So, let me tell you how I handle some of these speech issues. First of all, I say “black.” I say “black” because most black people prefer “black.” I don’t say “people of color.” People of color sounds like something you see when you’re on mushrooms. Besides, the use of people of color is dishonest. It means precisely the same as colored people. If you’re not willing to say “colored people,” you shouldn’t be saying “people of color.”

Besides, the whole idea of color is bullshit anyway. What should we call white people? “People of no color”? Isn’t pink a color? In fact, white people are not really white at all, they’re

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GEORGE CARL I N different shades of pink, olive, and beige. In other word 5 they’re colored. And black people are rarely black. I see most’ ly different shades of brown and tan. In fact, some light-skinned black people are lighter than the darkest white people Look how dark the people in India are. They’re dark brown, but 4 they’re considered white people. What’s going on here? May I see the color chart? “People of color” is an awkward, bullshit, *, liberal-guilt phrase that obscures meaning rather than enhancing it. Shall we call fat people, “people of size”?

By the way, I think the whole reason we’re encouraged in this country to think of ourselves as “black and white” (instead of “pink and brown,” which is what we are) is that black and white are complete opposites that cannot be rec-<j onciled. Black and white can never come together. Pink and brown, on the other hand, might just stand a chance of being blended, might just come together. Can’t have that! Doesn’t fit the plan.

I also don’t say “African-American.” I find it completely illogical, and furthermore it’s confusing. Which part of Africa are we talking about? What about Egypt? Egypt is in Africa. Egyptians aren’t black. They’re like the people in India, they’re dark brown white people. But they’re Africans. So why wouldn’t an Egyptian who becomes a U.S. citizen be ^ an African-American? The same thing goes for the Republic of South Africa. Suppose a white racist from South Africa becomes an American citizen? Well, first of all he’d find plenty of com pany, but couldn’t he also be called an African-American? It , seems to me that a racist white South-African guy could

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brain droppings come here and call himself African-American just to piss off black people. And, by the way, what about a black person born in South Africa who moves here and becomes a citizen? What is he? An African-South-African-American? Or a South-African-African-American?

All right, back to this hemisphere. How about a black woman who is a citizen of Jamaica? According to P.C. doctrine, she’s an African-Jamaican, right? But if she becomes a U.S. citizen, she’s a Jamaican-American. And yet if one of these language crusaders saw her on the street, he’d think she was an African-American. Unless he knew her personally in which case he would have to decide between African-Jamaican-American and Jamaican-African-American. Ya know? It’s just so much liberal bullshit. Labels divide people. We need fewer labels, not more.

Now, the Indians. I call them Indians because that’s what they are. They’re Indians. There’s nothing wrong with the word Indian. First of all, it’s important to know that the word Indian does not derive from Columbus mistakenly believing he had reached “India.” India was not even called by that name in 1492; it was known as Hindustan. More likely, the word Indian comes from Columbus’s description of the people he found here. He was an Italian, and did not speak or write very good Spanish, so in his written accounts he called the Indians, “Una gente in Dios.” A people in God. In God. In Dios. Indians. It’s a perfectly noble and respectable word.

So let’s look at this pussified, trendy bullshit phrase, Native Americans. First of all, they’re not natives. They came over the

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brain droppings

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Bering land bridge from Asia, so they’re not natives. There ar no natives anywhere in the world. Everyone is from somewhere else. All people are refugees, immigrants, or aliens If there were natives anywhere, they would be people who still live in the Great Rift valley in Africa where the human species arose. Everyone else is just visiting. So much for the “native” part of Native American.

As far as calling them “Americans” is concerned, do I even have to point out what an insult this is? Jesus Holy Shit Christ! We steal their hemisphere, kill twenty or so million* of them, destroy five hundred separate cultures, herd the survivors onto the worst land we can find, and now we want to name them after ourselves? It’s appalling. Haven’t we done enough damage? Do we have to further degrade them by tagging them with the repulsive name of their conquerers?

And as far as these classroom liberals who insist on saying “Native American” are concerned, here’s something they should be told: It’s not up to you to name people and tell them what they ought to be called. If you’d leave the classroom once in a while, you’d find that most Indians are insulted by the term Native American. The American Indian Movement will tell you that if you ask them.

The phrase “Native American” was invented by the U.S. government Department of the Interior in 1970. It is an inventory term used to keep track of people. It includes Hawaiians, Eskimos, Samoans, Micronesians, Polynesians, and Aleuts. Anyone who uses the phrase Native American ‘ Before 1492 there were 25 million people in Central America. By 1579 there were 2 million.

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is assisting the U.S. government in its effort to obliterate people’s true identities.

Do you want to know what the Indians would like to be called? Their real names: Adirondack, Delaware, Massachuset, Narraganset, Potomac, Illinois, Miami, Alabama, Ottawa, Waco, Wichita, Mohave, Shasta, Yuma, Erie, Huron, Susquehanna, Natchez, Mobile, Yakima, Wallawalla, Muskogee, Spokan, Iowa, Missouri, Omaha, Kansa, Biloxi, Dakota, Hatteras, Klamath, Caddo, Tillamook, Washoe, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Laguna, Santa Ana, Winnebago, Pecos, Cheyenne, Menominee, Yankton, Apalachee, Chinook, Catawba, Santa Clara, Taos, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Cree, Cheyenne, Mohawk, Tuscarora, Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Comanche, Shoshone, Two Kettle, Sans Arc, Chiricahua, Kiowa, Mescalero, Navajo, Nez Perce, Potawatomi, Shawnee, Pawnee, Chickahominy, Flathead, Santee, Assiniboin, Oglala, Miniconjou, Osage, Crow, Brule, Hunkpapa, Pima, Zuni, Hopi, Paiute, Creek, Kickapoo, Ojibwa, Shinnicock.

You know, you’d think it would be a fairly simple thing to come over to this continent, commit genocide, eliminate the forests, dam up the rivers, build our malls and massage parlors, sell our blenders and whoopee cushions, poison ourselves with chemicals, and let it go at that. But no. We have to compound the insult. Native Americans! I’m glad the Indians have gambling casinos now. It makes me happy that dimwitted white people are losing their rent money to the Indians. Maybe the Indians will get lucky and win their country back. Probably they wouldn’t want it. Look what we did to it.

C A R L I N GEORGE

People like to say that no matter how bad off your life is, there is always someone worse off than you. I guess it’s a source of comfort. It’s nice to know that while they’re removing a bone from your throat, the man in the next room has a four hundred-pound tumor in his groin.

But the idea that there is always someone worse off leads to the logical conclusion that somewhere in the world there is a person who is in worse shape than everybody else. Some guy who has almost six billion people doing better than he is.

But, in reality, as you get down to the bottom of the bad-shape pile, it becomes harder and harder to know who’s doing worse. Is a blind, paralyzed, maniac really better off than a three-foot, paraplegic imbecile? Tough call.