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what i see is the lack of a GUN on the security guards! wtf??? they saw him and knew what he was up to... if the security guards had guns they could prevented this and probably only the shooter would have been killed...
And to clarify, I've got no complaints about the coverage.
what i see is the lack of a GUN on the security guards! wtf??? they saw him and knew what he was up to... if the security guards had guns they could prevented this and probably only the shooter would have been killed...
What's even more disgraceful is someone exploiting tragedy for political gain.
The amount of abuse that the Native American community has taken in this country's history is appalling. Native American cultural values have been all kinds of mixed up and depreciated - Native American iden y is hard to reconcile with mixed traditional values and modern American values - and the fact that on those reservations they usually live in poverty doesn't do anything to help. Native Americans have been a victim of racism just as much as any other minority group, if not moreso - they are a people that in general is still isolated from the majority population - reservations have some of the highest rates of alcoholism and suicide in the nation. This event, from our perspective, and even more from the Indian perspective, is tragic. This boy that shot all those people embodied the wreckage that modern reservation life can be, and all that history has led it to be - it's more than just a school shooting - it's a symbol.
The fact that Bush took so long to recognize what happened shows his obvious disregard and disrespect for the people that his country was founded on top of. It's extremely difficult for me to respect someone who has so blatantly insulted a people that his country has taken advantage of and effectively defeated without dignity.
These are all things that the Native Americans can fix, and haven't. But as for the original idea of the thread, I agree. Bush absolutely should have addressed this immediately.
How do you "fix" something like that? How do you "fix" years of indoctrination by unfavorable media portrayal - these kids' parents and grandparents were shipped off to boarding schools where they were forced into Christianity and forced to abandon traditional spiritual beliefs, not allowed to practice any traditional culture and ceremony, and weren't even allowed to speak their native languages. They were taught growing up that being an Indian - or as they were often referred by racists, "Injuns" and "squaws" - was a bad thing, they were taught that they should assimilate - but why should they have to? Their lands were mostly taken away - lands that they connected to on a spiritual level - we're talking about a people that are still in the middle of this struggle - still reconciling the genocide of their people and the efforts to reclaim some of their lands. The Dakotas are still trying to get back the Black Hills - this is not the past, this is now - you can't just "fix" it.
The cultural traditions are probably all but lost. Mostly, I was referring to the alcoholism, suicide, isolation - these do not have to be so. And yet, they are there. Why? All races have been beaten down by another at some point in history. Why have some pulled themselves up and others not?
They're not lost though, many reservations are choosing to teach the native languages in schools, and there are still pow-wows and Sundances - the use of traditional medicine is coming back some. That's why it's so difficult to reconcile - because there is a resurgence of native culture, but it's having to mix with all of the other ideals.
It's just as hard to get out of a reservation as it is to get out of a ghetto. There's no money to start over, little money for schooling, and even less motivation. Just like every other group there have been people that have gotten themselves out - Wilma Mankiller and Devon Mihesuah among them - most of the people that get themselves out end up either in activism where they experience even more discrimination that's disheartening or they end up having to neglect their families (Annie Mae Aquash for example) or they end up teaching. There are efforts to get out, but it's not that easy - many parents have learned to be ashamed of their heritage and keep their children on the reservations without allowing them to be cultural participants.
You make it sound so easy to "pull yourself out", but when you are a people connected to the land it's so much harder to leave it, and there's no opportunity there.
yeah bill was the first president to liar to the grand jury and get away with it
and unzip his pants in office
Of course it's not easy to "pull yourself out." But if you want to do it badly enough, it can be done. Which begs the question, do they not want to, at least not badly enough?
Okay, but my above point should be clarified. There is a spiritual connection with the land itself - not just tribal affiliation. The traditional native way of life includes the physical community - the nuclear family, the extended family, friends, etc - the way their belief system is structured, they are incomplete without that community and the land - they depend on those things. It's a difference of culture, and they shouldn't be judged based on those differences.
I'm pretty familiar with the reservations around here as i live in one. I think the reason this isn't as mainstream is bc the rez's here are the midwest ghetto. Honestly, There must never be any shootings/rape/bad things to happan in places like Compton bc i never hear about it. Get my drift? Locally its a huge thing, and when i say locally i live about 3, 4 hours away. The HS ONLY had 300 students. I don't know about the rest of the country but the security measures they had there are top nothch compared to other schools that size around here. Theres always going to be people saying shoulda, woulda, coulda. Again, i'm only speaking for the rez's around here. I find it puzzling that places like Pine Ridge are among the top five in poverty counties continously. I saw one statistic the other day that the unemployment level in one of these places were in the %30 level. Why? There's ALWAYS jobs in the midwest. Locally the tribe here provides free food, free college (not only that but your paid for living expenses while you go), free housing, etc....
The benefits are enormous. Therein lies the problem. Give a fish, feed a man for a day........... How do you plan on making things right between a nation and the rest of America? Our town about 3000 has two schools, two hospitals, two sheriff-type law enforcement agengies. One for the tribe and one for the public. How can you tell a black person that there ancestors being sold to slavery is nothing compared to a Native american's past?
Having a boot on your throat makes it a bit harder to pull yourself up. Tell me, Des, do you think you have any type of debt to Native Americans? Do you think you have benefited at thier expense at all?
I can't help but think of the Irish. They came to the U.S. in the late 1800's, early 1900's with nothing. They left behind their country and families to come here to face hatred and more persecution (signs in business windows used to say things like "No Irish. No Catholics. No Foreign-Born"). Now, they're just counted among the "advantaged whites", when just 100 years ago they were social pariahs.
