[NA-Discuss] Geographic Regions Statement
Eric Brunner-Williams
ebw at abenaki.wabanaki.net
Fri Jan 28 01:46:13 UTC 2011
Evan,
Get yourself straight any way you can, the exclusion of Mexico from
North America ensures that Anglophones, and perhaps the token
Francophone (singular), will be preferentially selected every time
ICANN attempts to meet a regional diversity goal.
This leaves 50 million residents of the United States and Canada, only
represented through a second European language.
I pointed out the fact that the Greenland Home Rule government, while
a dependency of the Danish State, is an Indigenous government of the
Americas. This drew a confused response from Darlene Thompson who
apparently confuses governments, like the one she works for, with
immigrant non-European languages. The geographic region issue is about
iso3166 states, not languages, and the exclusion of Mexico from "North
America" is as irrational as putting Greenland or Quebec in "Europe".
I pointed out the fact that migration has changed the largest
indigenous language in the US from Dine (Navajo) to Nahuatl, Mixtex
and Zapotec, approximating the unified Ojib-Crees in Canada as a
group, and separating Indigenous migrants along the hyper-militarized
US frontier is as absurd as Canada's refusal to abide by the Jay
Treaty (1794), allowing free passage of Indians between the US and
Canada. This drew the surprising 21st-century-Indians-speak-English
response from John Levine, utterly missing the importance of language
and cultural de-assimilation to assimilated Indians, and the reality
that Indian migrants from Indian communities in Mexico retain locality
in North America, due to the ease of first-language and shared values.
I don't know what to do with mention-Indians-get-Hindi. I don't know
what to do with mention-migration-get-English-only either.
I do know that today Jefferson Keel, Chickasaw Nation, delivered the
State of Indian Nations address, and today is a really lame ass day to
subordinate Indian interests to non-Indian interests, for something as
ephemeral as the ITU boogie man, or Anglo self-preference.
I understand most of NARALO is Anglophone, and Anglophones have their
issues with non-Anglophones, but where I grew up Spanish was as common
as English and was Mexico until the middle of the 19th century.
My pointing out that Indians are structurally overlooked by ICANN's
North American centric structure hasn't changed that a wit in ten
years. Mexican Indians are Indians. It doesn't do Indians in the
Americas a wit of good to ignore the largest population of Indians in
the Americas north of Panama, or ignore the largest population of
Indians speaking Indian languages in the United States.
Eric
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