Removing the S-Word and Deb Haaland's Fierce Leadership

 In November 2009, Dennis Banks (Ojibwe), co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), and I were interviewed on a Michigan morning radio show in advance of an event scheduled for later that evening. 

One of the morning show hosts had prepared for the interview by reading the history of the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation that Banks led. He was visibly in awe of Banks and praised his decades of advocacy on behalf of Native Americans. 

The other host, who was less informed, proudly announced to the radio audience that his great grandmother had been a “squaw.”

At that point, Dennis Banks did what he often did back in those days:  Teach.  

For the next few minutes, the second host received a language lesson from one of the most powerful Native American warriors of the past century on the inappropriate use of the term. Banks skillfully schooled him as to why the word squaw is a highly demeaning way to describe a Native American woman, explaining that it is an Indian word that describes a part of the female anatomy. 

Even now, years later, I assume the host was trying to be humorous as he attempted to connect with any Native American blood he believed he had. Nonetheless, Banks' lesson was consistent with what I had heard from women in my local Native American community over the years. 

I know there are those who have researched the origins of the word and even dispute it being a derogatory term. They maintain the word can be traced back to the Massachusett Algonquian tribe and say it means female – or young woman. 

Here is the point: contemporary Native Americans find the word offensive and even racist.

Some Native women won’t even allow the word to leave their lips. One is Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne & Hodulgee/Muscogee). Instead she refers to the word as the S-word.

"The S-word is a vile, racist and sexist term that disparages all women,” Harjo told  Native News Online earlier this year. “There are those who hide behind free expression and claim this action is censorship, but that’s not the case. It’s important that the federal government acknowledges that it is a slur and will cease to sanction such assaults.”