Tell me Manny, what boots exactly are you referring to? I'll go back to sickdsm's post. There's free food, college, living expenses, housing... none of which I have ever been able to enjoy. And now I'm going to tell you something that I doubt you will ever believe - I have been discriminated against for being white! Several times! Amazing, isn't it. We all have "boots", believe it or not.
I believe it, reverse racism is a too.
Des, arguing that Native Americans haven't been discrminated against is like arguing that we didn't land on the moon. It's a losing arguement. I'll be happy to elaborate more, but I probably won't do nearly as good a job as Jess will, she's the semiexpert on them.
However, while I formulate a long post citing examples, I pose my question again:
Des, do you think you have any type of debt to Native Americans? Do you think you have benefited at thier expense at all?
I don't possess great insight into race issues (and even if I did, I'm white, so my opinion would be immediately discounted), but I think casting blame inhibits progress as much, if not more, than any other contributing factor to issues such as poverty.
Tell me, when did I ever argue that they haven't been dicriminated against? No putting words in my mouth, please. I'm saying that they can overcome that discrimination and are not, and I would like to know why. A question you've asked about minorities before yourself, I believe. As for debt and benefits... well, my family came here well after the Native Americans were shoved onto reservations for the government's own purposes, so debt? I doubt it. As for benefitting, hmm. Not sure. Probably as much as you, yourself have benefited.
Now, now, Manny - it's not like the US government ever gave the financially des ute Sioux and Ojibwe blankets from smallpox hospitals to intentionally kill them. They haven't until recent decades supported sterilizing Native women. Oh wait, yes they did, nevermind. And now they won't let the families of the Sioux they killed have their sacred land back. They've offered the Sioux hundreds of millions of dollars if they will relinquish their claim to the Black Hills that they aren't even allowed to use - but the Sioux won't take it - their tie to the land is more sacred and important to them than the money - and you would think that the US would give it back to them instead of having to compensate them so heavily, but no. Native Americans did not even have religious freedom until the 1970s - they have been governmentally discriminated against in addition to all of the other kinds of discrimination.
Your family may have come here after the Native Americans were put onto reservations, but they still came here to a land founded on their defeat in search of opportunity. I'm not saying that you personally owe anything, I think it's the American people as a whole that owe something. Canada has already offered its natives an apology and minimal compensation - and it's not the compensation that most of them are looking for - it's the broad public acknowledgement that they were wronged.
So which native Americans are the rightful land owners? It's impossible to say this tribe or that tribe is the rightful owner of any piece of property. There have been countless battles between tribes and warring parties before any europeans set foot in North America. This land that we call the United States today, has been fought over, lost and stolen a hundred times before the colonists ever got here. Sure people were treated wrongly.
One other note to make. How many movies have been made about the shooting on the native American land? How many have been made about Columbine.
Thousands of years ago, Rome invaded what is now England. The English were quite the unevolved, barbaric people at that time. The Romans, through INVASION AND DEFEAT, civilised the English people and laid the foundation for what the country is today. I don't know if you'll allow the comparison to stand in the conversation or not, but it makes an interesting point on your "defeat in search of opportunity" statement. It is not necessarily a bad thing.
Despite Hollywood's portrayal, most Native American tribes were fairly stable, and spread out enough to not have to war as often as they did in the movies. Most wars weren't even fought over territory, they were for population redistribution. Tribes mostly didn't fight for their land - sometimes they migrated, which is how the Chickasaw and the Choctaw split. Population density here pre-contact is not even comparable to that of Europe's (except for the civilations in Central America and the Andes), where the Western notion of war comes from. This doesn't account for tribes like the Apache, who were notorious for tribal raids, but they are the exception. The Sioux's history goes back thousands of years on that land - their traditions are tied to it, and there aren't any other tribes fighting to get the same piece of land. They know where their roots are - and many tribes have been displaced so they could be put on government approved land. Trail of Tears anyone? Not to mention the US government has the Arapaho and the Shoshone on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming - two tribes that have been rivals as long as they can remember - but they stayed out of each others' way until they were stuck on the same crappy piece of land together. Now they occupy opposite ends of the reservation resentfully.
The fact that the Black Hills should belong to the Sioux is not an object for contestation really.
The Romans did not bring in diseases that the British had no immune system for. The land was also small enough so that the Romans didn't have much space to push them around in. The Romans sought to expand their empire, not to eliminate native populations. And why is "civilization" such a good thing? What is your definition of civility?
HISTORIC RESOLUTION OF APOLOGY TO NATIVE PEOPLES
INTRODUCED IN U.S. CONGRESS
May 6, 2004
A Call for Prayer for Passage and Action by the President
An historic Resolution of Apology to the Native American peoples was introduced in the U.S. Congress by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS), Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) and Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) on the evening of the May 6, 2004, National Day of Prayer.
In his remarks on the Senate floor, Sen. Brownback stated, "This is a resolution of apology and a resolution of reconciliation. It is a first step toward healing the wounds that have divided us for so long-a potential foundation for a new era of positive relations between Tribal Governments and the Federal Government. Before reconciliation, there must be recognition and repentance. Before there is a durable relationship, there must be understanding. This resolution will not authorize or serve as a settlement of any claim against the United States, not will it resolve the many challenges still facing the Native Peoples. But it does recognize the negative impact of numerous deleterious Federal acts and policies on Native Americans and their cultures.
This bill is currently in the Library of Congress awaiting review.
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