Kris Jenner is an experienced & media-savvy PR person. She wouldn’t have been able to create, or help her daughters create, their huge profitable brand otherwise. So she should know better than to use the phrase “Indian-Giver,” in her answer to reporters’ questions about whether or not daughter Kim should give back her two-million dollar diamond engagement ring. Because I do think she is smart enough to know better, the cynic in me wonders if she said it deliberately to deflect attention from Kim’s situation, thereby also bringing the attention around to her own just-released book? The timing of the whole thing is pretty remarkable & to her benefit!
By using this racist phrase, she does give us the opportunity to educate others about this phrase which is a racial slur to Native Americans in this country by intimating that all American Indians take their gifts back. One popularly-accepted theory is that this phrase comes from early settlement times of Europeans in America, when Native Americans engaged in transactions gave gifts that were actually intended to be used as a trade for goods & services, or at least they expected a gift back of equal value. When the Europeans took the gifts and gave nothing back to the Native Americans, they wanted their “gifts” back. Over time this evolved to have a negative meaning that Native Americans could not be trusted.
Please people, be smart & respect the sensitivity of Native Americans to this phrase & don’t use it, period! Let’s hope Kris Jenner has the grace to apologize for her caviler use of this racist phrase…
