Senate Indigenous (Native American) Peoples - General Discussion

Navajo-dubbed 'Fistful of Dollars' is an effort to preserve the Native language : NPR

 

Julia Kabance, Oldest Known Woman Veteran of World War II, Dies at 111 | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine

She was also the oldest living member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation

 

As usual, the flaw here is the putting the onus on the average person to "think of natives." We're all literally trying to just get by. The onus is on the government and the systems of power to be thinking of natives. Just like the onus is on the government and systems of power to solve climate change, not on the average person to recycle more.

 

Uhh. . .what?

Those options aren't mutually exclusive. Even people who are poor regularly exercise empathy for people who are far distant and in radically different circumstances. African Americans were very engaged about the invasion of Ethiopia by the Italians. Working and lower class whites still love to boast about their concern for the Irish around St Patrick's Day. Religious conservatives have made the marginalization of Iraqi Christians central to their own victimization complex, and use it to justify their regular bigotry against Muslims--or for that matter, anyone from the Middle East, including the aforementioned Christians.

You don't have to be wealthy to think about others or show empathy. We do it all the time. It's a learned behavior. We can learn it for indigenous ethnic groups just as we each learned it about our own. There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking or encouraging people to try.

 

I don't really see what the average person "thinking about Natives" solves or helps. The average person can't make changes that will help natives in part or in whole. There needs to be systemic changes.

 

Of course there needs to be systemic changes.

But:

A. Disregarding your fellow human being is a bad thing in its own right. Not everything in life is about political outcomes.
B. In a democratic system, politicians care about what voters care about. Europe gets a lot of attention because lots of white voters feel more empathy and connection to those cultures. The rights of Middle Eastern, African, and South East Asian countries can be trampled on or idly exploited in part because voters are apathetic about those people. The same is true for Native Americans. If their missing persons cases got even a quarter of the breathless coverage offered to every blonde-haired white woman, there might be more pressure to develop a systemic response to the problem. Do you really think the debate around SNAP/food stamps would go the same way if coverage of childhood hunger got the same treatment and attention that abortion does, which is supposedly premised around concern for these same infants? Do you really not see the connection between how people feel, the ideas they will therefore support, and the policies that are subsequently enacted?

 

(Replying here so as not to derail the US Pol thread with NZ stuff)

We have something like that in NZ. Those of Māori descent can choose whether to vote for a 'general' electorate candidate or for a Māori electorate candidate in elections. Non-Māori can only vote for general electorate candidates, and Māori candidates don't have to run for Māori seats.

The electorates here are divided based on population, rather than iwi (tribes), though.

 

I can already here it now. “Where is my white representative”

 

New Caledonia rejects split from France in vote marred by boycott

 

The average person could boycott teams with offensive Native mascots. That's something extremely painless that people could do.

 

I am sure they’ll vote again in a few years. This wasn’t the first time they have voted on the issue. If the majority of them want to stay with France they should, but hopefully next time there is no boycott.

I’ll check what their usual voter turnout is.

Okay just checked the turnout for the last referendum, which was in 2020. It was 85% give or take. So yea almost half the people who would have voted or more than half seem to have boycotted.

 

Decolonizing the holiday: A way forward on Thanksgiving?

 

Nope. This was the last of three referendums agreed to in the Noumea Accord. Independence from France is looking very unlikely.

 

Well that’s ******. They should have either created a system where it was safe to vote in both the 2020 and 2021 referendum. Mail in etc. or delayed it until a time when a majority of the island could receive the vaccine.

 

Confrontation in Oahu, Hawaii:

 

Clyde Bellecourt, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, dies at 85 : NPR

 

Anyone else see this story this week:
https://ktvz.com/news/2022/03/25/a-...ied-service-to-native-americans-lawsuit-says/

A hotel and restaurant in South Dakota is refusing to serve Native Americans in 2022. I don't even have words.

 

A lot of news to catch up on in here. I wish there had been more memorials for Bellecourt. I don't think I heard any major news outlets mention it at all, though looking back I do see some articles from CNN and others. Still, it's a strange moment overall. We are losing the last titans of all the Civil Rights movements. Hopefully we can carry on their legacy in the right way.

As for the Pope, I agree it would have been better if he had made the apology in Canada. I also wonder if there shouldn't have been some form of compensation plan? On the one hand, there is tremendous value in symbolism, and it means a lot that there was finally a formal acknowledgment of wrongdoing. On the other, one understands the danger of letting people buy into symbolism as a substitute for real change. Though that kind of threat also exists with any sort of reparation, with the idea being that afterwards no one owes Native Americans anything. Do people have any thoughts here?

 

Matariki, the Māori New Year, has been made a public holiday.

 

The thing about compensation is, they tried it and the Catholic Church reneged on it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/residential-schools-compensation-ministers-church-1.6290606

 

Disappointing. The Church should absolutely pay compensation (and I say this as a practicing Catholic).

 

Weird, it's not like the Catholic Church to act shady