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Originally Posted by OneToughHerring
The issue of restoration of the indigenous lands in the area of present day US is very much alive. Many native tribes live in conditions resembling those of the third world. The most downtrodden of all US minorities, the 'Indian wars' have never really ended and the wholesale genocide of natives is still continuing to this day and will continue into the future.
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I suppose a case could be made for the idea that the U.S. is assimilating or absorbing native American culture, that is what we do with every culture, but that's a far cry from genocide. It isn't as if we systematically execute native Americans, you know.
As for their third-world living conditions, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. Many tribes do live in deploreable conditions, and that is because they have spent more than a century being "cared for" by the state. The government tried to place them in a nice little isolationist bubble and give them money, but the rest of the world advanced while they did not. In that way their plight is remarkably similar to that of most citizens of centralist nations. Ironically enough, some tribes have been granted special exemptions from state and federal laws/taxes because they applied for release from certain BIA criterion and regularly piss everyone else off with their prosperity.
Don't confuse genocide with state-sponsored failure, and don't confuse Americans with their government. Many of us distrust, fear or even hate the state, and we have relatively little say in how it is run today. Ours is supposed to be a nation of individuals and a land of freedom and opportunity, and under those criterion the natives should never have been afforded any kind of special treatment, only acceptance, and they would have prospered as the rest have.
Part of the reason we so despise the state is because of the inadvertent harm it does when it tries to protect minorities, to say nothing of the chance that it might overtly act to promote one group over another.
In any case, you are correct in your assertion that Native American culture is under a siege which it cannot endure much longer. As long as the state insists on "protecting" it, it will grow weaker and more isolated until it vanishes completely.