I've had this debate. On strict language, this is an expression that denigrates the people who gave things to originals and then broke the agreement. So, it could be a slam on white folks. In reality, the phrase has always had a racial tinge to it, and it is best left for the dust bin of history.

If Brad Bennett said it, you can bet it was disrespectful, insulting and racist.

Somebody actually listens to Brad Bennett?

Bennett does exactly what he's paid to do: piss people off. Logic and civility don't figure into the bottom line.

I think the context that most anyone would use this phrase, in this time and place, unfortunately would probably be racist.

The etymology behind it seems to point toward a misunderstanding of a (probably generalized) Native American cultural practice of a gift given being kind of a karma token for receiving something comparable, whether symbolically or practically. Seems to have surfaced mid-eighteenth century, certainly amongst ethnocentric east-coast settlers, whose skewed perspectives I won't even get into.

A few years back, I did have an archaeology instructor use the term, which she then graciously explained: when used in the proper context -- that of the U.S gov't signing treaties with already devastated Native American tribes, then recanting on the terms and further driving home the practice of cultural genocide.

So when I hear the term (rarely), I either think 'this person is an asshat/dumb', or how difficult -- and probably futile it is to explain a much more interesting and valuable context to the term. Sigh.