Duluth pushes to remove "chief" from job titles, calling it offensive to indigenous people
Chief administrative officer and chief financial officer would get new titles.
http://www.startribune.com/duluth-pushes-to-remove-chief-from-job-titles-calling-it-offensive-to-indigenous-people/571342532/?refresh=true
DULUTH - City leaders are making a push to remove the word "chief" from job titles, calling the term offensive to indigenous people.
At a news conference Wednesday, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson implored City Council members to vote to approve the change next week "so that we have more inclusive leadership and less language that is rooted in hurt and offensive, intentional marginalization." ...
"I think that there are other titles that we have the opportunity to use to steer away from language that may put people down based off their race or culture," said Alicia Kozlowski, Duluth's community relations officer and member of the Grand Portage and Fond du Lac Bands of Lake Superior Chippewa.
Kozlowski said "chief" is used as "a racial epithet, and it turns into a microaggression." ...
Hmmm ... tell me, Alicia ... just exactly how the word "chief" is ever used as a "racial epithet," eh? "Chief" denotes a title of higher rank (i.e., prestige), so how, pray tell, does this become what is truly a buffoonish term - a "microaggression"?
And, if you took a moment to look at the etymology of the word "chief," you would know that its beginnings had NOTHING to do with American Indian tribes. The usage of this term began circa 1300 and meant "highest in rank or power; most important or prominent; supreme; best; placed above the rest." By 1570, it came to mean "head of clan" and was applied by European settlers as a title of respect for the leaders of the American Indian tribes.
But, you are too conceited, self-absorbed to understand that this term is not all about you and your ancestors.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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