QRZ.com - just not getting it.

Back in June 2020, as some of you will recall only too well, QRZ.com banned my special event callsign page for GB9BLM.  Under immediate and very effective pressure from users, at least one of whom was a (black) lawyer, QRZ.com's owner resinstated my page, issuing all sorts of incoherent and contradictory excuses for his actions. 

I finished coverage of that episode with this post.

Fred at QRZ.com then said that he didn't at all like being labelled a racist.  He had, he said, coloured relatives.

So if we accept Fred at face value, then the extract of QRZ.com's home page, captured 09/11/2021, can't be racism, but just sheer stupidty and insensitivity.  The term 'Indian' (i.e. 'Red Indian') was coined at the time of what was a merciless European colonisation of the Americas, and as such, has long been held by Native Americans to be derogatory and racist.  

I couldn't quite believe my eyes on seeing this.

 

I can't imagine any web site or other respectable outlet in Europe using an anachronistic, derogatory term like this without considerable and entirely justified outrage and condemnation.  

Of course, the image does remind us, if accidentally, that there are still products being sold today that carry the names of Native American tribes.  And there are still, seemingly white-dominated clubs (hardly unusual for this hobby) also using tribal names.  

Not all of America is like this, of course, but far too much of it - including QRZ.com - is.

But to turn this item into something more positive and, indeed, amazing, here's the story of a Scottish lady who recently featured on a TV genealogy programme, and discovered her biological parents were Native American.  It's quite an emotional story.