He prefers Indian because it makes white people look bad.

I know nothing else about him, but I like him already.

A sentiment I've heard a bunch is "oh, so you called us Indians and now you're uncomfortable with that label? Well fuck you, you don't get to keep unilaterally changing what's acceptable. If thinking about colonialism makes you uncomfortable, then great! Start sitting with that discomfort and recognising the crumb of self determination that we express by identifying as Indians. You gave us that label, and it's ours now."

Me, Native American (heh): Indigenous to where? lmfao

Indigenous [Continent/general area here] would be the closest all-round. Indigenous North American just too many syllables though. Trying to fucking get away from the fucking whirlwind of every 10 years Anishinaabe, Algonquin, Ojibwe, Chippewa, Native American, Indian, Injun shit please. The fewer syllables the better, and nothing people already have please. And no stupid fucking people first word semantics dumb shit when you're literally using the same words but it's better in THIS order not the other...

I swear people just pick the worst words to describe people sometimes when going down the slippery slope for PC language. It's all so arbitrary lol.

People first language literally creates more in-groups and out-groups who have to jump literal semantic hoops, usually just to make the in group feel a little better labeling someone because people turn a blind eye to racists.

I have rarely, and I mean very, very rarely seen new language originate from minority or out-groups being used by their own people first then co-opted by the in-group. There's some random language here and there, but anything race/ethnicity related, it's almost always the in-group getting too racist to call people by what they used for the out-group before, and they have to start calling them something else or fear being branded a racist... Rather than, you know, ostracizing people for being fucking racist.

Maybe I'm just too mixed or too ND to care, but for the same reason why if you get the pronunciation of my name close enough and know you're referring to me.

TBH, I wish Injun made a comebock.

I like Namen/Nnamen. (Native North American, human, man, woman, his noodly appendage) too. No, I don't care if you say Nay-men or Nah-men.

You're wrong if you pronounce GIF as JIF though.

I know right? Especially Latvians and the Swedish.

Only generationally, as one might expect

"Indigenous" seems to be acceptable most people. When you know them personally, use their nation or tribal affiliation. Like if your friend was Korean, and you only referred to them as "Asian," it might feel like you don't care about the difference.

Different people prefer different nomenclature, but the generally accepted standard has switched from native American a couple decades ago to American Indian now. IIRC the change happened because calling people natives sometimes seems synonymous with calling them primitive. Most US tribal groups use American Indian now

20 years ago it was “native, aboriginal, or first nation’s” people

Not sure which is the current flavour

Depends on your country. Really every place has come up with something different: First Nations, indigenous, native, etc.

Native, I would assume

Same. I was getting really curious about this Amish group in India

There's actually a diverse opinion even within the indigenous community, Indian can be a uniting identifier, but it can also be representative of everything wrong with colonism.

While I'm not American, my understanding from my grandfather who was warded to a government school in Canada (though it's never been clear if he is first nations, he was documented as such but his cultural experience once he joined the army and moved countries to has been white, and I am white, so I can not truly speak to any of this), whether an individual or a tribal group are more comfortable with the label Indian or Native American, or indigenous, or first nations, tends to depend on the relationship between the person/group and reservations and government programs that historically used the terminology of Indian.

My grandfather for example would use First Nation's/Indigenous (though he used to say that he was "treated like first nations" rather than he "is" first nations, because even he had no idea if he actually was or not), he couldn't bring himself to say "Indian" because that's what he was labelled as while subjected to the abuse of the educational system at the time, it's a traumatic term for him. Meanwhile some of the men he knew from that time united under the label "Indian" to claim it back from those that used it to oppress them, it's a point of pride for them.

That's been my impression too.

Whole thing sounds like the people who call every black person everywhere an African American.