LiquorandGunFun, Dude, but to them it's more than that. And being honest, I am completely calm, so no worries. I am just looking at both sides here. Maybe to some natives this IS a big deal, just like the way I have been treated. Do I bitch and whine about it? No. But then again, I'm Irish and that's how we are, so I dunno. We joke about the drunken jokes and laugh about the "potatoe famine" aka mass genocide.
On one side there is you who is fighting for a word. On the other there is people who feel as I do about the above, or how you do about something else. and FYI the fighting Irish was a wife beater stereotype created by an anti Irish movement that went on from the destruction of our state in 1066 to this day. A once great civilization ripped to pieces by the British empire with the world at it's back, then who we are has been joked about since. We have temples older than the pyramids of Egypt and what do people look at? Our F'in Leprechauns that were invented to stereotype and ridicule us. It's a stereotype that is sprawled all over hollywood and do I laugh about it? Yes, I do. Is it annoying, holy crap yes. Ireland is portrayed wrongly in every movie, everywhere in every way and I laugh about it a lot. But it's not my place to choose for native americans.
And yes, I understand your point quite well. In Ireland, I had eastern European friends who are embarrassed by the other easterners coming in for cheap labor and refusing to speak English. Instead they try to force our government to teach Polish/ Slovak/ Russian in our schools. Only some!! And Pffft. Madness, but it really makes racist sports mascots look pety.
