Americans & Indians

[chim]

As I'm intensely fascinated with US culture (much in the way someone is fascinated with a nuclear bomb explosion, it's too big and noisy to look away from), I started wondering about something. There's a fuckload of noise about slavery and mexicans, but how do you guys look at the native americans?

 

Why haven't there been more stunts like the one by marlon brando?

 

On some level I can't help but notice the irony in having such a pride over a country that was acquired through theft, as I understand it. It wouldn't be so interesting if it wasn't for the gargantuan amount of patriotism you guys have (maybe not you watmmer aspies but I mean, the flag is everywhere, the word america/american is soooo fucking loaded with connotations). Coming from a country where the nation's flag is banned from schools out of fear of implying racism and the word we use to denote our nationality doesn't carry any particular meaning, this astounds me.

 

The county and city names etc are loaded with indian words - is that obvious to a person born and bred in Alabama for instance? Not trying to say all americans think the same, but I'd like to hear some personal accounts. Especially if you've ever really thought about it. Slavery is still brought up a lot, granted that things have changed but racism isn't going out of style as much as we'd like to think.

 

If I'd venture a guess I'd assume they're "those wacky injuns", sure some bad shit happened but you don't think about it because corporations and the government have fucked up any kind of possibility to reach atonement with the past. Or how is it?

 

Not saying anybody's bad for being a proud american citizen, it's just the contrast & irony that fascinates me. I want to get a feel for what it's like. Are native americans basically extinct these days or does the subject come up?

[Guest Fatcaesar]

Only Americans think that America is great.. the rest of the world knows what's really going on and hates you because you act all proud over your country.

 

I have nothing against the people but i loathe the country.. and i guess USA is such a big country and it's been so long time ago that.. what can we do? yes, more people should do like Marlon Brando but i guess the world is to busy.. it's war everywhere =/

 

Oh and the native Americans often live by them selfs in their own county's or places, they live by them selfs AFAIK

[SR4]

As I'm intensely fascinated with US culture (much in the way someone is fascinated with a nuclear bomb explosion, it's too big and noisy to look away from), I started wondering about something. There's a fuckload of noise about slavery and mexicans, but how do you guys look at the native americans?

 

Why haven't there been more stunts like the one by marlon brando?

 

On some level I can't help but notice the irony in having such a pride over a country that was acquired through theft, as I understand it. It wouldn't be so interesting if it wasn't for the gargantuan amount of patriotism you guys have (maybe not you watmmer aspies but I mean, the flag is everywhere, the word america/american is soooo fucking loaded with connotations). Coming from a country where the nation's flag is banned from schools out of fear of implying racism and the word we use to denote our nationality doesn't carry any particular meaning, this astounds me.

 

The county and city names etc are loaded with indian words - is that obvious to a person born and bred in Alabama for instance? Not trying to say all americans think the same, but I'd like to hear some personal accounts. Especially if you've ever really thought about it. Slavery is still brought up a lot, granted that things have changed but racism isn't going out of style as much as we'd like to think.

 

If I'd venture a guess I'd assume they're "those wacky injuns", sure some bad shit happened but you don't think about it because corporations and the government have fucked up any kind of possibility to reach atonement with the past. Or how is it?

 

Not saying anybody's bad for being a proud american citizen, it's just the contrast & irony that fascinates me. I want to get a feel for what it's like. Are native americans basically extinct these days or does the subject come up?

 

the acquired by theft thing is a given i spose, but a lot of nation-states were initially founded on forcefully conquering a native peoples and coercing them into their culture over time. jus sayin.

 

Native Americans are in a bad way, more or less. Reservations really only get any income through tourism, which perpetuates the gambling/casino stereotype...most of the ones Ive visited are really frustrating to look at...basically a line of trailer-homes in the middle of the semi-arid patches of desert.

 

Though never formally incorporated into "slave society" as such, there are plenty of examples of Native Americans as being used for slave labor, and also a few prominent Native Americans that owned African slaves...though they were certainly in the minority.

