Native American struggles in the news and media

They've been characterized. It's very sad. People would have an absolute FRENZY if a celebrity did blackface but many people wouldn't bat an eye if someone wore a giant, bloody headdress.

 

I think people would notice... at the very least Adam Sandler got into some trouble recently with a movie he was making when Native American extras walked off the set because of the terrible stereotypes and representations being made on set for the film.

And people weren't all that receptive to Johnny Depp playing Tonto in that movie a few years ago.

And some politician got in trouble when she "war whooped" like a stereotypical Native American.

As far as the media goes, they don't really cover anything very well unless you're reading the more independent journalists and news sources. Add to that the fickle attention of the average citizen and, well, you get a pretty apathetic audience. If it's not big or trendy or celebrity endorsed then it's not going to be paid much attention.

Heck, pretty much nobody outside the black community paid attention to people getting shot by cops until cellphone videos captured the incidents.

The U.S. didn't really pay attention to civil rights in the 1960's until footage of white police siccing dogs on black people, or shooting water at them from fire hoses, or beating peaceful protesters on a bridge made it onto the television.

Now the photo of the drowned toddler is getting people to pay attention to the refugee crisis in Europe (but nothing is said about the horrors going on in Australia or anywhere else---no dramatic photos or video yet).

Drugs and crime aren't sexy enough for the news, or an audience, to pay attention to since those are everyday things for all minorities and majorities.

Don't even get me started on politicians.

 

I'm just here to say that there are fewer natives, so fewer people have any big connection to such stories, meaning there are fewer times you'll hear about it as opposed to hispanic or black people.

 

The persecution of Native Americans is not spoken about as frequently as the persecution of African Americans or Hispanics because the treatment of Native Americans in modern times is less about racism and more about ethnocentrism.

First, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans are not different categories on the spectrum of race. These are ethnicities. There are Black, Brown, and White Hispanics. There are Black, Brown, and White Native Americans. These groups overlap in high percentages. Although that doesn't mean that they necessarily face all of the same social issues it means that there social movements are not disconnected. Social movements headed by these various groups don't solely effect these groups.

Moving back to Native Americans, the heart of Native persecution is this country itself. It is not racist legislation. It is not hateful people. It is the literal existence of the United States. We are talking about arguably the single largest genocide in human history and the establishment of a country filled with foreigners on their land. Everything that has plagued the Native peoples comes back to that fact. The United States will never co-exist with Native American civilization. They will give them symbolic plots of land that they strategically build power plants and factories around to make them nearly inhabitable. They might decide to change the name of a few racist sports teams. But that is as far as it will ever go.

Uplifting the Native Americans would mean giving back even a fraction of what this country stole and that will never happen. Movements surrounding race and color are working towards building a world in which people of various races can even just assimilate in this country without facing violence or discrimination. That is achievable. However, America, including both the U.S. and Canada, has never entertained the thought of allowing groups to not assimilate and that is the central reason why there will never be true justice for the Native Americans.

 

In Canada, there has been a large number of missing and murdered women of aboriginal descent since 1980. 16% of female murder victims and 12% of missing women have been aboriginal, while demographically they comprise only 4% of the overall female population. This amounts to almost 1 200 aboriginal females either missing or murdered in just over 30 years. These are just the ones reported.

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not disagreeing with what you are saying.

What I am saying is that the persecution that is directed towards Natives specifics, not simply in the U.S., but in Canada, Australia, and several other countries is concentrated on these preservations that the government is still slowly attempting to push them out of. When we look at strongest movements in the U.S. both presently and historically, it is about minorities trying to ultimately assimilate. Even with LGBTQ rights, it is about minorities wanting to be able to exist within this country without facing constantly violence and discrimination.

The Indigenous struggle is much different because the heart of their struggles is centered around the fact that they aren't immigrants. They weren't stolen from another land. Their culture and communities are still left in tack despite the fact that their nations were brutally wiped out. Assimilating is far less complicated when you have little to fall back on, but the fact that the Natives have been able to hold together these communities so long is the reason why they face these unique struggles. They will never be respected and allowed to remain independent peacefully from these governments. They will never be allowed to expand and grow.

Personally, I am part Cherokee and I am constantly disturbed by this countries eagerness to leave the Natives out to dry after all these years. After having recognized their heinous actions and still choosing to do nothing. It is just that I don't question why this mindset exists. It is not that I am saying that their treatment is any less unjust. I am saying what I touch on in my last post which was: unlike other issues of racism and ethnocentricism in the U.S., addressing Native issues would not be a matter of forming legislation to put an end to widespread job discrimination or police brutality, it would be a matter of feeding the funds, resources, and opportunity back into their communities that the government itself stole and that will never happen in any of these countries.