Calling someone 'Pocahontas' is actually a compliment, not an insult.

[Ken Burch]

By Amy Goodman and Tom Moynihan

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2017/11/calling-someone-pocahontas-actually-compliment-not-insult

If Trump were a reader of history, he might know that calling someone "Pocahontas" is actually a compliment, not an insult. Pocahontas was a real person who displayed courage and conviction in her very short life. She was born around 1595 in the Tidewater region of what is now called Virginia, and was named Matoaka, then nicknamed Pocahontas. Her father was named Powhatan, which also was the name of the affiliation of 30 or so Algonquin tribes in the region. According to one account, she saved English colonist John Smith from execution in 1607. In 1995, Disney released a blockbuster animated film based on that story.

"Most Americans at this point understand her as a Disney character," Mary Kathryn Nagle told us on the Democracy Now! news hour. Nagle is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and an attorney who works to restore tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction. "Her real true story has been commodified and retold in a false narrative that celebrates her union with her abuser. She was a survivor of a form of violence, of colonial violence, at a time when native women were primary targets, because the colonial powers who came over here from 1492 and even past 1776 knew that a primary way of destroying a tribal nation, an Indigenous nation, is to attack the women."

Matoaka, or Pocahontas, actively sought peace between her Indigenous people and the white, European colonists. In 1613, she was kidnapped and held prisoner at Jamestown. During captivity, she converted to Christianity and later married John Rolfe, a prominent tobacco grower. Rolfe took her to England, where she died at the age of 20 or 21. She was buried in Gravesend, England, and her remains have never been located.

The abduction of Matoaka/Pocahontas has current parallels. The disappearance of native women from the oil boom fields of North Dakota and the Canadian tar sands region is an ongoing and underreported epidemic. Olivia Lone Bear, a 32-year-old mother of five from the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota, has been missing since October 24. She is just one of hundreds who have gone missing.

[hlthe2b]

1. It SHOULD be; it clearly wasn't MEANT to BE

[Ken Burch]

3. I know, and the article makes that clear that Trump doesn't know that.

It was about owning the slur.

[PJMcK]

2. That's far too subtle for Trump

Face it. Trump meant the use of the name as an ethnic slur. There's no other way to interpret it. Any other perspective is meant to deflect and hide the true nature of Trump's racism.

Plus, he's an idiot.

[Ken Burch]

4. That's clearly not the intent of the article.

The article actually challenges and defeats Trump's intent.

[PJMcK]

5. Understood and agreed

Thanks for posting the link, Ken Burch. It's quite an interesting and well-written article. I did understand the point of the column.

I cannot resist an opportunity, however, to make certain that Trump's slurs do not become normalized. It's my own little fetish as part of the Resistance.

Have a good weekend!

[Ken Burch]

6. I'm absolutely in agreement that nothing Trump does should ever be normalized.

May you also have a good weekend.

[BigmanPigman]

7. Mr. "high IQ" and Ivy League grad doesn't know anything about a lot.

American history, the government/civics, etc. Bowling Green and the Andrew Jackson to name a few. HE IS A FUCKING MORON!

[Ken Burch]

11. Agreed.

n/t.

[RandomAccess]

8. A Native name used as an insult becomes not just an insult

but a racial slur.

Amy Goodman should know better than this. I'm incensed and furious.

[Ken Burch]

12. She's talking about owning the slur. If it's owned, it can be turned and used in the fight-back.

She isn't DEFENDING Trump here...she's pointing out how idiotic he is.

[RandomAccess]

13. Bullshit

It's a stupid argument. I know she's not defending Trump -- she's wrong nonetheless. And she should know better. That ploy hasn't worked YET.

[helmedon1974]

9. No, no it's not.

Not as it's been used. Not as it's meant. It's like calling an Indian Chief. Or a black man Kunta Kinte .
She was a pretty teen girl abducted and raped by Europeans. Yet still did the things we've heard about. Using her name as an insult, is itself an insult. Then to invoke it in front of a painting of Andrew Jackson...Trump knew what he was doing.

[Ken Burch]

10. I agree with you in how it's used. The idea here is to own the slur

and use it as a weapon against Trump and other oppressors.