A Story About How America Changes
It’s about new replacing old
Introduction
How does America change?
One way is to change minds or hearts. That’s hard.
Nature has another way, with a little help from humans.*
You can see that change in the picture above.
The same thing happens with humans. New replaces old. More on that later.
I’ve just returned from my 55th high school reunion so nature’s way has been on my mind.
I started high school in 1963, 60 years ago.
If you can recall that time, ask yourself this question:
Can you think of a term that was acceptable then that is not acceptable now?
I can.
A 1962 story
It was on an ice covered asphalt playground at lunchtime in 1962.
The boys in my eighth-grade class were playing a version of tag, with a line of 20 boys running from one end of the playground to the other.
The game started with one boy in the middle.
Whoever he would tackle would remain in the middle for the next wave.
The last kid standing along the fence would be the winner.
To start the game, the guy in the middle would yell
Tackle red man
These words were repeated by a burgeoning boy’s chorus, before every surge.
A 2022 Story
My USA home state of Iowa used to have six creeks on Federal government land with the word squaw in their title. For example:
South Squaw Creek
America’s Department of the Interior, headed by Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve in a President’s cabinet, directed states to replace “geographic features bearing the term squaw.”
The Department found the term squaw:
[Has] historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for indigenous women. (Laura Belin “Six Iowa Creeks have new names, replacing derogatory term”)
South Squaw Creek is now
Southwest Creek
You can read more about the history of the term squaw here.
How America changes
No more squaw creeks.
No more Washington Redskins. You can read that story here.
What about the use of the term red man on school playgrounds?
Dictionary.com today defines red man as “a contemptuous term used to refer to a North American Indian.”
Rebecca’s grandchild Irene, pictured above, is now six and just started first grade in Houston, Texas.
Do you think she or any of her mates will be using red man on the playground?
Why not?
Three million, six hundred and ten thousand Americans were born last year and 3,417,925 million Americans died.
By this measure, in 60 years, 2082, 216,000,000 newbies will have replaced 205,000,000 oldies, including me and Rebecca.
America will be a different country.
Just as America today is a different country from what it was on that playground in 1962.
When people die, they take their opinions, interests, and votes with them. Their replacements develop different opinions, interests and political calculations.
What you think about Native Americans or anything depends upon when you were born.
Irene has grown up in an America with a Native American as part of an American President’s inner circle.
An America where terms such as squaw, redskin, or red man are unacceptable to most Native Americans.
Thus making these terms offensive to the American community, of which Native Americans are now an integral part.
*The idea for this essay came from E.E. Schattschneider’s Two Hundred Million Americans.