 

some select topics you might enjoy looking up on wikipedia:

 

Iroquois Confederacy/Seven Nations-really big deal within the context of the Amer. Revolution

Joseph Brant (sorta related)

Sacajawea (helped escort the Lewis and Clark Expedition)

Sitting Bull (led a rebellion, later westernized himself

Crazy Horse

Chief Keokuk (one of the more interesting stories of tribal chiefs IMHO)

Geronimo

Custer's Last Stand/General Custer (US cavalry got their ass handed to them basically, Custer made some horrible tactical decisions)

 

 

I guess I could go on and on...maybe you know all of this already? i dunno, really interesting

 

 

since im doing the Revolutionary War era, there is a really good book for that time period by an author named Colin Calloway...it covers a lot of diplomacy and social history of various tribes along the border with the English colonies (later US states)....highly recommended

[Guest hahathhat]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vk5pcjCwyQ

 

americans & indians.

[luke viia]

I have sympathy for the Native American tribes, and in particular the tribes local to where I've lived, as I'm more exposed to the particular sorts of crap they go through. I certainly recognize the irony in naming streets and pubs after the very things that colonists stole from them. It's, uh, well.. it's pretty terrible. I live by a bay in which the natives (and only the natives) are given salmon fishing rights, because it is part of their cultural heritage. I agree whole-heartedly with this sort of policy, but for what I see as clearly selfish reasons, it actually manages to upset a good number of non-natives. "Why aren't we allowed to fish for salmon any more? It's not fair!" It's aggravating to hear arguments like that, and I usually try to politely dismiss any conversation that borders on that sort of intolerance if it comes up, because the people posing those arguments usually don't care about what's actually "fair."

 

Most Americans I know are quite well aware of the terrible position that Natives have been put in. Yes, even the Americans I know in the deep south. Some people are racist idiots, and from what I've noticed, that sort of thing usually stems from a sub-par education - but some people just are quite probably perpetual jarhead douchebags.

[doorjamb]

I personally feel much more in tune with my "inherited cultural guilt" for the mistreatment of native americans than I do with any other aspect of my ancestors' capitalist swath of monocultural conquest (not that I feel I am truly at fault, but this sort of sentiment tends to defy rationality).

[SR4]

i got into a huge argument with a professor a while back after finding a quote from Thomas Jefferson pretty much openly advocating the genocide of all native peoples in the Americas. didn't end well.

 

also, it should be stressed that the incursions against Native Americans weren't only done at the hands of the US. check colonial period and Latin Americas. incredibly brutal stuff everywhere.

[baph]

Most Americans I know are quite well aware of the terrible position that Natives have been put in.

 

I find this to be true as well, but apparently we're not discussing it enough in the exported Popular Culture for the Swedes to become informed of, and fully digest, our guilt, to better compare it to their own perfectly homogenous zero-conflict-ever cultural consciousness.

 

How are all the Sami these days, anyway?

[Guest Calx Sherbet]

i find it funny how my ancestors stole land from my other ancestors. that's how i look at it, with a smile

 

here's a tidbit of info:

 

there's a rabid hockey culture here in the North Dakota/Minnesota area. breeding every second of every day. and there has been an intense controversy over the name of the local team, "The Fighting Sioux". i remember when this started like 4 years ago (it was some of the Lakota Sioux inhabitants who were pissed off, at least i think that's what happened. college students were especially involved in this fiasco, obviously). i honestly thought this would blow over in a month or so. but no, still hearing about it in 2011. i guess there were decent arguments, like the lack of any derogatory mascot. and there are teams like the Vikings, Indians, Fighting Irish, what have you. there were people for and against it in both indian and white american cultures. if anyone's offended, change the fucking name. it's just a name.

 

i guess i'm not picking on anyone in particular, but it's probably one of the dumbest arguments i've ever witnessed. i'm not sure about the current nature of the subject (i'm extremely oblivious to the news from any source). if anyone here lives in the midwest (as if), i bet you heard about this. if not, i'm surprised. but this is just one of those things that furthers the theory that people are insane animals.

 

a few months ago i was reading about a history of school massacres in america. the first documented one was in the 1700's. some native warriors went into a school and tomahawked the teacher. that must have been exciting

[SCONES TO DIE FOR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzpRU347BDU

[SCONES TO DIE FOR]

there's a rabid hockey culture here in the North Dakota/Minnesota area. breeding every second of every day. and there has been an intense controversy over the name of the local team, "The Fighting Sioux". i remember when this started like 4 years ago (it was some of the Lakota Sioux inhabitants who were pissed off, at least i think that's what happened. college students were especially involved in this fiasco, obviously). i honestly thought this would blow over in a month or so. but no, still hearing about it in 2011. i guess there were decent arguments, like the lack of any derogatory mascot. and there are teams like the Vikings, Indians, Fighting Irish, what have you. there were people for and against it in both indian and white american cultures. if anyone's offended, change the fucking name. it's just a name.

