Y’all Need a Copy Editor: Native Icons Deserve Basic Respect
Summary
When Native actor Graham Greene died in 2025, Variety magazine misspelled the word "Indigenous" in his obituary. There's a fine line between innocent mistakes and disrespect when writing about diverse icons.
You need a better copy editor. Oops image by iStock Photo.
Here at Words Collide, we’re not into grammar nazism. We do, however, believe that if you’re a well-resourced entity running a public-facing agency, company, or brand, you cannot afford to let messy or offensive errors destroy your messaging. Y’all need a copy editor.
I’ve learned that I no longer have the time or energy to criticize everyone else’s English mistakes, and that (shocker), it usually isn’t my place to do so anyway. The human writers, and editors, among us are far from infallible at the best of times. My editorial philosophy overall is that most situations deserve gentleness and grace.
This column is different because we’ll be talking about the kinds of sloppy mistakes that can embarrass a brand, diminish a minority group, or undermine a key message. Y’all Need a Copy Editor is a pointed callout to businesses, brands, and public figures who should already know better and, if they don’t, immediately invest in the resources and relationships to help them do so. It is a place to uphold the value of employing a diverse, knowledgeable staff when one is able.
The best copy editors aren’t out there merely nitpicking spelling and grammar. They’re deploying years of expertise to help save publications, companies, nonprofits, and governments from their own hubris. It’s unsung, behind-the-scenes labor that most people will never notice until it isn’t done.
If your organization has been releasing material with errors like this, do yourself a favor right now and hire a copy editor, pronto.
What’s the problem with this obituary in Variety this week? An unfortunate misspelling at exactly the wrong place and time. While reporting on the death of actor Graham Greene, Variety’s copy and layout team failed to catch that the word “Indigenous” was spelled incorrectly. It still had not been corrected as of posting time. That spelling isn’t a variant. It’s a mistake.
For this, we might need a little backstory. See, Greene was considered a trailblazer for Native Americans working in film. He remains an icon, to this day one of the most recognizable Native American actors in an industry that has struggled to drop stereotypes and convenient inaccuracies (such as habitually using Plains imagery and cultural elements for non-Plains tribal locations and characters) in order to modernize its presentations of Native people. Although he became famous for portraying a Plains tribal member, Greene himself was Oneida.
Graham Greene’s sizeable legacy, and his passing, didn’t go unnoticed in our household. There’s a tangential connection between Greene’s most famous work, Dances With Wolves, and my family. My husband carved lacing pins for that project as a child, and his family made the tipi poles that are seen throughout the movie. The film itself is a masterpiece of cinema, albeit not without valid criticism. Despite its admitted flaws, including the story taking its angle primarily from a white character rather than giving a truly Native point of view, one thing the movie accomplished was spotlighting Greene’s talent. In addition to the Oscar nomination he earned from that film, Greene later won a Grammy for a spoken word album.
When people who have achieved virtual legendary status within their fields despite well-known race-related obstacles die, we have an extra societal responsibility to ensure that the common respect they were often denied in life is at least upheld in death.
Typos happen, but some typos inevitably have bigger impact than others. Within a contextual reference to an Oneida man’s contributions to the international Indigenous community, the minimum we should be doing as journalists is taking an extra minute or two to avoid treating both his legacy and his heritage sloppily.
Found a doozy we should see? Submit your typos, your punctuation goofs, and your befuddling cultural missteps to Y’all Need a Copy Editor here.
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One Comment
Livora Gracely
I totally agree with the author: small “typos” can do big harm when they misrepresent or disrespect a community. 💡 Every writer and brand who has reach should take the care to get these details right. Respect starts with listening, learning, and editing with humility.