howdy, do people get upset. Or, for
> instance, reverting to "Denali" from Mt. McKinley. I personally think
> both Denali and Tahoma are more majestic and AMERICAN names, but I
> know that the name change will never happen.

I think it can, though, and in some places has. And I do believe strongly
that names based in local understandings of place (instead of names
belonging to people who never actually visited the place -- e.g. "Queen
Charlotte Islands") are a LOT more effective in getting people to commit
to their place (which a lot of birders would like to see happen!). I
think we should at least try.

(And the "stink" about Tahoma has as much to do with very old rivalries
between Seattle and Tacoma as anything else.)

I recently curated an exhibit at the Museum of History & Industry in
Seattle, where we used maps of Native place names in the vicinity of the
museum to illustrate how densely inhabited and storied this place
was. People have reacted very strongly and favorably to this, saying that
this gives them a new way to think about where they live -- which is
always a good thing, I think!

> If we think of ourselves as AMERICANS rather than Irish or
> African-AMerican or what have you, we will stop having these problems.
> My own "heritage" is Polish, German, French Canadian and Cree, but I
> don't think of myself as anything but "American". That probably came
> about through spending over 20 years in the most chauvinistic
> organization in the country, the U.S. Army. I hope so.

I disagree with you here. I'm Czech, Scots-Irish, Swiss, and Prussian,
and like you, I don't think of myself as particularly hyphenated. I'm
just a South King County kid who happened to grow up on a reservation.
On the other hand, as a white person, I don't have to worry about my
history ever being missing from the textbooks, so to speak (except that
I'm gay, and THAT history, let me assure, almost never appears). I don't
need to use the hyphen to remind people that my history actually happened
and might have been different from the majority, because of slavery,
dispossession of land, inability to become a citizen, or whatever. It's
very easy for people in the dominant group to argue for a color-blind
society, since we're the ones reaping the privileges in most cases.

And I think Native people are categorically different that immigrants
anyway, simply because they were here first. A lot of Native people
resent being listed along with other minorities because their history --
based in their relationship with the land -- is fundamentally different.
(Just as a history based in slavery is far different from immigration for
any reason.) That's why we have treaties -- to recognize that Indians
have special, and sometimes even extra-constitutional, status.

Of course, none of this is to say that there's one "Indian perspective" on
this (and I wouldn't be the one to get it from if there was). But I think
history matters, and emphasizing shared American-ness (something a lot of
people don't feel in their own hearts for a lot of very good reasons) all
too often means that the story becomes too neat, polite, and white.

Which is all a far cry from "Birding by Ear"!

Coll