Using historical terms that aren't politically correct now


As someone who's interested in history, I'm interested in learning the names of things. It's true that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet", but if you want to learn about roses, you have to start by learning the word "rose", if you see what I mean.

I like doing original research. That is, I dislike history books, or pre-packaged stuff. I take the time to look through old newspapers, vintage books, that sort of thing. And in order to find things there, you have to know what they were called back in the day.

Of course times change. How we use the language changes, what is acceptable in polite society changes. And I'm OK with what is called being "politically correct", which means to show modern respect by avoiding using terms that have become offensive over time. I'm old enough to remember hearing stuff as a kid that no one gave a second thought to, but would now get you a punch in the nose (and you would deserve it) if you used them today. At the very least it would you get rolling eyes from people who wonder if you've been living in a cave. I have some years on me, but I haven't been living in a cave, and I appreciate receiving, and giving, respect.

So I'm learning the modern names that my Native American friends prefer, such as the Akimel O'odham. But you won't find anything in old documents by doing a search for Native American Akimel O'odham - you will have to look for Pima Indians. It's the same way with African-Americans, which you will find in old documents as "Negro". The list goes on and on, and you see what I mean, which is that within an historical context, those terms are acceptable. Throwing them around on social media just because you're out of touch is just ignorant. As you can tell, I feel very strongly about this.

So as a historian I give myself special dispensation to use these terms. When I'm searching through the Library of Congress I'll use terms that I would never use in my ordinary course of life, in ordinary posts on Facebook, that sort of thing. And if you're a time-traveler like me, you understand.

Image at the top of this post: Noted Negro Orator Professor Kelly Miller in Phoenix in 1920.
Thank you to my patrons on Patreon who help support History Adventuring! If you like these blog posts, and would like to make suggestions for future ones, please become a patron.

Become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more