Friday, November 19, 2010

Sea Kayaker Magazine - Come On Man Step Up

While waiting for a ferry home from Orcas Island I picked up the latest edition of Sea Kayaker magazine.

The current edition includes a historical look at kayaking in the 20's and 30's. Thankfully this article was not about African Americans who might have taken up kayaking in the 1920's or 30's. Clearly if SK's accompanying explanation is followed to it's logical conclusion they would have felt compelled to use the historical "N" word.

I shudder just imagining the fall out that would have generated.

It's unfortunate that SK having recognize that at least two groups, the Inuit of Northern Canada and the Aluets of Alaska, find the term Eskimo pejorative SK went ahead and used it anyway; forgoing the opportunity to correct a term used out of ignorance or worse. Failing to correct the historical inaccuracy simply perpetuates an old mistake and fails to demonstrate respect toward the Inuit and Aluets.

1 comment:

gnarlydog said...

here Downunder it's often ignorance that leads to the use of the derogative term but occasionally it's pervading bigotry.
In Italy there is a quest to find a correct term to name the action of rolling a kayak (in Italian "rolling" alone does not work as well as in English) where is simply referred to as the Eskimo move.