Michael, I personally think that everyone who wants to be proud of being an American--whether their families have been here several hundred years, or ten--should support social justice in general. Otherwise, how can you salute the flag proudly and fight for a country that did so many bad things?
Have you taken any college level history classes in Indian history, incidentally, where it is more likely that a truthful account is given than in the lower grades? The United States government killed Indians, backed out of treaties giving them land, sent Indian children to the same kind of boarding schools the Canadians did, which included lots of sexual and physical abuse, and committed genocide by not letting them learn their own languages. The Army killed about 15,000,000 buffalo deliberately so that the Indians would starve to death, as well.
I suggested in an earlier post that we compensate Indian tribes to some degree with publicly held lands. I have never suggested confiscating private property to do so. Health care and education on Indian reservations is deplorable--I do think it could easily be improved.
America is a very racist place already, Michael. It is that way because the white Christians who settled it committed atrocities not only against the Indians, but in their support of slavery. Now there is a lot of white flight from California into the neighboring states, because there are so many immigrants coming here. Apologizing to the Indians and former slaves is not going to make the racism worse. In the countries where apologies have been made, like Australia, England and Canada, for gross wrongs against other cultural groups, the result has been some kind of healing process, and people getting along better, not worse. Real solutions require a lot more than just apologizing. But it is a good start, and does make people feel better.
I don't know much about how Indians are counted. My intuitive sense is that someone is an Indian if he or she has provable blood ties to a particular tribe. How does the government consider this? |
