He prefers Indian because it makes white people look bad.

I know nothing else about him, but I like him already.

A sentiment I've heard a bunch is "oh, so you called us Indians and now you're uncomfortable with that label? Well fuck you, you don't get to keep unilaterally changing what's acceptable. If thinking about colonialism makes you uncomfortable, then great! Start sitting with that discomfort and recognising the crumb of self determination that we express by identifying as Indians. You gave us that label, and it's ours now."

Me, Native American (heh): Indigenous to where? lmfao

Indigenous [Continent/general area here] would be the closest all-round. Indigenous North American just too many syllables though. Trying to fucking get away from the fucking whirlwind of every 10 years Anishinaabe, Algonquin, Ojibwe, Chippewa, Native American, Indian, Injun shit please. The fewer syllables the better, and nothing people already have please. And no stupid fucking people first word semantics dumb shit when you're literally using the same words but it's better in THIS order not the other...

I swear people just pick the worst words to describe people sometimes when going down the slippery slope for PC language. It's all so arbitrary lol.

People first language literally creates more in-groups and out-groups who have to jump literal semantic hoops, usually just to make the in group feel a little better labeling someone because people turn a blind eye to racists.

I have rarely, and I mean very, very rarely seen new language originate from minority or out-groups being used by their own people first then co-opted by the in-group. There's some random language here and there, but anything race/ethnicity related, it's almost always the in-group getting too racist to call people by what they used for the out-group before, and they have to start calling them something else or fear being branded a racist... Rather than, you know, ostracizing people for being fucking racist.

Maybe I'm just too mixed or too ND to care, but for the same reason why if you get the pronunciation of my name close enough and know you're referring to me.

TBH, I wish Injun made a comebock.

I like Namen/Nnamen. (Native North American, human, man, woman, his noodly appendage) too. No, I don't care if you say Nay-men or Nah-men.

You're wrong if you pronounce GIF as JIF though.

"Indigenous" seems to be acceptable most people. When you know them personally, use their nation or tribal affiliation. Like if your friend was Korean, and you only referred to them as "Asian," it might feel like you don't care about the difference.

Different people prefer different nomenclature, but the generally accepted standard has switched from native American a couple decades ago to American Indian now. IIRC the change happened because calling people natives sometimes seems synonymous with calling them primitive. Most US tribal groups use American Indian now