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Thanksgiving: Time to Consider Native Americans' Plight
This Thanksgiving season, the nation should finally commit itself to bridging the socioeconomic divide between the descendents of those who came together during the first Thanksgiving: the Native Americans and the white newcomers. More than cranberry sauce and turkey, this type of reflection and action is essential to the holiday season.
Recently, President Barack Obama hosted a White House Tribal Nations conference with representatives from all 564 federally recognized U.S. tribes. Bringing "about meaningful change for those who had, for too long, been excluded from the American dream," was a driving force behind his presidential bid, Obama said. "And few have been more marginalized and ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans, our first Americans." The president's words deeply resonate with the findings in my upcoming report, "Challenges to Native American Advancement."
This Institute for Policy Studies report reviews a federal policy that, for most of U.S. history, was more apt at removing land and natural resources from American Indians than protecting their resources and property as was agreed to in federally recognized treaties.
Whether it was the allotment system, a kind of privatization of Indian land that resulted in transferring about 100 million acres to non-Native Americans, or the Reagan administration's "New Federalism," which in the name of self-determination cut funding for American Indian development, the federal government has too often blocked Native American advancement rather than supported it.
Over the last few decades, Native Americans have made important gains in cutting poverty rates and unemployment while increasing their educational levels. Yet even with these gains, Native Americans are nowhere near parity with white Americans. For example, in 2007 Native Americans had a poverty rate of almost 25 percent, triple the white poverty rate. In this weak economic condition, American Indians face a serious challenge in today's "Great Recession." During the 1980s recession, Native Americans on reservations saw a decline of real family income that lasted for a decade. We can't let this history repeat itself.
If the country is serious about the words Obama spoke during the White House Tribal Conference, where he stated he is "absolutely committed...that [American Indians] can be full partners in the American economy and...have an equal shot at pursuing the American dream," then federal investment will be necessary to finally turn the page on the history where America marginalized and alienated the "first Americans."
It was through years of intentional and focused government policy that American Indians were separated from the wealth and resources that were properly theirs. It's through intentional and focused government policy that Native Americans will once again receive their rightful share of the wealth of this land.
During this Native American Heritage month and Thanksgiving season, let's as a country unite behind the president's call and demand that the plight of American Indians be at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the American economy.
29 Comments so far
Show AllFederal investment is totally appropriate when it comes to fighting poverty, curbing drug and alcohol abuse, and providing healthcare to Indians. However, it should be done in ways that agree with the tribe's values--the tribe should have a say as to what programs are instituted, how they are carried out, and how they are evaluated. For example, punitive drug policies--enforced in some white communities--might be inappropriate on the reservation or in treatment centers that serve the Native American population.
Also, on another note, it is important to hold those receiving funds accountable as to how they are spent and how effectively they go to solve problems. Again, working with tribes, it should be possible to monitor and evaluate programs to make sure money is not being wasted. Ineffective programs need to be canceled with better designed ones taking their place. Darwinism--the survival of the most efficient--needs to prevail with federal grant giving as well as in Nature.
"For example, punitive drug policies--enforced in some white communities--might be inappropriate on the reservation or in treatment centers that serve the Native American population."
That's easy to understand. The punitive drug policies [are] inappropriate [everywhere].
I'm not sure giving them U.S. dollars, however, is a good idea. The currency's worthless fiat and virtual money. Pay them using gold, instead.
"Red Alert: The Second Wave of The Financial Tsunami
The Wave Is gathering force & could hit between the first & second quarter of 2010",
by Matthias Chang, FutureFastForward.com, Nov 22 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16218
And our fiscal administrators have done SUCH a good job of monitoring and evaluating fiscal responsibility!
Sorry for the Sarcasm... but I think that anyone who would throw money at a people but not return their actual land and resource wealth perpetuates a lie - money is not the answer - Give the people the water, mineral, and grazing rights determined by Treaty Law so they can self determine how to best live up to their own dictates.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
That's better than gold, but don't give them toxically polluted, poisoned, radiologically poisoned, but also poisoned in other ways, land. If they're to be returned their or enough of their land, then it must be healthy land. I hope there's enough left of that kind of land for it to be of really meaningful value as compensation for the lands stolen from them, bloodily.
I would even accept "ruined" land as it is my belief that our purpose as human beings is to steward the earth... "owning" such land would be the beginning of restoration and renewal for both the people and the earth as through that "ownership" resources both material and spiritual could be summoned to heal.
If through such possession we could insure that the land would be given rest and care and ministered to without fear that once on the road to recovery the graspers would simply take it and rape it again, I believe the modern world would see the power of Native Earth Medicine.
We can bring about "miracles" of renewal when we focus on a common good without fear of exploitation to constantly denigrate intent!
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
"Living the American Dream" - aka sleepwalking.
Another shame and injuststice is that the corporate media is virtually silent on indigenous peoples. They are omitted, forgotten, and marginalized.
In addition, as the article points out, the Feds (with their private corporate partners) continue to steal their land and resources. This is not a thing of the past it coninues to this day. Ethnic cleansing since 1492 and keeping the tradition alive in the 21st century, makes ya proud don't it?
