This surprised me (Canadian History)

[treide]

I heard this on the radio last night heading home from work:

http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/12763

First off, I think native peoples have gotten a raw deal across the globe, but I was surprised to hear about this residential schooling program being active in Canada until the 1990s. I had always been under the impression that Canada had fairly good marks regarding civil liberties and diversity issues, but this seems to fly in the face of that. If any of our Canadian members can elaborate on this topic, I would be interested.

I am in no way implying that the US has a better track record - quite the contrary! I just want to know more from people with first-hand knowledge.

 

[wiccanpony]

no wonder native people are bitter about the goverment.

I knew the US had a program like it up till the first world war and even beyond. I knew a freind who was in one those so called indian schools and he was treated like an animal. But somehow he moved passed what was done to him and is one of the nicest humans on the planet.

 

[lizcam]

I got in an argument in the parking lot at the store the other day about something similar to this. One of the ladies (loosely used term) was collecting signatures on a petition to tax indian casions. She asked me to sign and I said no. Then she said, (and I quote), \"will you sign anyway?\"

I blinked a couple of times. I had just said no, hadn\'t I? \"No,\" I repeated.

The other lady (loose again) was coming out of the store and heard the exchange and asked, \"why not?\"

\"I don\'t believe in it.\"

\"Will you sign anyway?\" < petition lady

\"No!\" <me

\"You don\'t believe that they should pay taxes just like you? Are you crazy?\" <nosey lady

\"We stole thier land a nd killed thier people. They deserve to milk us for every penny they can get\" <me

I walked away at that point with my BLACK husband and son in tow. You\'d think they would have gotten a clue looking who I was with. And I noticed they never asked HIM to sign.

 

[Roger Bunting]

Maybe \"Will you sign anyway\" was pretty much all she was able to say. Maybe her language skills weren\'t very developed and she was actually trying to say something else.

 

[supervike]

Well, Liz, on the cusp of being controversial, I don\'t get what the \'BLACK\' husband has to do with Native American\'s paying tax or not. The survey takers were obviously idiots, but thats not to say the cause isn\'t just.

Yes, the government did take the Native American\'s land ages ago, after many bloody battles, but I\'m not an apologist for them.

I feel no guilt towards that. I didn\'t do it, don\'t condone it, but I ain\'t apologizing for it either. It sucks for them, but its time to move on. If any culture wants to sit and play the \'victim\' card long enough, it will surely destroy their culture. Somehow, it\'s become vogue to blame the \'evil\' government for all their ills. The government is not to blame for thier higher than normal alchoholism rates, poor test scores, and general poverty.

Native Americans are NOT forced to live on reservations any longer. They just choose to do it. I feel they should pay their fair share of taxes like every other American should have to....Just like I think the Amish should have to pay ALL their taxes too.

If you want to speak further how the government has allowed the ruin of thier society, then Casinos should be the top of the list anyhow. It\'s taken a beautiful culture and turned it into all you can eat shrimp cocktails, hokey nightclub singers, and nickel slots.

It reminds me all of those old Public Service announcements from the 70\'s...with the old Indian man crying because of the trash on the roads...We should have the same ads now, only with the old Chief crying about the loss of his culture....

 

[Sand Rat]

Umm Vike, Iron Eyes Cody was a \"Native American\" only by dint of being a first generation American - his parents were Italian.

As for the rest, I really despise the PC Term \"Native American\" - anyone born in the North or Central or South America are Native Americana - and all the children of immigrants - just because your ancestors immigrated 11000 years before mine does not make you more Native than Me.

 

[supervike]

Originally posted by steelcult
As for the rest, I really despise the PC Term \"Native American\" -

Yeah, I didn\'t want to open that can of worms....

I am completely Native to America. Hell, I\'ve never even been to another country. Am I not a Native American?

 

[treide]

Originally posted by steelcult
As for the rest, I really despise the PC Term \"Native American\" - anyone born in the North or Central or South America are Native Americana - and all the children of immigrants - just because your ancestors immigrated 11000 years before mine does not make you more Native than Me.

Granted, but for the sake of discussion, I think we can refer to \"native peoples\" as those who had established civilizations in the Americas (or elsewhere, for that matter) prior to the waves of European colonial expansion a few centuries ago.

@ supervike - Think of it this way - when you and I were goofing around in Junior High, there were kids being taken from their parents to go to these residential schools, solely on the basis of their ethnic/cultural backgrounds, all government-sanctioned. That just blew me away. Sure, worse things happened in our history many years ago, but this was going on in our lifetime.

