UN official: US must return control of sacred lands to Native Americans

[Tonitrus]

statistics

Being that most of those reservations are in bum-fuck parts of the U.S., I wonder how the local neighboring white trash population compares, as opposed to against the entire U.S.

[Berkut]

Aside from just not wanting to touch it, the other problem is just practical.  What realistic solution is there to solving the problem of abysmal standard of life for Natives on reservations?  There are already soft inducements like affirmative action, Aboriginal scholarships and grants (and even IIRC tuition exemption in some cases), tax exemptions, etc. and AFAIK they aren't succeeding in improving conditions at all.  More forceful approaches in the past have failed, and people are not just scared to suggest ideas - they're also just pretty much out of ideas at all. 

Well, I think there is almost certainly a selection process going on which masks the success of the programs you are talking about though.

If we are just talking about conditions on reservations, then if a given program to encourage education actually succeeds, and some individual goes off to college and gets a good job, has the typical middle class life one might expect, then are they likely to go back and live on the reservation and raise their kids in a high crime, screwed up situation like that? Not really, I suspect - most who "make it" bail for some nice suburb somewhere.

Which of course leaves those living on the reservation still statistically way behind, even though in that particular case, the system to encourage them "assimilating" has worked.

I think the same thing happens when you look at inner city poverty, rural US poverty, etc., etc. Those who break free of the geographic mess don't go back.

[CountDeMoney]

statistics

Being that most of those reservations are in bum-fuck parts of the U.S., I wonder how the local neighboring white trash population compares, as opposed to against the entire U.S.

You can tell in the Wal-Mart parking lot;  the white trash drive in the dust-covered trucks, the Indians pile everybody in the back.

[PDH]

If we are just talking about conditions on reservations, then if a given program to encourage education actually succeeds, and some individual goes off to college and gets a good job, has the typical middle class life one might expect, then are they likely to go back and live on the reservation and raise their kids in a high crime, screwed up situation like that? Not really, I suspect - most who "make it" bail for some nice suburb somewhere.

Actually, this isn't true with American Indians.  College educated Indians return to the reservation in fairly large numbers, at least in the western/plains reservations.  Your escape is often renouncing the very culture that is "broken" in some posts here.  I believe it comes down to misinterpretations of spirituality and kinship, things often devalued on a forum like this but still key to the life patterns on the reservations I have experienced.

[Barrister]

statistics

Being that most of those reservations are in bum-fuck parts of the U.S., I wonder how the local neighboring white trash population compares, as opposed to against the entire U.S.

To be quite fair, I can think of several places in both Alberta and Yukon where you have separate native and white communities living in close proximity to each other.  I have no access to statistics for income, but the white communities look dramatically more wealthy than the native community.

[Barrister]

Berkut, I've mentioned a few tiems that it was explicit government policy to assimilate natives into the overall culture and encourage them to leave the reserves.

I'll give examples of how that was done.

If you were native you were not allowed to drink.  Or vote.  But you could do both if you would renounce your indian status.  Even though this policy was in place for decades, extremely few natives renounced their status.

It was also government policy to take children from their homes and educate them in large boarding schools, called residential schools.  The very well-meaning thinking of this was to ensure they had quality educations and to educate them on white/european culture and customs.  But despite this almost all graduates would return to their homes.

So after decades of such rather extreme measures we couldn't assimilate natives, perhaps we can conclude that assimilation is not a viable policy.

[Valmy]

No measures are necessary, or advisable, to assimilate people in the US.  We are an assimilating machine it is what we do and I suspect efforts to assimilate would be counter-productive.  And if they choose not to that is their business.

I am not really sure what Berkut is proposing.  The reservations may not be the greatest things evah but so long as the Native Americans want them we are duty bound to preserve the system. 

[CountDeMoney]

No measures are necessary, or advisable, to assimilate people in the US.  We are an assimilating machine it is what we do and I suspect efforts to assimilate would be counter-productive.  And if they choose not to that is their business.

Tell that to the other group we didn't have much success assimilating.

[Valmy]

Tell that to the other group we didn't have much success assimilating.

Sometimes our douchebaggery gets in the way.

[jimmy olsen]

Stats

Given how close the performance of the nation wide population of Native Americans is to the whole population despite more than a few reservations in the 30%~ range, it seems that the vast majority of the nation's Native Americans have been successfully assimilated.

[Valmy]

Given how close the performance of the nation wide population of Native Americans is to the whole population despite more than a few reservations in the 30%~ range, it seems that the vast majority of the nation's Native Americans have been successfully assimilated.

Yep.  Overwhelmingly so.  But that is not really the point.

Though to be fair the vast majority of the assimilated native americans are probably mixed race to some extent but that is pretty inevitable.

[CountDeMoney]

I am not really sure what Berkut is proposing. 

Goes back to that bar fight he was in at Arizona with three Apaches over a game of pool until one of them called Ortege Jenkins a cocksucker.  Been hating on Injuns ever since.

[Berkut]

Berkut, I've mentioned a few tiems that it was explicit government policy to assimilate natives into the overall culture and encourage them to leave the reserves.

I'll give examples of how that was done.

If you were native you were not allowed to drink.  Or vote.  But you could do both if you would renounce your indian status.  Even though this policy was in place for decades, extremely few natives renounced their status.

It was also government policy to take children from their homes and educate them in large boarding schools, called residential schools.  The very well-meaning thinking of this was to ensure they had quality educations and to educate them on white/european culture and customs.  But despite this almost all graduates would return to their homes.

So after decades of such rather extreme measures we couldn't assimilate natives, perhaps we can conclude that assimilation is not a viable policy.

Wow. That is really what you are getting from my posts?

That I think we should cart kids off against their will to boarding schools and deny basic rights to others?

There really is no point in the discussion if you've somehow managed to turn what I've said into...that.

[Ed Anger]

I am not really sure what Berkut is proposing. 

Goes back to that bar fight he was in at Arizona with three Apaches over a game of pool until one of them called Ortege Jenkins a cocksucker.  Been hating on Injuns ever since.

Reference obscurity : 8 out of 10.

[Berkut]

No measures are necessary, or advisable, to assimilate people in the US.  We are an assimilating machine it is what we do and I suspect efforts to assimilate would be counter-productive.  And if they choose not to that is their business.

I am not really sure what Berkut is proposing.  The reservations may not be the greatest things evah but so long as the Native Americans want them we are duty bound to preserve the system. 

I think this is a good point, and speaks to my point in general. I am not really "proposing" anything - just observing that the reservation system is an abject failure, and the best thing for Native Americans is to not live on them. The statistics are pretty clear on this.

My argument isn't even aimed at government policy (although I think there are things we can and should do to encourage more integration far short of rounding up INdian kids and carting them off to boarding school) so much as it is aimed at those like Beeb and likely cultural leaders within the reservations who insist that they really can create a working and viable separate political and cultural entity on reservations.

The track record is one of nearly unmitigated failure. It is sad that so many are so interested in assuaging their own guilt rather than actually helping people.

I agree that we cannot really just shut the reservations down. What I would like to see is a point at which they simply are not necessary, needed, or wanted anymore.