what annoys me is when the other people (the non Indians/Native Americans) who think that those people (Indians/Native Americans) don't want to be called that/feel bad about calling them that and so change it without their views - imposing their embarrassed correction on people who may not mind it...
If only things were so simple. Almost everybody I have had this discussion with objects to the very people themselves wishing for offensive terms not to be used. For example, I've had more than one Brit try to explain to me (both of us being white) that nigger brown as a color (of fabrics, etc.) is not really offensive to black people. Or even better, how homosexuals have ruined the word gay for the heterosexual linguaphile community. Back to American Indians. It depends on whom you talk to and what your attitude is, but Native American, as a term, was not coined by guilty white folks hoping to make repressed indigenous people feel better. I've been tracking this phenomenon for a while, and it's usually pissed-off white people, disgruntled that "minority" groups are telling them how to use "their" language. Of course, YMMV.
