"We" stole the Indian's land.... Oh really ?

[Read-Only]

I haven't made that case. I do think that as long as people think of themselves as that 'we' that shaped the nation then they need to think of themselves as part of that 'we' that did other things that they should not be proud of.

Now THAT I can agree with. But "not being proud of" and accepting blame and responsibility for those things isn't the same thing at all.

I am not saying that a card carrying Cherokee such as yourself should have the right to occupy some white guy's aparment in Bryson, North Carolina.

And I agree with that also. One of the main reasons I brought that up in the first place is something I forgot to mention. It doesn't give me or my kids the right to take someone's home but it DOES grant us the ability to claim a free college education, among other things, as "reparations" of deeds done in the past. And neither I nor any card-carrying Amerind I know feel that we are owed any such special treatment. We've all chosen to pay for those things ourselves - just as you do. It's a matter of principle with us - just as not accepting the blame for what others have done is also a matter of principle.

 

[Orleander]

I think the fact that they were put on reservations in their own land is a good sign....

Yeah, that shouldn't have been done. They should have been absorbed into the invading culture and it all called good. Its what the conquering armies of Europe and Asia did.

I'm curious, do the people of Asia and Europe (such as descendants of the Franks, Gauls, Huns, Persians) all want reparation or does that only happen here in the US?

 

[MacGyver1968]

I think the French have to pay reparations...you know....just cause they're French. j/k

So I wonder if we are thiefs here in Texas, since we "stole" the land from the Mexicans, who in turn, had "stolen" it from NA. I guess we pay reparations to the Mexicans, who then have to pay the NA. We actually worked out a more direct system..we drive 60 miles north and spend millions in NA casinos on the Oklahoma border....it eliminates alot of the paperwork.

 

[Orleander]

Why do we continue to send the Native population a gvmt check? How are we helping them by doing that?

 

[cosmictraveler]

Why do we continue to send the Native population a gvmt check? How are we helping them by doing that?

Because they can't get work because many of them have been relocated to distant areas , far from the cities that they might get work in. Only about 5 percent of the tribes have cassino's on their lands because those tribes are within easy access of major cities. If you figured up how much all of the land would cost to repay them for it then you understand why the Native Americans are being given a little scrap of money, a few billion , per year for all tribes.

 

[Orleander]

repay them for what? Losing the land to an invading population?

 

[cosmictraveler]

repay them for what? Losing the land to an invading population?

Because they cannot get work outside of their resettlement areas.

 

[Orleander]

LOL, bullshit. That's like saying black people can't get work outside of a ghetto

 

[Cazzo]

Because they cannot get work outside of their resettlement areas.

One could argue a couple things about this :
#1. Who forces them to stay on reservations ? If anything, Indians have MORE rights than white Americans because of "Affirmative Action". If they got shot-down applying for a job outside a reservation, they could claim "racial discrimination"....

#2. If Indians were so "in touch" with "Mother Earth" as some claim before the Europeans came; why would they need jobs outside of a reservation when they could support themselves off "Mother Earth" on the reservation ?
Not to mention all the government programs and funding for reservations, and many have casinos....

 

[SkinWalker]

One could also point out that Native Americans have fewer opportunities on the reservation or to leave the reservation. Couple that with traditionalist beliefs that some natives have and there becomes a feedback system in which the reservation prevents people from leaving the reseravation.

The plain fact is that there are only so many people who will be able to take advantage of opportunities to leave due to educational grants and scholarships (there are many, but there are many more native kids that could potentially use them). There are also many natives who remember very well the marginalization that occurred to them as children on the reservation -being told they couldn't have certain opportunities at all or that they couldn't have them unless they gave up traditions and replaced them with Christianity and "civilization," etc.

To the second point, the "reservations" are typically the results of the worst land available since the lands that recent ancestors of Native Americans are the resource-rich areas occupied by those of largely European ancestry. Being "in touch" with the earth can only go so far in a desert of limited resources and biodiversity. That's not to say that all Native reservations are this way, but many -probably most- certainly are.

This isn't to say that modern American society (people largely of European ancestry) should be held fully accountable for the actions of our ancesters. But I think it is true that we can be mindful of the segregation, genocide, and forced migration and resettlement imposed upon them when we consider what opportunities should be afforded them and how.

