Who can use the word "Indian", and should they?

Drew Hayden Taylor is a celebrated Indigenous playwright and author here in Ontario (and a frequent Globe and Mail contributor), although I would imagine his fame does not extend far outside these borders. He writes an interesting piece about his latest project, a screenplay adaptation of one of his plays, and the decisions he has had to make about how often to use the word "Indian".

Because, of course, that is the word that Indigenous people use to describe themselves, even though it is verboten for us settlers to use it. It is a pejorative label with a racist colonial past, but one that has been reclaimed by its victims, in much the same way as "nigger" by Black people or "dyke" by lesbians. A regular Indigenous guy would probably feel quite self-conscious referring to himself as "Indigenous" or "First Nations" in anything other than an academic context. 

But Taylor is having to think about how a largely non-Indigenous audience of sensitive liberal "people of pallor" will take it. Any number of Indigenous books use the epithet ad nauseam, including Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian and Indians on Vacation, Richard Wagamese's Indian Horse, Michelle Good's Five Little Indians, and Taylor's own Cottagers and Indians. And, of course, there has been much hand-wrining in recent years over the use of the word "Indian" (and other inappropriate racial monickers) for North American sports teams. 

But you can see Mr. Taylor's difficulty. It's an interesting little moral quandary: risk perpetuating a harmful racist stereotype, or maintain internal authenticity.