Native Americans: The Best of Both Worlds

Over the last few years, I've actually had two partially native roommates. One was half American Cherokee, another had native ancestry here in Canada. The former was pretty strongly integrated, I didn't even know she was half Cherokee until she mentioned it one day. The second one was torn between two parents, one of them a white aristocrat serving in a high government diplomatic position, the other a native who decided to move back to the reserve. If you didn't know this guy was half-native, you would probably think him to be a racist European royalist snob. He was troubled by a lot of stuff but I think he was a good man at heart, hope he's still doing ok.

From the natives I've spoken to and all the things I've learned about our system in Canada, I think the problem has a lot to do with government neglect, and a lack of leadership in the poorer native communities. However, even more important than the last two causes, there is I think an even deeper reason which partially underlies them. Our whole system of treating the natives is backward. Either they integrate into our society, or they retain their independence, but right now they have a haphazard mixture of both, and it's utterly destructive. You can't seek to preserve a traditional way of life for your people by having them live out in the middle of nowhere, hours away by car from even the nearest small towns, yet have open access to all of the worst corrupting influences in western society. So we need to rework this system from the bottom up, and we need the First Nations to lead the way in figuring out how best to restructure it. I'm not against government payouts as compensation to First Peoples, and a treaty is a treaty, but if we're going to hand money out to natives, we should be paying them to live in the cities acquiring educations, skills and job experience, rather than paying them to live out in the middle of nowhere with next to no jobs and little to occupy the imagination.

 

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Not the conquerers of two centuries ago - the thieves of the last two generations, whose direct victims are alive right now. The ones in the BIA colluding with the oil and gas and mineral industries operating on reservation land, for example. The ones in the Interior Department managing the profitable degradation of watersheds and grazing lands adjunct to reservation land. And so forth. The treaties and laws broken over the past 75 years.

I think the blacks who were cheated on the US Agriculture department development loans a few years ago should receive reparations, yes. Also the victims of redlining and other financial discriminations in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. And many other similar situations.

 

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I have no problem with that. But its beyond ridiculous to be pissy about land the native americans lost beginning in 1492

 

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My grandmother for sure was full blooded Lipan (considered an extinct tribe) and according to state law that makes the rest of us of that tribe due to the "one parent" rule. ...

Even tho Lipan is "extinct" culturally and linguistically, the state of Texas just barely recognized the tribe in 2007. The culture center is fairly new and they will be teaching the language to anyone who wants to learn when the immersion program is up and running in a year or so.

The thing about the Lipan tribe is that due to history, there wasn't a reservation in Texas and all the Lipans probably identify culturally as Mexican. It's just that not a lot of people know their geneology.

 

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How many people in this thread actually know any Native Americans? I've met 3 in my entire life. One of them being full blooded. The other 2 had Indian fathers only.

 

Seems like a fairly high percentage, actually.

In addition to the Sioux, Ojibwe, Iroquois, etc, a lot of - probably most - Hispanics have significant Indio heritage of all kinds.

 

I actually know quite a few. I grew up partly in southern Arizona, and throughout my adult life I've spent a good deal of time on the Navajo reservation, Apache reservations, and others scattered about Arizona, New Mexico, and southern Colorado. So it's an interesting read--if anything, to glean some varied opinions, informed or otherwise. The prevalent attitudes--of non-indigenous folks, that is--in the southwest especially are quite disconcerting.

Incidentally, I find the term "Native American" every bit as odious as "Indian" (moreover, the Indians I've known have referred to themselves as Indians). Indigenous people seems preferable, and is the nomenclature commonly used in Canada.

 

As long as myths of Manifest Destiny - which come in many forms - are still politically correct - in school textbooks, in folk tales of 'merica, etc. - then there is a problem. It is still a cornerstone of much American thinking that what happened either happened the way it should or, heck, it was inevitable. Which basically means, it would happen again, because as a nation it has not reallly been faced. If the sense of entitlement and the potential for violence behind it does not go away
how can the pissyness?

 

I was never taught Manifest Destiny was still correct. I was taught that that was what was believed at the time, what they thought was correct. Same as how people used to think the earth was flat.
I do not think Manifest Destiny is a cornerstone of American thinking.

 

I was taught it was correct. Perhaps I am older. It is often presented as, well, it was bound to happen anyway. I see kids taught directly and indirectly that European culture is superior. The implicit idea is that, well, even if we should have gone about it in a better way, they really needed to make way for what is better.