Did they sioux them?

[baph]

For an interesting read on the disruptive effect of white settlers on Native Americans (and the New England environment), William Cronon's Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England is pretty great.

If you're non-American and you'd like to understand the issues that Native Americans face, you could try to do some research and read the same materials we would, instead of assuming we're all ignorant twats about it over here.

 

Obviously, the Native American population is marginalized (this is not unique to Native Americans); the standard liberal public school education does go into the history a bit, but the sad fact is there are not a ton of Native Americans to actually interact with on a daily basis outside of a few areas (largely in the Southwest). The reservation system has been devastating, and the population that it devastated was already completely disrupted.

[Guest hahathhat]

i have respect the culture... but the culture is largely gone, now. and it all went away before i was born. it's sad, but there's not really much left to work with.

[chenGOD]

 

 

also, it should be stressed that the incursions against Native Americans weren't only done at the hands of the US. check colonial period and Latin Americas. incredibly brutal stuff everywhere.

 

Yeah the shit that went on in South America is mindboggling. Truly brutal shit.

[Guest hahathhat]

maybe aliens will go south-american invasion on us in 2012, just like mayan scientists predicted.

[dr lopez]

yeah the new world natives didn't really have a good time of it anywhere. It was just a stroke of fate that put the amerindians in easily settleable grasslands and not a fucking impenetrable disease ridden jungle. The amazonians lasted a little bit longer.

 

However, like SRIV said, all land was conquered at some point. Who the "swedish" are now aren't really the "original" swedish either. Coercion and genocide can be found at any point in history when a society and culture has more "guns germs and steel" or the like than the other.

 

This is of course a depressing fatalist argument and is easy to say when you're ultimately on the winning side. At the same time, it doesn't always do "good" and set the record straight to say "evil white man." Pre Colombian America was NOT the "we are the children of mother earth and live a simple, peaceful life" that the modern PC version makes it out to be. Anyone who has studied amerindian tribal life knows that it was harsh. Constant warfare with neighbor tribes and the camp burning and scalping were not random occurrences. Warfare, trickery, and extermination aren't inventions of Europeans, yet you'd be surprised how out of touch some americans are today. In fact, I remember attending a lecture about Iroquois tribal life, and when it moved into scalping and eating of deer fetuses, a man who was "part Iroquois" stood up and raged at the lecturer for a good 5 minutes at his gross inaccuracies before storming out. Mr. "Walking Bear" on History Channel who always seems to add "What if what man hadn't come to this world with his hate," is further spreading this idea of a eden-like existence. Technologically the Amerindians weren't going anywhere, fast.

 

But yes. Everything the europeans did was atrocious and miserable. There is no excuse. But it seems like you're dealing with a different issue than just the historical accounts of the european extermination of the american people. You're thinking more about the abhorrent dogma that comes along with the nationality "American." We just need to lose a war and then hopefully we'll get humbled. Cause it fucking sucks how out of touch people in this country are with the ideas of freedom.

[baph]

To make matters worse, the old gov policy during the... relocation period was that all Indians are basically Plains Indians (most Indians were not basically Plains Indians, those were just the ones in the Consciousness given the ever-amusing Old West Mythos, etc) so they were all kind of shipped to reservations totally without regard to traditional means of subsistence, etc. Holy hell, that was bad.

 

Now you've got an unpleasant mixture of marginalized, disenfranchised populations (and the substance abuse, etc problems that go hand in hand with that), some desire to hold onto a cultural identity which in some cases was fabricated anyway, total lack of resources, dwindling populations, and no opportunities for advancement other than the Indian Gaming Casino.

[chenGOD]

You guys did lose a war - two of them in fact - the Korean War and the Vietnamese War. :)

 

Yeah i don't think any reasonable person would assume that everything was milk and honey down there - I mean they were big practitioners of human sacrifice to start with...to me it was more how easy it was for the Spanish to trick the indigenous peoples. If the records are correct, they were just like the biggest suckers of all time...

