One should not feel guilty for the crimes of the past if the victims would've been dead by now anyway. also if the descendants of the "criminals" had nothing to do with the crimes Natives have their own semi-autonomous areas called Indian reservations. These areas are plagued by crime, poverty and low education i.e. they're peasants The gov could invest in these areas but as we've seen with poor inner city neighborhoods this is virtually impossible since nobody cares for the poor keep investing in Iraq and Israel cause there's sooooo much more potential there *sarcastic face*
The Native Americans should declare themselves as a lost tribe of Israel. The US government would then provide them with billions in aid, arm them to the teeth and look the other way if they decide to develop their own nuclear weapons.
According to the NIGC, Tribal gaming revenue in 2011 was $27B. Apparently not enough is going to help native americans. Maybe they, or we, can work on a better a budget that helps the 3 million natives in the US.
I think that money goes into the pocket of a few unscrupulous vultures at the top of the food chain. I think this is indicative of American society, as a whole, and I do believe the facts back that up (regarding wealth distribution in modern America, and how a tiny percentage of the richest have some staggering percentage of the total economy). Your larger point is well made, though. To what degree should we expect Natives to 'help themselves'? I think that's a big part of a potential way forward.
I would bet you're right about where the money goes. Also I've read that they make deals with Las Vegas casinos to build them and can get shafted on those deals too. Maybe my perspective is different in southern california. There are a couple dozen native american gaming casinos here and they don't seem to be struggling. I keep my eyes open and try to stay informed and I don't see a lot about native americans plight or what they need to improve their situation. Maybe that's intentional by the news corporations... I occasionally see them getting screwed by congress on land deals but I don't believe congress represents the citizens so that's part of a larger problem regarding congress member's true loyalties imo. I guess what it boils down to is a lack of understanding. I don't know how they live everyday on the reservations or what issues they could use my help with. My best friend in the area I live now is full Navajo but he's just the homie, we don't talk about native american struggles, we talk about work, girls, music, etc...
The funny thing is the Mormon faith actually believes NA's are descended not from the lost tribes but an offshoot of one of the tribes of Israel. Joseph to be exact through his son's Ephraim and Manasseh. Which is how we got the Book of Mormon. Religion. Go figure.
"Imma be da Injun savage and will dirty up and rape yo w'ite wimmins." (oops, that's my ghetto dialect) "Running Bear be true to spirit in sky and fug alla white man's bitches." (dang, still can't get the Injun dialect right)
Cowboys n' indians is a harmless pasttime in the states, but no one in germany would get caught dead playing nazis n' jews. Are the two comparable? Am I being unfair, or too extreme, or overly dramatic in that comparison? (curious here as to why this is a thing when there's a very dark history between cowboys and indians, not trying to hang you out to dry or make you look insensetive there guod buddy. Just think there's an interesting underlying thing to get at here, relevant to the thread)
No but they cut off women's breasts and used them as hats. Cut out there vaginas and made pouches out of them. They would herd entire families into caves or an outbuilding and burn them alive or shoot into the caves so the bullets would ricochet and cut people to pieces. I could go on and on about the atrocities committed against native people. Cutting off hands or feet for rebelling against slave labor. I'm sure if they had large enough ovens they would have used them. During the Long Walk the old and the young who couldn't keep up were shot and left where they died. Same thing happened during the Trail of Tears. Entire families and villages were wiped out.
The Holocaust wiped out the entire Jewish Population of Poland, and other countries. To compare the American Indian experience to that is wrong. There were a lot of unfortunate things done by both sides, in the United States, and the Indians probably got the worst of it, for sure, but it certainly was not genocide nor comparable to the killing of millions of Jews (and others). Hell the Japs did things that were at least as bad as the Nazis, far worse than the U.S. government's mistreatment, at times, of the Indians.
I really don't see a point in arguing shades of gray Evil is evil There is no need to quantify it -Yuri
But he is correct. There is no comparison. The Nazi agenda was genocide. The U.S. agenda was suppression and assimilation. There was a period of eradication but that wasn't sanctioned by the government.