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

On to the lighter side of things. We Amerinds (a term most of us like better than "Native Americans) also have a sense of humor and frequently tell jokes about ourselves. It's an old one, but one of my favorites is:

A good many years ago, a young man left the reservation to get a degree in electrical engineering. Simply as a matter of course, he also learned some everyday practical things about electricity as well.

Upon returing after graduation, he was asked if he could install lights in the communal women's bathroom because they often needed to go there after dark.

So he did. And went down in Indian history as being the first ever individual to wire a head for a reservation.:D
 
Cazzo said:
All too often you here some people stating that "we" (Americans) "stole" the land from American Indians.
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Cazzo, our society has a responsibility to these people.

If you don't know that, you're a freak.
 
GeoffP said:
Cazzo, our society has a responsibility to these people.

If you don't know that, you're a freak.
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I don't know, I think it's kinda freakish when someone thinks "we" owe something to some people "we" didn't do anything to. Someone else did it that's DEAD now.
By your "logic", perhaps we should do DNA tests of EVERY person on the planet, find out what tribal groups may have been in the past from any part of the world, then have the appropriate country their tribe was in pay them life-long welfare......:rolleyes:
Maybe by your "logic" we should throw all the Europeans in jail because more than likely their ancestors killed off the Neanderthals....:rolleyes:
 
We have an opportunity here to help a people the state of which we are responsible for.

How about not fucking it up and helping for a change?
 
The abuse and illegalities and denial of equal protection under the law, by the dominant societal group in the US to the blacks and reds as identified classes of people, is not ancient history. A lot of it is ongoing violation of state and federal law. A lot of it has not even run out the statute of limitations for misdemeanor offense. A lot of it is residue of abuses personally inflicted on living people, some not that old.

The treaty fight over Mille Lacs fishing by tribal reds is still a live issue in Minnesota - a denial of treaty rights that was just ended by a court decision a few years ago, after being formal State policy for decades. The BIA mineral rights money swindle is in the courts right now.

Obama can probably remember formal redlining; his Chicago pastor Wright spent a youth under Jim Crow including the military, and was a middle aged man when white mobs in Chicago were beating black youths to death for trespassing in white neighborhoods - blacks being crowded into Third World style slums (cardboard walls, no running water, etc) in Chicago at the time.

This stuff is modern, pertinent, and critical.
 
S.A.M. said:
With that combination, they probably have a higher incidence of suicide as well. Whats preventing their assimilation?
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That's a good question.
In Alaska, I'd say it's mainly due to their inability. Many of them are raised in isolated, rural communities. Isolated as in no way in or out except by plane. Even with subsidies so they can heat their houses, run their TVs, and drink soda, there is still a large skill set they need to survive there. Avoiding frostbite, how to shoot & skin a caribou, knowing how to follow a game trails, drying salmon in your backyard, spending August picking blueberries Being raised in a town of 100 where everyone talks slow and slurred, and maybe your great-grandma doesn't know English. You still may where mukluks, the traditional fur & hide snowboots of Native Alaskans.

And all this as a matter of fact. Not a conscious effort to hang on to culture, but the fact that your environment necessitates it. It makes life easier. Nevermind that the dominant culture that you're exposed to in all media, from literary masterpieces, kindergarten primers, not to mention TV & radio, is practically the antithesis of the culture you're raised. That traditional values of your people- honoring the old, being a good hunter, sharing- are subverted or actively contradicted by what's blaring on the boob tube.

There a people stuck between two worlds, and the whites certainly regard them as non-whites. They come from different experiences. Many of them don't even know how to shop when they first arrive in a big city (though neither Anchorage not Fairbanks are truly big cities).

They're like immigrants who don't want to immigrate. It's a forced conversion, largely. The drugs and alcohol are subsequent to having an irrelevant history and no future.
 
iceaura said:
This stuff is modern, pertinent, and critical.
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And what are you doing financially to help?

What are the new immigrants who came to U.S within the last year doing to help?

Are they just as responsible as you?