In a recent case that was woefully under-reported in the US corporate oligopoly media: the "Supreme Court" sides with racism, injustice and humiliating native populations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/16/washington-redskins-nfl-supreme-court
The "Washington Redskins" were allowed to keep their name. This is deeply racist and blatantly offensive. What if we named some teams like "the Houston Honkeys" "Pittsburg Palefaces" "the Carolina Crackers" complete with racist caricatures?
This would have no effect.
How many rednecks self-identify as such?
Pride.
Integrity.
Guts.
Service.
Sticks and stones.
It was simply a rhetorical question
You neglected "... Gringos", although I'm not sure it's actually perjorative.
Crackers? What's special about that for name? You might want the team to be based in a town or city where there's a junk food manufacturer that manufactures, well, junk food crackers. It'd be a better fit that way.
"Crackers" is a racist slur for white people. If someone calls you a "cracker" (assuming you are caucasian) it is not a compliment.
I'm caucasian, but never heard of crackers this way before now.
More forked tongued words from the Great White Father?
There's a really easy way to fix the plight of Native Americans. Apologies won't be enough, nor will guilt-wallowing or ending holidays. The plight needs to be rectified. It can be done with a form of reparations, one that should be done for African Americans as well.
"For example, punitive drug policies--enforced in some white communities--might be inappropriate on the reservation or in treatment centers that serve the Native American population."
Are punitive drug policies appropriate for anyone?
US policies are also always being exported: Ray Hunt CEO of Hunt Oil has been sent a letter by the Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon calling for a face to face meeting. Hunt oil was one of the interests for which Peruvian gov't introduced legislation to strike down indigenous rights leading to the massacre this past summer
Intercontinental cry
http://intercontinentalcry.org/
A couple of Northern News Site sources on indigenous affairs
Indian country today http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/
News from Indian Country
http://www.dogpile.com/dogpile/ws/results/Web/indian%20country%20today/1/417/TopNavigation/Relevance/iq=true/zoom=off/_iceUrlFlag=7?_IceUrl=true
"During this Native American Heritage month and Thanksgiving season, let's as a country unite behind the president's call and demand that the plight of American Indians be at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the American economy."
The President lies. Nothing has changed. Our land, resources, and lives continue to be stolen. Our Traditional Sacred Ways are being pounded into dust under the assault of Christians. We can see the exit signs.
I'm not really offended by "gringo." I've been called worse.
Yah, it's nothing to concern oneself about. If someone calls me gringo, then I might just reply by asking why. Being called a twit is worse, too.
"Lies I Was Raised With", an essay by Wade Frazier
http://www.ahealedplanet.net/lies.htm
Refer to the "original Thanksgiving", which already wasn't good, except for the little truth about it taught in schools, and then read about the progression to a much worse Thanksgiving, the one that's existed ever since. I'd quote from the essay, but am unable to make more than very short posts at CD and elsewhere for over a week now.
Another essay in which Wade Frazier describes what he claims to be real Thanksgiving history is, "The American Empire". I'm no expert, so can only say that I think what he describes is true.
http://www.ahealedplanet.net/america.htm
Oh, and why are people believing that Obama is sincere, since he's proven to be a rather constant liar? Whatever the topic is, when he's first spoken in what were popular, welcome terms, he always proved to be [insincere], never living up to his words; rather always doing the opposite. Like the old adage says, don't judge based on what a person says; judge them based on their actions.
The actual assault upon the Tribes came from the Freemasons setting up their New Order of the Ages, or Roman Babylon from within the Secret Organization that just manipulated everyone as well as those who served the False Christ presented to them by their Religious Churches that weren't much more back then than they are now just programed robots by their political parties that are controlled by the Freemason's, Skull & Bones, and other Secret Organizations.
The whole illusion is George Washington sold them the fairy tale of America that exists in their minds. They bought into the fairy tale. The thing is it's true all over the planet is that people just buy into whatever fairy tales are made up for them that they buy into by their Leaders.
Constantine of Rome just started murdering & thieving in Jesus's name instead of his own. People bought into the lie of the False Christ persented to them. Romans like the Eygptians like the Babylonians had already learned to program & control populations through psychologies as well as the carrot stick of money.
A sect called the Seventh Day Adventists, according to my reading, thought the U.S. was the Beast of Revelation when they were murdering off the Tribes & swiping the land. So they tried to put things into a prophetic context as best they could at that time, but it didn't mean they were able to stop what was happening.
Had I lived in the days of Tribes I would have just hunted, fished, grown & gathered food. Lived simply with the earth & the Tribe.
Now all you have is your manufactured made for tv politicians that are controlled by the Banks & Corporations. Across the "Satan Box" they speak just like Orwell's Big Brother.
So you have your made for tv manufactured world where all reality is manufactured for you including thought. So all I do is live simply in your insane world, & thank God life is short in your insane world.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Shadowdancer, it wasn't totally great before the white man made his appearance. Don't you, especially you given your name, take seriously the "noble savage" box that Europeans used to describe native cultures. There was famine, there was disease, there were tribal wars. Life wasn't easy then.