By and large, I think modern American society holds Native America in high regard. A whole genre of art surrounds Native America, we've always used geographic placenames that are Native American, etc.

 

[Cazzo]

This isn't to say that modern American society (people largely of European ancestry) should be held fully accountable for the actions of our ancesters. But I think it is true that we can be mindful of the segregation, genocide, and forced migration and resettlement imposed upon them when we consider what opportunities should be afforded them and how.

What genocide ?????
I've never heard of any conserted effort by Europeans hundreds of years ago to deliberately try exterminating the Indians.
Yes, unfortunately some germs hitched a ride from Europe to the Americas with the explorers and wiped out most of the Indians. Those explorers didn't deliberately try getting the Indians sick, much less did they even know what a germ was back then.

 

[CutsieMarie89]

What genocide ?????
I've never heard of any conserted effort by Europeans hundreds of years ago to deliberately try exterminating the Indians.
Yes, unfortunately some germs hitched a ride from Europe to the Americas with the explorers and wiped out most of the Indians. Those explorers didn't deliberately try getting the Indians sick, much less did they even know what a germ was back then.

It wasn't exactly genocide I think a war was declared against the Native Americans and it wasn't the Europeans that did it it was Americans. Andrew Jackson I believe, he was not a fan of the native tribes. The whole Trail of Tears thing was his doing I think it's been a while since I was in AP US History. Jackson forced either 4 out of 5 or 5 out of 6 tribes out west. The Natives living in Florida the Seminoles I think, wouldn't leave without a fight and were the only tribe that put up a sufficient resistance to the American military. It was similar to how the slave traders would heard Africans that they had captured. A whole lot of them didn't survive the journey, the young the weak, the old most of them died.
I however don't understand anything about reservations or the bylaws involved. So I hold no opinion on that matter.

 

[cosmictraveler]

LOL, bullshit. That's like saying black people can't get work outside of a ghetto

The problem is that many resettlement areas are 50 to 100 miles away from any city that could give them work which meant they would have to travel that far just to look for work unlike people living in a ghetto who actually live within the city itself. There wasn't any educational opportunities for many NA to get a good schooling on their reservations either which also inhibited them from joining the workforce.

 

[cosmictraveler]

One could argue a couple things about this :
#1. Who forces them to stay on reservations ? If anything, Indians have MORE rights than white Americans because of "Affirmative Action". If they got shot-down applying for a job outside a reservation, they could claim "racial discrimination"....

#2. If Indians were so "in touch" with "Mother Earth" as some claim before the Europeans came; why would they need jobs outside of a reservation when they could support themselves off "Mother Earth" on the reservation ?
Not to mention all the government programs and funding for reservations, and many have casinos....

1. They had no real education on their reservations so they didn't get the schooling they needed to compete in todays society.

2. The resettlement reservations are usually located in desolate, isolated, poor land, little water to grow crops because the white people took all of the good lands for themselves and gave the Native Americans shit to live on.Only 5 percent of all reservations have casino's on them, or didn't you know that. Again that is because most of the reservations are located 50 to 100 miles away from any major cities so therefore no one would travel that far to gamble.

 

[Orleander]

The problem is that many resettlement areas are 50 to 100 miles away from any city that could give them work which meant they would have to travel that far just to look for work unlike people living in a ghetto who actually live within the city itself. There wasn't any educational opportunities for many NA to get a good schooling on their reservations either which also inhibited them from joining the workforce.

Native Americans have their own scholarship programs set up for the kids to get off the reservation. Few take advantage of it. My college roommate was one of the few that did. She got her degree and went back to the reservation to help. She quit.
Its hard to help people who won't look to the future and continue to dwell on the past. How can you better your life when you live with "should woulda coulda"
And if there are no jobs, why are so many illegal immigrants coming here?

 

[iceaura]

That is an issue TOTALLY separate from the old one of slavery.

Of course. Which makes your repeated introduction of slavery into every discussion of this matter a strawman argument.

What is owed to the red tribes is - at minimum - enforcement of the legal, signed, valid treaties currently having the status of law in the US, and the equal, fair enforcement of all other applicable laws etc.

What is owed to black people is equality under the law, which would include enforcement of liability for racially targeted injuries inflicted by socially dominant groups as well as elimination of institutionalized discrimination on the basis of race.