Did you Iceaura personally benefit? Then you better give everything you have up.
 
John99 does your country celibrate the war or independence? The civil war? WW1+2

you cant only own the good, you have to own the bad as a country as well
 
its no different from the former australian goverment trying to claim that "they wernt responcable" for the fact that aborigional culture is almost extint because of former goverments authorising aborigional children being abducted from there families and yet trying to "own" the ANZAC tradition.
 
Asguard, you do realize that no government is a living entity. They are made up of individual people. Who do you hold responsible for decisions made hundreds of years ago? Do we hold responsible a poor kid who's parents struggle to send him to school and get does good in school and becomes a politician in 2022? His family may have been recent immigrants come from Africa or any other country for that matter?
 
Umm, when you sue the goverment you arnt suing the PM. You are suing the GOVERMENT of such and such a contry.

I suggest you read the apology speach by kevin rudd. It didnt say "I kevin rudd apologise for ...". It said "as PM i am sorry, as leader of the goverment of the commonwealth of australia i am sorry, as the leader of the parliment i am sorry". Ie it was on behalf of the institution of PM&C, The goverment, and the parliment for what previous parliments have done, NOT on behalf of himself
 
well actually there has been a law suit against the SA goverment over the stolen generation which the aborigional man won and the goverment was forced to pay compensation, Marbo is another great case to look at (it would be famious enough to apear on wikipedia if you want to look)

Dont know what the point of linking to a website on ANZAC day has to do with the price of fish though
 
I'm a big fan of 'put up or shut up'. If Native Americans ever want to sue, I say go for it. Considering none that were 're-educated' are still alive while those in Australia are, I don't think they have a chance in hell.
 
Orleander said:
I'm a big fan of 'put up or shut up'. If Native Americans ever want to sue, I say go for it. Considering none that were 're-educated' are still alive while those in Australia are, I don't think they have a chance in hell.
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Like a white woman once told me: the reason she is in Stanford and her parent was in Yale and his parent was in Harvard or whatever is a trickle down effect from slavery. There is no American alive who has not benefited from the persecution of the Indians and their progeny have a right to demand justice for it.
 
Hey does the same apply for the Copts, Sam?

I know, I know: broken record, eh? :D
 
The Copts? You mean the ones who were persecuted under the Western church and lived only in Muslim countries? I dunno, you think the Vatican will pay?
 
Cazzo said:
If "we" stole their land, then you could say that about ANY country on the face of the planet; as conquests and borders have been changing around the world for perhaps 100,000 years or more.
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There likely have only been "borders" (and "states") since the rise of agriculture. Hunter gatherer societies generally do not have land ownership (many argue they did not have property rights in any sense that we'd understand the term). So the limit on changing borders is likely 8000 B.C. was the outside edge of nationbuilding.

As for how "we" stole "their" land, you are right that one can draw a distinction between what "we" did to "them" and what "our culture" did to "their culture." One does not have to distinguish between them, as it seems pretty clear in context, but one can.

By the same token, if you were to make that distinction, then you would have to object to anyone who suggested "we" won the Revolutionary War, "we" adopted a Constitution or even that "our" culture is worth defending (since most of what is "our" culture is a holdover from prior generations, and the culture of any future generation will not be "ours" even if it is identical to our current culture...it will be "theirs" (whomever "they" may be, so any changes that occur in the future are not "ours" to worry about)). We will also have to give up saying "We saved your butts in WWII" to Europeans, since most of the "we" in that statement are people who are not dead or very elderly...the young punks repeating it certainly did jack towards that end.

It is really just a question of semantics. When does "we" include ancestors and when does it not? I can fault liberals for being too quick to ascribe crimes of ancestors to the modern generation, and one can fault conservatives to quick to ascribe the good deeds of prior generations to current ones.
 
S.A.M. said:
The Copts? You mean the ones who were persecuted under the Western church and lived only in Muslim countries where they were persecuted to the point of extinction? I dunno, you think Riyadhwill pay?
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Corrected.
 
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