Whites brought a lot of suffering onto native peoples, it is true. Killings, theft, disease, liquor, prostitution, rape--nobody can ever deny that. There were a few whites who opposed such treatments--I am researching one now named James Jesse Strang. There is no question that the US government and the governments of colonizing powers from Europe committed atrocities in the name of their nation and in the name of religion. To a much smaller degree, some Indians committed atrocities on innocent people, too. Still, whites brought a few things worthwhile: science, medicine, writing, printing, literature, steel, architecture, and more. The fact that Indians borrowed these things indicates they were welcomed.
Looking at the past through twenty-first century eyes has its problems. It is easy to imagine how things might have been if North America had been left alone, but those perceptions aren't the same as those actually experienced by men and women of centuries past. You can't accurately tell stories about history without seeing through the eyes of our ancestors.
Someone who writes posts like either of yours, you and the person you replied to, need to provide links to resources supporting, authoritatively, much of what you say, or at least some of the things you both posted. F.e., you say that while it was to a lesser extent, American Indians committed crimes against innocent people and there are two things missing with such a statement. Firstly, who are or were the innocent people you're talking about, European colonialists, or other American Indians, or indigenous people south or north of the present USA? Secondly, what crimes did they commit? If you mean scalping, then this was learned from white bounty hunters being paid by the President of the U.S., who paid for the scalps (as proof of killings) of the children, women and men among American Indians. If scalping is not what you mean, instead meaning that they just killed innocent European colonialists invading all American Indian land while the American Indians were being brutally wiped out and dispossed by the European Americans' government, then it's not really a crime that these American Indians committed. They were defending themselves, their families, tribes, and land from uninvited and intrusive, infesting, ... Europeans. The parties to blame for those killings are the then U.S. government and the invading European colonialists, who didn't oppose what their government was savagely, psychopathically and greedily doing to the American Indians.
If neither of those are the crimes you were talking about, then you need to explain, but I know this is a late post and you'll likely not see it. If you do see and read this though, then I suggest reading the two essays by Wade Frazier that I provided links for in another post in this page, further above or below.
Mike,
What you (and most posters here) are missing is that the Indians did not "own" any land. That was a concept foreign to most tribes. Territories were fought over by Indians--the rights to hunt and fish. Some of these rights were recognized in treaties. In my state (Michigan), in the last twenty years treaty rights have been recognized. It is true that whites came and seized land, sometimes by force, sometimes through treaties which were seldom honored. In the end, land is not owned by anyone. The Indians did not gain title as they migrated over from Asia.
As for scalping (and other massacres), I am not sure if you can support that the practice evolved from European practices. I have not read about scalping being a part of European tradition. The practice of scalping occurred before the United States existed. Have you read about the Iroquois? A great many other tribes avoided them because of their brutality. In any case, that is irrelevant. There are written cases of men, women, and children being brutally murdered by Indians. You can say it is what they deserved or that white brutality was worse but that doesn't change the fact that atrocities were committed.
I am not sure your picture of white-Indian relations is accurate. You accept the a view that those relations were always tainted. It wasn't always true. Where I live, the French voyageurs integrated fairly well into Indian life, marrying Indians, trading with them, and even adopting some elements of their way of life. I can't excuse the miserable treatment whites gave the Indians, but neither can I forget the notable exceptions and a history that is not as clear-cut as you make it out to be.
Just because indigenous people were not into "owning" does not mean that whites did not commit genocide against them when they murdered 20 million of them in order to OWN the lands that they had stewarded appropriately for thousands of years.
It's my understanding that some states--I believe that Colorado is one--have a King and Castle law on the books that exonerates anyone who kills a person who is trying to break into his house.
Do you see the connection?
Or are you too deep in denial to get it?
My people are from the area that is now Quebec. Quebec, last I checked, was not a state of the US. It's true that the French (the other half of my ancestral tree) were considerably less probematic than the English--but if you remember, Wolfe defeated Montcalm in Quebec City. That gave the English dominion, and the French have been a protesting minority in resistance ever since.
Nobody but a cynical genocidist claims that for the genocide committed against indigenous folks by whites to be true (here's one for the holocaust deniers, I guess) ALL whte folks had to have murdered a native.
It is still the case that 20 million indigenous persons were murdered by folks of white european origin. It was not a Jonestown--20 million indigenous folks did not commit suicide.
Let's stay within the parameters of reality--there's enough fantasy circulating out there already.
The only meaningful gesture towards Native nations would be to give them back a significant amount of land. Perhaps suburbia could be deconstructed and returned to its natural, pre-invasion state of forestland.
Typically, the Natives get a few nice words every year around this time, and then spend the rest of the year trying to survive in the midst of the pollution and hyperconsumption of THE DREAM INC.
White people have lost thier connection to the earth. They look in all the wrong places and they silence the voice when it speaks to them. They think thier medicine is going to save them when all around is sickness. I don't think native people want this sickness. Native people live the way they do to be with thier ancesters.