We still celebrate, for example, Columbus day. A man who had Indian slaves. I have a close friend who in the last 10 years was asked, before being granted citizenship, who discovered America? He paused. He looked at his tester who was Latino - was their native blood in there? He knew damn well that Columbus was the wrong answer, but was it the answer that was wanted.

Yup. Columbus discovered America was the answer being looked for.

I have seen recent social studies texts that take up the problematic way Euroamericans dealt with the natives. But pretty damn fast. You could get the impression it was here and there, rather than something systematic.

I don't think this has really been dealt with.

And manifest destiny is still going on. Let's say we had the right to invade Iraq. Let's say they were a threat. Why would that give us the right to control their oil and to have military bases there?

Manifest Destiny went on certainly through the 80s in relation to native peoples. The US supported and trained the people who radically oppressed and worse Natives in Latin America. The US military has intervened many many times in the last century at the behest of American corporations, including instances where native people had different ideas about how they should run their country.

It can seem like the idea had its time and is over, but I think the fact that the idea managed to move like a wave over the whole continental US makes it seem like it is over.

But until the basic idea is 1) openly and fully repudiated - and past mistakes are fully acknowledged and
2) the same kind of thinking doesn't go into foreign policy
we have a problem.

And make no mistake, the way poor whites and working class whites are treated is very much the same.
They are seen as channels of resourses and not as people to be given a shit about.
People made a mint off the working class and the working class poor and this lead to the financial crisis that is now also smacking the middle class. But the rich, they made their money.

 

Of course there were some brutal times in everyones past.

What European culture are you talking about? I dont think you even know that.

 

I'm not sure why you shifted this to personal.

The people coming from Europe often felt that their culture or cultures were superior. Anything from their monotheism - generally Christianity - was superior to native religions
to seeing the natives as barbarians without culture or with backward, primitive cultures. Many of these immigrants, despite coming from any of a number of European cultures had similar backgrounds, either as farmers/peasants in what were still neo-feudal conditions, or city people. Compared to native cultures, which were also diverse, Europeans had similar cultures. Some tried to 'save' the natives. Some simply felt they had the right to what the natives had. Others took advantage of them directly or indirectly. Some genuinely respected the natives, learned from them and acknowledged that difference did not necessarily mean superiority or inferiority.

I have no idea what you are trying to say about 'of course there were brutal times in everyone's past.' I think my posts make it clear I don't think these patterns are finished with. Also that if they are simply there in the past, they could be fully acknowledged. The fact that they cannot be is telling.

 

I dont know what you mean by personal.

Of course the Europeans had a culture.

I agree with that.

No your post was completely one sided.

 

Besides, if you look at modern culture we cannot conclude it is European culture

 

When you say 'I'll bet you don't even know...'
you are getting personal.

Well, I agree with that.

Good.

Perhaps you'll do something about that.

 

I agree. But it is rarely acknowledged how much American culture, for example, was influenced by natives. Not simply directly via the democratic structures of certain Eastern tribes, but also in terms of character. Much of the non-hierarchical thinking and deep respect for the individual, regardless of class could very well have come from native influence. The natives compared to the Europeans had a much deeper respect for the individual.

Of course Europe was already incredibly influenced by Middle Eastern and even far Eastern cultures in ways we are just catching on to, but that's a whole other barrel of fish and spice.

 

"When you say 'I'll bet you don't even know...'
you are getting personal."

What European culture are you talking about? Maybe in Europe.

 

Yes, I agree with this.

Maybe you don't remember, but the early period of interaction between EUROPEANS and natives
there was no United States or Canada, etc., yet. So the two cultures we were talking about were European and native. So yes, in fact, this was the comparison. And school books tended to refer to the two cultures in this way. 1775 is late in the game and the colonists would have thought of themselves as Europeans of various sorts, especially in comparison with natives.

And most of the texts I have seen the American culture was seen as one emerging from but very much akin to
its european roots. Americans did not think of themselves as arriving ex nihilo. The pattern of interaction and the justifications for their sense of superiority were based on their being that extension of European culture with its long history of technological inventions, Christianity and more clothing.

 

Again you are just focusing on one side being negative. American culture is not European culture, but you cherry pick anyway.

It is hard to say afa cultures today. Seems like much of these things are due to evolving.