[SR4]

yeah the new world natives didn't really have a good time of it anywhere. It was just a stroke of fate that put the amerindians in easily settleable grasslands and not a fucking impenetrable disease ridden jungle. The amazonians lasted a little bit longer.

 

However, like SRIV said, all land was conquered at some point. Who the "swedish" are now aren't really the "original" swedish either. Coercion and genocide can be found at any point in history when a society and culture has more "guns germs and steel" or the like than the other.

 

This is of course a depressing fatalist argument and is easy to say when you're ultimately on the winning side. At the same time, it doesn't always do "good" and set the record straight to say "evil white man." Pre Colombian America was NOT the "we are the children of mother earth and live a simple, peaceful life" that the modern PC version makes it out to be. Anyone who has studied amerindian tribal life knows that it was harsh. Constant warfare with neighbor tribes and the camp burning and scalping were not random occurrences. Warfare, trickery, and extermination aren't inventions of Europeans, yet you'd be surprised how out of touch some americans are today. In fact, I remember attending a lecture about Iroquois tribal life, and when it moved into scalping and eating of deer fetuses, a man who was "part Iroquois" stood up and raged at the lecturer for a good 5 minutes at his gross inaccuracies before storming out. Mr. "Walking Bear" on History Channel who always seems to add "What if what man hadn't come to this world with his hate," is further spreading this idea of a eden-like existence. Technologically the Amerindians weren't going anywhere, fast.

 

But yes. Everything the europeans did was atrocious and miserable. There is no excuse. But it seems like you're dealing with a different issue than just the historical accounts of the european extermination of the american people. You're thinking more about the abhorrent dogma that comes along with the nationality "American." We just need to lose a war and then hopefully we'll get humbled. Cause it fucking sucks how out of touch people in this country are with the ideas of freedom.

 

fantastic post. it really is a shame how biased academia can be with things most truly know little to nothing about other than through books. academia is certainly a double-edged sword.

[Guest rumbo]

Any theft was initiated by the English. Not just in the US but many other lands. Australia, New Zealand, Canada. This doesn't absolve any country of their responsibility, they are all guilty.

 

Anyway, "This is the world we live in...whoa-oh-oh".

[SR4]

Any theft was initiated by the English. Not just in the US but many other lands. Australia, New Zealand, Canada. This doesn't absolve any country of their responsibility, they are all guilty.

 

Anyway, "This is the world we live in...whoa-oh-oh".

 

 

im not trying to place the blame squarely on anyone in nationality or ethnicity. it just drives me crazy that a ton of posters here constantly spew shit about how shit america is to the rest of the world, "america fucked (insert area) up far worse than (insert poster's home country) and then in other threads trot out the "nationalism/favoritism is some sheepherding bullshit."

 

if we are going to hate, lets at least do it with consistency.

[baph]

The Sami thing I posted a bit back was probably too subtle, but wikipedia

Dislocation and forced sterilization right up until recent times, oh you faultless Fenno-Scandinavians!

[SR4]

didn't mean to derail the thread.

 

im trying to think of some good books on the latin-american portion of it, might have to dig a bit through my collection...i am currently reading a lot of material about the caribbean islands...pretty much "cleared out" for the slave population....a couple islands were literally slave pens...a handful of guards on high ground with weapons and the slave colony continued unabated below. now that's fucking creepy.

[chenGOD]

I don't think you can really compare the two situations - genocide vs some very mild dislocation. Also important to note is how the Swedes et al. have reacted it to it - according to the wiki article, in Norway a least they have their own parliament.

I understand you're upset cause people try to piss on the States on many occasions, but you guys do put yourself about a bit more than the Swedes...

[SR4]

I don't think you can really compare the two situations - genocide vs some very mild dislocation. Also important to note is how the Swedes et al. have reacted it to it - according to the wiki article, in Norway a least they have their own parliament.

I understand you're upset cause people try to piss on the States on many occasions, but you guys do put yourself about a bit more than the Swedes...

 

 

*sigh*

 

my point is that this is all a worthless pissing contest...essentially what this is is asking "who is more evil?" over, and over, and over, and over, and over

 

 

to me its so ridiculous that to consider everything America had done as somehow completely anomalous from the rest of history, as if americans are some sort of malevolent super geniuses straight out of Yakub's laboratory or some shit.

 

 

anyway, let us move onward!