The problem with the Indian defences

In my experience chess.com has always been a place of tolerance. A place where we can share our ideas without the worry of backlash or scrutiny. What I'm saying is, Chess.com is a tolerant, progressive place. I think that Chess.com, as a leader in the chess community, needs to take a leap forward, and tackle the elephant in the room. 

Guys, it's 2017, and we still refer to a set of openings as the "Indian Defences". It's should be clear by now, especially to the Americans, that the term "Indian" is derogatory towards Native Americans. I think it's our duty, as a progressive, and tolerant community to remove the word "Indian" in these openings and instead add "Native American". For example, "Native-American Defence", "Nimzo Native-American Defence", "King's Native American", etc. 

I think this would actually earn us respect amongst the progressive crowd, and also help us establish our game in the Native-American community. 

Red Indians? I beg your pardon? These are the derogatory terms I'm talking about. I want us to move past this and refer to them as they wish to be referred to!

The Indian defences are actually named after people of India, not Native Americans

Most native Americans (I for one) do not mind the term Indian.  The context and INTENT are what matters

This man should be banned for the comments he has posted due to his mean-mindedness. America was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. I think rather than changing name of any opening, there is a need to change our mindset. There is a need to change our narrow-thinking. If American peoples like you, if want to give chess a boundary, then why you play with players that are not American. My vote against this post.

This bears repeating. The OP should take the time to learn about a subject before speaking nonsense.

Yes, of the 7.5 billion people on Earth, only 1.34 billion of them live in India...

And you think they object to being called Indians just because they're from India?

Of course not, that's ri

diculous. I would call them the proper term according to this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym

2/10 for trolling.  Not knowing that Indian defenses are named after players from India, not US Native Americans, hurts badly.  Not referencing the huge number of other openings named after other groups/nationalities hurts as well (Yugoslav attack, Latvian Countergambit, English Opening, French Defense, Budapest Gambit, Hungarian Opening, Scandinavian, etc.)  Rather poor effort

Yes, I understand that they're from India initially. But over thousands of years they developed their own culture. And they want to be classified differently from people who are actually from India. This is why its important to call them Native-Americans. Calling Native-Americans Indians is ignorant. 

But the Indian defense is the only real response to a cowboy opening.

Now that you mention the Yugoslav attack, we should also change its name. Yugoslavia no longer exists and it could be offensive to those that suffered in the war.

Also, the Scandinavian opening should be given a new name, perhaps the Norwish-Swedish-Danish opening, in order to protect the national identity of these three countries.

speaking of indian defences ...

The flaw in this argument is that Native Americans aren't Indian. They are Siberian.

That's quite a distance from India.

Anyway... is the Sicilian Defense derogatory towards Italians? Is the Hippopotamus Opening an offense to hippos? Does Bird's Opening insult avians? Is the Orangutang a sly simian slur? And what about the Fried Liver Attack?

Inquiring minds want to know...

if the duck were still here, he would have a few words to say ...

wow, "Indian" in this case refers to people from the country India (the country that may have invented chess) and has nothing to do with native Americans.....by the way I am a little bit (1/16th) native American India and don't take offense, even if you did know what you were talking about

In India, where chess originally started (I think), you could only advance the pawn one square (and there were a bunch of other differences, but I won't talk about them) instead of two for their first moves. Most 'indian' openings usually start off having pawns advance only one square, like the king's indian has g6 and d6, while nimzo Indian has a pawn on e6, etc.

Guys fun fact!

One obtained after hours and hours of chess research. The Indian defences actually originated from the country of India. Meaning that the defences are actually appropriately named, and no further action needs to be taken. Thank you for your cooperation.

yay!