 

[No Such Agency]

The treatment of Natives is probably Canada\'s enduring stain on our reputation, every nation has one of those. The problems of land claims, special rights, standards of living and social problems facing Native communities are not easy ones to solve, and compromises have to be worked out that don\'t simply throw money at problems, and don\'t cater to radicals on either side of the issue.

Originally posted by supervike
I am completely Native to America. Hell, I\'ve never even been to another country. Am I not a Native American?

Well, I\'d say you\'re a native American, but you\'re not Native. It\'s semantics, you could use the term aboriginal or whatever, though Native is the current term that\'s considered polite. Perhaps in ten or twenty years it will be passe, like \"Colored\" is now. As for whether they should pay taxes... I ain\'t touching that one with a ten-foot pole. It usually comes down to one\'s beliefs on the right of government to pursue collective action, which sounds suspiciously like politics to me.

 

[hubbabubba]

I don\'t know anything other than the very basics about the treatment of native cultures in your respective North American countries, but I\'m glad that this kind of stuff gets posted here know and again, it\'s good to see people engaging these issues, regardless as to whether or not I agree with their opinions or not.
Apathy has gotta be the biggest problem out there today, so I\'ll be following this with interest.
@supervike
\'evil\' government\' he he, you just about nailed it there, although they\'re closely followed by their not so evil but down right ineffective European cousins. bring it on....:beer:

 

[StarFyre]

wow

Natives...yet another example of how Europeans caused the desctruction/problems with most of the world that we see today



How about that for a discussion starter?

(hey, at least i didn\'t specifically mention british, portugese, spaniards, germans )

*hides for cover*

Sanjay

 

[Ghey Boy]

Originally posted by lizcam
I got in an argument in the parking lot at the store the other day about something similar to this. One of the ladies (loosely used term) was collecting signatures on a petition to tax indian casions. She asked me to sign and I said no. Then she said, (and I quote), \"will you sign anyway?\"

I blinked a couple of times. I had just said no, hadn\'t I? \"No,\" I repeated.

The other lady (loose again) was coming out of the store and heard the exchange and asked, \"why not?\"

\"I don\'t believe in it.\"

\"Will you sign anyway?\" < petition lady

\"No!\" <me

\"You don\'t believe that they should pay taxes just like you? Are you crazy?\" <nosey lady

\"We stole thier land a nd killed thier people. They deserve to milk us for every penny they can get\" <me

I walked away at that point with my BLACK husband and son in tow. You\'d think they would have gotten a clue looking who I was with. And I noticed they never asked HIM to sign.

Wow, you killed people and stole their land? Do the authorities know about this? You should turn yourself and your accompluces in for immediate imprisonment. (ps if there was a \"rolls eyes\" smiley without a smirk I\'d use that instead)

 

[airhead]

I grew up with Comanche and Apache Indians (they went to the BIA not BNAA for issues) in a state that used to be entirely one large reservation. I did not ever kill any of them or take their land - but when we played Cowboys & Indians as kids, the Indians usually won in my neighborhood. The biggest crime I see was the \"ward of the government\" attitude that permiated the tribes. Waiting on the annual \"Indian Check\" to go buy a new car or take a vacation seemed to be the norm - instead of taking an extra job to work for it.

Tribes with oil or casinos are another thing entirely. Generally, the tribe gets a very small piece of the actual casino profits. The operating companies have the contract language down pretty good. But back in the late 1800\'s/early 1900\'s when oil money flowed like water in lots of tribes around Tulsa, you could see a level of excesses that are only currently rivaled by the OPEC barons. (Car\'s out of gas, get a new one - kind of thinking).

Does this excuse any slights (genocide, land theft, etc.) that the government (my ancestors) did to their ancestors? No. But I didn\'t do it. Do I owe any of them anything today? I don\'t really think so. I worked for everything I have just as anyone else could.

 

[No Such Agency]

Originally posted by StarFyre
Natives...yet another example of how Europeans caused the desctruction/problems with most of the world that we see today

How about that for a discussion starter?
(hey, at least i didn\'t specifically mention british, portugese, spaniards, germans )
*hides for cover*
Sanjay

Jared Diamond. \"We\" just got to the goods first. Pretty much any other group that might have achieved the level of technological advancement that European (\"white\") people did would have wreaked similar destruction on the earth and its peoples.

That doesn\'t negate the fact that, well, \"we\" DID do it. But food for thought.

I never bought the ideas that a matriarchy would necessarily be peaceful and egalitarian, or that given the chance, black Africans would have produced a superior world society. After all, we\'re all monsters, and we\'re all saints.