Now how to actually deliver on these promises and meet these obligations is another matter. But the basic situation is not deniable.

And if there are no jobs, why are so many illegal immigrants coming here?

There are jobs for those willing to accept inferior status and unequal treatment and substandard wages and poor working conditions etc, in return for the privilege of getting one of them.

Should citizens have to do that?

 

[cosmictraveler]

Native Americans have their own scholarship programs set up for the kids to get off the reservation. Few take advantage of it. My college roommate was one of the few that did. She got her degree and went back to the reservation to help. She quit.

Its hard to help people who won't look to the future and continue to dwell on the past. How can you better your life when you live with "should woulda coulda"

And if there are no jobs, why are so many illegal immigrants coming here?

Tell that to the Amish.

I never said there weren't any jobs I said that their location was far away from the city so they couldn't get to a job very easy. When there's no school on a reservation it makes it hard to educate NA. Without an education you don't get much work.

 

[Simon Anders]

One could argue a couple things about this :
#1. Who forces them to stay on reservations ? If anything, Indians have MORE rights than white Americans because of "Affirmative Action". If they got shot-down applying for a job outside a reservation, they could claim "racial discrimination"....

You're mixing issues in this some, but in any case a white person can also claim racial discrimination. IOW if a white person applies to a job in a predominantly ___________ (fill in the non-white race) workplace and is turned down and can show that race was a factor they too can go to court. It happens less because, well, I'll let you connect the dots.

#2. If Indians were so "in touch" with "Mother Earth" as some claim before the Europeans came; why would they need jobs outside of a reservation when they could support themselves off "Mother Earth" on the reservation ?
Not to mention all the government programs and funding for reservations, and many have casinos....

This is a poor proof. Are you really suggesting that what you say above shows they were not intimately connected to the land?

 

[Orleander]

Tell that to the Amish.

I never said there weren't any jobs I said that their location was far away from the city so they couldn't get to a job very easy. When there's no school on a reservation it makes it hard to educate NA. Without an education you don't get much work.

I grew up near Pine Ridge reservation, went to a school with many many Native American kids, had a Santee-Sioux roommate in college and have a Lakota Sioux step-mom.

To compare the Amish to Native Americans in ludicrous. Native Americans get a free ride in college. Care to guess how many take advantage of it??

 

[Simon Anders]

Now THAT I can agree with. But "not being proud of" and accepting blame and responsibility for those things isn't the same thing at all.

It depends partially what you find in your soul searching. If you still think that manifest destiny was right and it was correct that 'we' took that land and one finds one is a racist, then you can accept blame. As far as responsibility, not directly. But anyone who rooted for Hitler is on a par with those who knew about the Holocaust and silently or indirectly supported it.

And I agree with that also. One of the main reasons I brought that up in the first place is something I forgot to mention. It doesn't give me or my kids the right to take someone's home but it DOES grant us the ability to claim a free college education, among other things, as "reparations" of deeds done in the past. And neither I nor any card-carrying Amerind I know feel that we are owed any such special treatment. We've all chosen to pay for those things ourselves - just as you do.

I did. But a lot of families that put their kids through college did it with tainted money. The Shell execs who put their kids through college have done it on the backs of other indigenous people, for example.

The way Natives have been treated did not end 100 years ago. Many have been treated like shit because of their race and because of their culture - those that chose to keep it - right up into the present. I cannot begrudge Natives who do take the gov. up on free college. If their parents are middle class, well that's odd. And honestly I'd prefer it if the law was class based, rather than race based. But the whole issue of these free educations is not high on my list of national problems.

Right now 'my' government is bailing out the superrich, because, possibly if it doesn't many not so superrich will get hurt. I believe 'my' government went to war because of its intimate ties with those companies that have made the most money off these wars. And many of the superrich ARE NOT WORKING.

So much as I admire your attitude, the free educations seem like drops in the bucket of handouts going on daily in the billions and trillions. Handouts necessitated by people who put their extra wealth 'needs' on a par with the basic well being of other people. IOW people who share qualities with those who understood what they were doing to the Native Americans, understood that they were stealing and felt entitled to it because they were better.

This pattern has not stopped. Not for a second.