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Comment by dmos62 | Hacker News Reader

I can see how using media fabrications around the subject of native Americans (e.g. their portrayal in cinema or cartoons) is impolite. But, how is it impolite to use their words or names as names for something unrelated? I'm not from US, so I might be missing something cultural. Would it be impolite to call a web server Londre (French for London)?

Or, is the idea that calling a server by the name of a disadvantaged group a bit like calling them servants? You might have a point.

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IMO this is a very American outlook that is now being forced onto the rest of the world. There are multiple situations where developers would use a word, and be trampled by American developers for the choice of words.

Is there a non-North American context for the word "Hiawatha"?

“American outlook” here means the outlook of mainstream US culture, not some shared context of everyone who has ever inhabited the land. So the “American” (really, U.S. American) cultural context is in fact not related to Hiawatha at all.

Hiawatha didn’t know what “America” was and presumably wouldn’t have conceptualized himself as being part of a pan-“Native American” identity.

Assuming you could even explain the concept of a web server to a pre-industrial person, it’s impossible to know how he himself would have felt about this.

Does it matter to anyone but "outraged" North Americans?

I'd love to have input from people who are Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayugaa, or Seneca.

BTW, I decided to take a look at Apache Incubator's projects to see if there's any outrage over (non-exhaustive list):

- Kafka (Bohemian Jewish writer)

- Chukwa (a dialect of Kulung language of Nepal)

- Geronimo (Apache leader)

- Hama (a city in Syria)

- Apollo, Hermes, Aurora, Aries, Isis (multiple Greek, Roman, and Egyptian gods)

- Joshua (Hebrew name)

- Kylin (name of a mythical creature from East Asian legends)

- Omid (Persian name)

- Onami (Japanese destroyers)

- Pig (insensitive to Muslims)

- Trinidad, and, you guessed it, Tobago (also many other geographical names)

...

Somewhat unrelated, but I'd like to ask people for more restraint in using the word "forced". People sometimes say they don't like others doing something, but that's still very far removed from forcing those others not to do something.

I guess if it's really unrelated it's fine, but usually product names aren't chosen at random and it can happen that the intended connection of the product owner interacts poorly with the historical context they have ignored.

Not saying this is the case here, because I didn't even know Hiawata was a historical person.

It's not about politeness.

And it's not a cultural issue that's particular to the US. It appears that the author of the Hiawatha web server is not from the US either (Wikipedia suggests he is Dutch), so you might ask what link he has to Hiawatha and what justification he has for using the name and laying claim, in whatever small way, to a piece of the original Hiawatha's prestige.

The term to research is cultural appropriation.

(Clearly all these web servers are following Apache's lead in their naming. ISTR a story in the past that ASF had (retroactively) sought and/or received the blessing of the Apache Nation leadership for their use of the name; there's some related information at <https://www.apache.org/apache-name/> though nothing as clear-cut as the story I'm vaguely remembering.)

Using a single relatively obscure native american word out of context seems like a very fringe case of cultural appropriation. It's not going to reinforce any preconceived notions and it doesn't seem to be riding on some prestige. Perhaps I'm wrong and Hiawatha is a massively loaded word with a lot of implications for the general public, but I doubt it.

I don't know, and you don't know either.

The grandparent post was wondering what the issue is, and my post described what IMHO is the main potential issue.

You have your opinion on to what degree this might be a problematic instance of cultural appropriation, and I have my opinion (which I haven't stated).

But the point is that the opinion that matters is that of Iroquois people and other descendants and (cultural) inheritants of the person whose name is being used. (Not that they are obliged to have an opinion on this, or to speak with a single voice on this matter.)

Okay. It's absolutely true that neither of us knows. But considering, as you say, that the affected minority probably won't ever step forward with a unified opinion, what is the appropriate course of action? Should we stay away from using any words that someone else might possibly have interpretive precedence over?

I find this all incredibly hard to navigate. I also feel that language in general and naming things in particular would suffer from strictly not being able to reuse concepts or names from cultures we are not part of.

> I don't know, and you don't know either.

And at the same time you say.

> you might ask what link he has to Hiawatha and what justification he has for using the name and laying claim, in whatever small way, to a piece of the original Hiawatha's prestige.

> The term to research is cultural appropriation.

You've already decided that:

- it's cultural appropriation

- the person has no right to use the name

I wonder, are you of Iroquis descent? If not, what right do you have to claim their cultural appropriation on their behalf?

Also, what are your views on such projects as Apache Kafka or apache Chukwa?

I have decided no such thing, and in fact my point is that in this case my own opinion is pretty much immaterial.

But it is important for people like you and me to be aware of the concept and issue in general.

> But it is important for people like you

Ah yes. People "like me" (a Jew from Moldova, born in the USSR, who lived 7 years in Turkey, and has now lived 10 years in Sweden) have to be taught about some concepts like "cultural appropriation" by people who claim to be offended on behalf of cultures they've never been part of.

Dude, you seem to be very keen to put words into other people's mouths. Perhaps you should reflect upon that.

Let me quote your words to you:

--- start quote ---

So you might ask what link he has to Hiawatha and what justification he has for using the name and laying claim, in whatever small way, to a piece of the original Hiawatha's prestige. [ questioning people's motives, being offended on behalf of Iroquis people -- d. ]

The term to research is cultural appropriation. [ assuming your opponent is ignorant of this -- d. ]

You have your opinion on to what degree this might be a problematic instance of cultural appropriation, and I have my opinion (which I haven't stated). [ as we see above, the opinion has been clearly stated -- d. ]

But it is important for people like you [ assuming I know nothing/little/not enough about cultural appropriation -- d. ] and me to be aware of the concept and issue in general

--- end quote ---

I don't have to put words in your mouth. You're speaking loud and clear. Perhaps you should reflect upon that.

We've yet to hear your views on views on such projects as Apache Kafka and Apache Chukwa.

I once had to explain to a Mexican why Speedy Gonzales can't be shown on American TV anymore. He was aghast that his beloved character had to be censored out of existence.

I've done light reading on cultural appropriation. The concept of collective intellectual property rights even came up. I'm pretty sceptical. Sounds a lot like "I've defined myself according to this unique-ish thing, but now you're making it not unique and thus invalidating my identity".

I think an identity is a mutable, self-defined tool for being in society. If you say that your identity depends on something external, that is a lie, since you're implicitly saying that your self-definition is depended on something outside yourself.

I think Stoics' discourse on the subject is very accessible. This is Epictetus in Enchiridion:

> Men are disturbed, not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things. Death, for instance, is not terrible, else it would have appeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death that it is terrible. When therefore we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never attribute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our own principles. An uninstructed person will lay the fault of his own bad condition upon others. Someone just starting instruction will lay the fault on himself. Some who is perfectly instructed will place blame neither on others nor on himself.

Being Dutch as well, I'm going to guess that the name Hiawatha is taken from the Disney character of the same name, given how popular the Donald Duck comics are around here, and Hiawatha is a recurring character in them. It's orders of magnitude more likely that a person here grew up with the Donald Duck comics than that they are aware of Native American history.

So what's it called when someone appropriates a Disney character name for their own use? Should the Debian project have to worry?

> and what justification he has for using the name

Because he's a free man ? And free men get to choose their words. All by themselves.

I do it all the time. You should have a go at it.

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