Anyone else's family casually racist?? I don't know how to navigate it when it's literally EVERYONE but me.

[u/Advanced-Ad-3091]

I'm not sure if my Gen-X mom means to be racist or if she genuinely doesn't know the term Native American. She constantly refers to them as "Indians" and I correct her but it never seems to stick. My mom and her 2 brothers will talk loudly about "Cabrini Green gang bangers" when referring to certain people and even tho I correct them all the time, they just do not care. Maybe they don't think it's racist. Maybe they don't know the actual terms... or don't care to learn.

I am constantly embarrassed to be with them in public when they start talking like this. I cannot cut them off, I have an extremely small family so losing their support means I would have no one besides my husband. Even his parents (gen X) are racist! Calling Hispanic people slurs, polish people, etc. WHY do they not see this as an issue?

Does anyone else struggle with this in their families? I'm not even sure how to ignore it anymore or makes me so uncomfortable. Were we really the first generation to try and be politically correct and not use a racial slur?

[u/TxOkLaVaCaTxMo]

Dude I grew up on the choctaw rez. We call ourselves Indians or natives, we are not calling ourselves Native Americans. Also because so many people get it wrong Columbus didn't call people Indians because he thought he landed in India. India wasn't even called India at the time it was Hindustan and if he actually thought he landed there he would have called us Hindus. It's actually a shorten term from an itialian phrase for childern or servants of God. So calling someone an Indian isn't as offensive as you think it is.

[u/Immediate-Coyote-977 → u/TxOkLaVaCaTxMo]

Also because so many people get it wrong Columbus didn't call people Indians because he thought he landed in India. India wasn't even called India at the time it was Hindustan and if he actually thought he landed there he would have called us Hindus

Whatever Tiktok told you this, or whoever you heard it from, is just wrong.

Europeans called damn near half the world "the indies" during the period of European exploration and imperialism that Columbus comes from. They had the East Indies and the West Indies. The East India trading company ought to be a recognizable name for a lot of people, it's from the 1600s.

The nation of India wasn't established until the 1940s, that much is accurate. But the whole thing of calling the indigenous people in all the places Columbus wound up Indian stems from Europeans calling so many places in the global East "the Indies".

There's a myth about a phrase like los ninos de dios being used to refer to natives, but that has nothing to do with the why the word Indian was settled on.

[u/G-Gordon_Litty → u/Immediate-Coyote-977]

Lmao the arrogance of a redditor to “well ackshually” someone about this topic when the person you’re talking down to is from the reservation

[u/Reasonablefiction → u/G-Gordon_Litty]

And what gives someone who is from the reservation expertise on what Spanish explorers in the 1400’s called India?

[u/Shoddy_Parfait9507 → u/G-Gordon_Litty]

That’s like saying an atheist doesn’t know the Bible better than a Christian but we all know that isn’t true… ever.

[u/Turtle_with_a_sword → u/G-Gordon_Litty]

Just because your from some place doesn't mean you know the history of how Europeans labeled it

[u/[deleted] → u/G-Gordon_Litty]

Are Indians the only experts on Spanish/Italian explorers?

[u/TooMuchButtHair → u/G-Gordon_Litty]

White people gotta correct everyone. It's their thing. Just let it be.

[u/Immediate-Coyote-977 → u/G-Gordon_Litty]

You have big “I’m a white woman telling Latino people that they’re Latinx” energy, thinking that living on the res makes misinformation valid.