 

[DaN]

Can I just suggest the Latin term:
Aborigine here instead of \"Native.

Aborigine is probably a more relevant term, and is not exclusively for \"Native\" Australians.

 

[treide]

Originally posted by No Such Agency
Jared Diamond. \"We\" just got to the goods first. Pretty much any other group that might have achieved the level of technological advancement that European (\"white\") people did would have wreaked similar destruction on the earth and its peoples.

I agree. I think that any society with the resources will overpower its neighbors with less resources. Back then it was guns, ships, and germs that nearly wiped out the natives/aboriginals.

What about now? Hmm - economic power, nuclear capability, air force. For the most part, still the same players.

 

[Naukhel]

Being very non-PC... because being PC is thoroughly absurd and violates the
constitutional right to free speech...

I still agree with Liz. The remaining tribes, whatever they may be, have lands that
are exempt from taxes. Their casinos are on those lands. Thus, said casinos are
exempt from taxes.

These places are a significant source of income and employment for some of them.
I don\'t say \'many\' or \'most\', because that kind of generalization is as stupid as being
PC...
But, the point stands. Considering the bum rap they get from stereotyping and
the general beliefs of a frightening number of people...

Yeah, you know the stories. They\'re lazy. They don\'t want to work. They hate us all.
All drunks... etc.

Lazy? Ha. Speaking just for Ontario, and my knowledge of it, which I admit is limited...

Anyone driving along the major highways, watch the rocky formations on either side.
Stone piles, carefully arranged. These are made during traditional rite-of-passage
journeys and spirit walks, which are hundreds of kilometers long, sometimes.
Not lazy, that.

Are there some that match those stereotypes? Probably. Same as we euro-
descended folk probably live up to a bunch of stereotypes/archetypes of ourselves.

Bah. I\'m rambling without a point. I\'m going to shut up, now.

 

[lizcam]

Wow. Um, I usually try to stay out of political and religous debates but there are a couple of things I need to say.

1) I bring up my husband because in this area there is a large skin head/KKK following and \"natives\" and blacks are often lumped into the same steriotype. It\'s a local thing and probably stupid of me to say here. Sorry if I offended anyone with that. But my point was, if they had looked around they would have known by default why I felt like I did (other than the fact that they were dumb as rocks).

2) My family has been traced back as far as 1632 in Dedham Mass in this counrty, so I could be considered as \"native\" as anyone of European descent in this counrty. But that also means that my ancestars had more to do with what happened to the Natives than most people. I believe that my generation (and remember how old I am. I was born in the \'50\'s) are the ones who should be responsible for making amends for past wrongs. I do NOT, however, think that people in generations younger than mine need be too concerned about it. This counrty has done a great deal to repair old wounds from the past and, yes, eventually everyone will be equal, but right now, for me, I believe they deserve the tax free status. for as long as they can keep it. It won\'t be long now before the tax bill will go through and that will be that. But in the mean time, go for it I say. WHat they do with the $ is on them and humans being what we are it will be abused. That\'s just part of life.

I\'ll go now and let you all continue the debate. While I may not take part often, I do like reading the posts and the energy of the fight.

 

[EArkham]

The casino thing doesn\'t seem to be working as originally intended.

\"Revenue from gaming is so lopsided that Indian casinos in five states with almost half the Native American population — Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota — account for less than 3% of all casino proceeds. On average, they produce the equivalent of about $400 in revenue per Indian. Meanwhile, casinos in California, Connecticut and Florida — states with only 3% of the Indian population — haul in 44% of all revenue, an average of $100,000 per Indian. In California, the casino run by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians pulls in well over $100 million a year. That\'s about $900,000 per member.\"

From:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101021216-397526,00.html

Interesting read.

I\'m supposedly 1/8th Indian, incidently (don\'t really know for certain since the family sources may or may not have been truthful). Don\'t worry. I\'ll demand my repartations in unpainted miniatures!

Kep

PS - The repartations line is a joke, for the humour impaired.

 

[AinuLainour]

I\'m not speaking from a stereotypical point of view, but I grew up very close to a reserve in Vancouver and there was a large mall on the premises, where there was my closest GW location, HMV, Future Shop, EB Games, and a food court. Anyhow, it was a hot spot so while driving back, we had to leave through the reserve. A solid 85% of the homes were trashy.. microwaves tossed on the lawns, bikes strewn around, bad matinence..

This was also the case on the other reserves I\'ve been around. I get the impression that most of them take what they get free from the government for granted.