Reparations: Should the Indigenous People's of North America

[TshaiRedhair]

receive them?

[uppityperson]

1. It depends on a number of factors, this question is too broad.

If you could add more specifics as to who, when, how, what, etc, it would be possible to discuss more in depth.

[TshaiRedhair]

2. Should they get any at all is the first question I am asking Sir/Ma'am

The I will go from there. Fair enough?

??????

[uppityperson]

3. Who are "they" and what do you mean by reparations?

I think they got a really bum deal, a lot of which continues to this day.

What % ancestry for the who, on lists or living somewhere? And what do you mean by reparations, money, land, better schools, etc etc?

Starting with that and I am female.

Edited to add, I am not trying to be difficult, just trying to define terms.

[TshaiRedhair]

4. How about this Ma'am?

INDiGENOUS PEOPLES

Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those that, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them.

REPARATIONS

The making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged.

--Start from there?

[uppityperson]

5. Yes. It was interesting, being in AK and seeing what the different Native Corporations

did with the money/land they got. Some held it as a group, some distributed to individuals. Some are doing better than others.

Down here in the lower 48? There are still way too little spent on education, health care, basic needs, too many were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to boarding schools to wipe out their cultures, too much land was set aside then taken back.

What thoughts do you have on the subject? I would not begin to assume I would be able to adequately or appropriately say what to whom without a lot of input from those affected.

[brooklynite]

6. ...from the UK, Spain, France and the Netherlands? Seems fair.

Provided of course that the Netherlands gets reparations from Spain and the UK, Spain and France get reparations from the Roman Empire.

[BlindTiresias]

12. They already received reparations from the Roman Empire

It was called armed bands of germanics and local people not allied with rome taking the land by force.

[whatthehey]

7. No. Because that way lies madness that will never stop

To whom should reparations be given? The tribe most recently displaced or the one they displaced themselves in pre-Columbian times? There was plenty of territorial conflict pre 1492 in the Americas as in Europe or Asia. Do the losers or victors in those conflicts deserve the reparations?

From whom should reparations come? Only those with direct line descent from families who took the land, or from all non-NA Americans, regardless of any benefit from the land grabs? Should black Americans, most of whom come from stock that was forcibly brought here after the land grab already started and who benefitted directly very little, pay or not?

What makes the American land grabs different from European versions? Asian? African? The Irish resent the English mightily, even though people migrated from England to Ireland long before most of the current Irish residents' ancestors did so, and actually displaced the English first. Who should owe whom? The Celts were originally mostly what is now German and French. So were the Angles and Saxons. Russians came from Scandinavia and displaced the decendants of those who are now Turkic, but their descendants in turn displaced Slavic people. Hell since "indigenous" people here migrated from various points between Lake Baikal and Mongolia and doubtless did so because others drove them out, what's wrong with seeking reparations from the real motherland? Human evolution does not contain an American source, only a waypoint and one that is difficult if not impossible to be precise about initial "claim". Should reparations be paid based on percentage of Clovis DNA? What about the Yungay-related Peruvian groups who must have passed before? Do Clovis descendants have to pay them reparations? You can't just pick an arbitrary date and say "we all need to get paid based on, say, 1700CE territory". Even if you did, does a person with roughly 50%, to pick an example, Iroquois and 50% Scots-Irish DNA pay themselves?

All of human history is migration and conquest. Unless we all crowd into the Rift Valley and live together, there will always be land that was taken by a from b, almost always by force. Anyone looking for reparations driven by ethnos is just trying to pick an arbitrary time when their ancestors were on the unpleasant side of that equation, but all thatr would do is start a snowball that logically could not stop until we are all fighting over who pays for a little bit of Ethiopia.

[EX500rider]

9. +1!

Nicely put.

[closeupready]

8. Yes, they should. To some extent, they get that with

recognition from US federal authorities that in some matters, they are sovereign nations exempt from federal laws. I'm very open to suggestions as to how to help make whole people who were abused for so long and who continue to suffer abuse. With the hope that at some point there can be full reconciliation.

[Kali]

10. Yatahey.

Welcome to DU.

Reparations for Indigenous peoples or for descendants of African (and other origins) slaves is a complex topic.

I think if various questions and logistics could be worked out it would not be a bad thing to make a gesture in apology for damages inflicted.

I am not sure it would be possible for such a gesture to solve any great problems, though. What do you think the goals of such an action should be?

[bhikkhu]

11. My reading of the history is that they never wanted money, just their own land

I'd be in favor of reparations in the form of returning tribal lands, especially where that led to a sustainable resource-base that led to better standards of living and self-determination.

In my own area, tribal lands were one of the richest in the country in timber reserves, and the tribe was sound financially and socially until it was all taken away in the 50's in exchange for cash.

[BlindTiresias]

13. OP

You can expect to receive alot of smug resistance from comfortable white people as the native man is one of the few people whites feel is OK to openly attack, humiliate, and justify the oppression of. Yes, even so-called enlightened liberals who would never dare of saying the same tripe regarding a black person.

-Married to a native, has a native son enrolled in his tribe. My heart and soul is with you, I hope one day the indigenous people get their just due.

[NobodyHere]

14. You're free to sign over any lands you own to a Native American

nt

[BKH70041]

15. Jefferson Starship

Black wants out of the street
Yellow wants the country
Red wants the country back
White wants out of this world
Sing - Sing to the sky.

- Ride The Tiger

[BlindTiresias]

16. I think they should receive reparations

I think anyone enrolled in a tribe should receive a substantial check from the government and/or their traditional land given back to them if it is still a federal holding (easier in the west coast, I admit). The cost of this is not really that much, so the only reason people have to oppose it is pride and a sense of breached privilege, in my opinion.

This is a considerably easier issue to deal with than slavery reparations as we have a clear criteria (membership of tribe) and as many of them have minimum allotted percentage of native blood for membership it is not really an outrageous cost to enact. I think on a basic moral dimension we need to do this as a nation before that horrific chapter of our history is closed and we can finally begin to progress spiritually and morally as a people.

[Kali]

18. people were trying to talk with you here

and I for one tried to welcome you but you ignored us and proceeded to post in a slightly disruptive manner that has now gotten you a hidden post.

may I respectfully suggest you read the Terms of Service? here - http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice and note that this is a Democratic site and not a totally free-speech zone.

A person of your age and life experiences might be a great addition to the conversations. I would like to encourage you to stick around and make the effort to participate in a way that we can all see some benefit.