And... it's up the a$$ for Indians. Again.Follow

They're working on it. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but Indian Higher Education is a recent movement, only about 30 years old. Indians are hauling themselves into a new world after years of clinging to resentment and old ways. I think there's a fair balance of old and new that makes for a culture can be respectful and observant of its past, while adjusting to the future.

I think it's the word "assimilation" that has such negative connotations and just rubs me the wrong way. It's reminds me of Latinos that want to marry whites so their children will be blue-eyed. That, of course, is(mostly)just the self-hate internal dialogue that one learns to fight as part of a social or ethnic minority.

How long do "we" have to pay for crimes commited in the distant past? Hell, my grandparents moved here from Ireland, so my family wasn't even here, should I be responsible?

Everyone has the chance to make something of themselves in America. Even if you can't get a fancy scholarship, you can work your *** off and go to college, as many people have to do. The fact is, if you have the motivation, you can do it no matter what race you are. No one said it was going to be easy.

The reality is Indians can assimilate into modern American society and still retain their cultural heritage. What's that? Do I hear dissenters among our dear readers? If what I say is not empiracally true then why do Indians drive cars instead of horses? Why do they wear polyester instead of buckskin? Why do they operate casinos instead of... whatever Indians did with their spare time when they weren't scalping, getting into drunken brawls, and running away from John Wayne and the Lone Ranger.

The fact is they have assimilated what things they deemed convenient or desirable and chose to discard the rest. If cultural purity was what they were aiming for, then anything short of a life patterned after Indian society pre-European settlers is the only acceptable response.

In for a nickle, in for a dime.

If two hundred years from now blacks insist on living in ghettos because their ancestors did, it's their own choice, but don't blame it on me. And just because it was done in the past doesn't make it an intelligent choice. If the rez isn't working out for you, then it's time to leave and make something of yourself.

Let's face it. The myth of the "noble savage" is just that: a myth. There were no ecologically aware Native Americans, there were no Indians in tune with nature. They lived in one location for as long as the fauna and flora could support them and then they moved on (with the notable exception of the Pueblos). They ruined whatever land they resided on and then moved to fresh lands/enslavable enemy tribes.

The Indian reservation is an anachronism. An excuse to amount to nothing. And that's a goal anybody can aspire to.

Totem

Not me. That is why several have started leaving to get an education, and then returning to the rez to try to make it a viable place to live.


Not only the Pueblos. The Lakota consider the Black Hills sacred, and have been there forever. One of few groups on or near their ancestral lands. They refuse to take Federal payment for it, and have for years.


A real shame. Not calling you a racist, but my experience with the handicapped is limited to a guy that zipped around my high school in an electric wheelchair grabbing crotches and asses. I have been exposed to the best of Indian society: Professors, cultural leaders, innovators. People that worked hard to get out of poverty and chose not to leave their communities but return and make them viable and pleasant. I suppose it's easier to understand as an immigrant, since you never quit feeling the pull of home, even if it was a crappy one.

It's Indians like you who have ruined your own lands!! You'll not ruin mine!!

I don't know if I'd call the areas "ruined" rather than depleted. They sprung back in fairly short order, after all. Compare such to the "white man's" treatment of the American buffalo (still not recovered) and the passenger pigeon (extinct) and you get a better definition of ruined.

But, hey, you never know what might have been. If Europeans never came over and the Indians were left alone, there's no saying that right now they wouldn't have developed their own industrial revolution over the past couple hundred years, complete with deforestation, coal burning factories, strip mining and the rest of it.

Just for the joy of reading, the Straight Dope answers why the New World cultures never invented the wheel.

Your experience, as much as you would wish it to, does not equal the sum of all experiences. Only to you. But I do understand why you would feel that way, given that you seem to have been exposed to some crappy Indians. Sucks that their behavior has been so awful that you can't even conceive of alternatives.

/raises his hand and opens his mouth, only to snap it shut

Don't get me started on the Palestinians and Israelis. Yes, there are commonalities such as Palestinian and Indians being a nomadic group of people clashing with a landed group (Israelis/Europeans), but I'd be really stretching it to draw analogies between the two.

Totem

I used to feed the ham out of my MREs to the Iraqi PoWs.

/covers his mouth with his hand and laughs

Tee hee!

Totem

Only in so much as the SAT question would be framed as follows:

Americans are to Indians and Isrealis are to Palestinians as ______ is to Jews.

a) Jackie Mason
b) Christ
c) Hitler
d) Joe Lieberman
e) None of the above

Actually, eliminate the bit about Palestinians and Jews, and the answer is Hitler, although a more accurate answer would be Goering. Although it's common knowledge that Hitler used North America's treatment of the Indians as one of many justifications for racial purity. In Mein Kampf, he attributes a lower "mixture" of germanic races with natives as the cause of North America's social and economic success over South America (somewhat browner).

Damn. I did what I most hate. Took something so seriously that I couldn't pause for comedy. No more. You're right, and I humbly apologize for leaving you with your pants down around your ankles with your manhood at attention. Your comedic blue balls will pain you no longer.

That was fun.