One weekend a month the Wounded Knee District School lock their students inside the school. They do this at the beginning of the month when the government checks go out to the parents of the students. It’s not punishment, it’s to protect the children.
Naomi Riley book “The New Trail of Tears” is a scathing review of how our government is entitling those who live on reservations to endless poverty, hopelessness and early death.
Very close to that situation.
I tell people.
Lowest literacy, highest youth suicide rate, lowest graduation rate, 3 highest poverty rate (4 of top 10 in nation are reservations in South Dakota)
Rampant drug use. 3 southern cali gangs operating openly. MS13 had made threats to schools so police were escorting busses to and from schools and had closed some for a few days a month ago.
Criminal abuse and neglect of children-
http://www.indianz.com/News/2016/11/30/charges-filed-after-two-children-found-m.asp
YET YOU ARE PROTESTING A DAMN PIPELINE BECAUSE YOU WANT TO PROTECT THE WATER FOR YOUR CHILDREN, THEY ARE DYING AT YOUR FEET!
Sorry I usually am yelling at that point in time.
Total bullshit but 97% vote lockstep, nothing can be done to help because if money solved problems the streets of Pine Ridge would be paved with gold.
Great post Frank!
These wagon burners refuse to accept their position as a vanquished nation. Drugs, alcohol and lack of education are self inflicted and are no reflection of the white man.
Lazlo works on several Reservations in the course of the year.
It is dismal. But what is worse, they seem to delight in petty inter tribe fights, especially where the casinos operate.
I ran into a lawyer for one of the Tribes and he said that before the casino they used to sue each other over fences and loose livestock, after the casino all the lawsuits were to get so and so kicked off the tribe payrolls or so and so back on.
Its the state of the dogs on the Rez that get to me.
They are in the process of breeding themselves out of existence, if you look at demographics in addition to their lower IQs & social dysgenics. Not sure how you’d change much, tbh.
OK Lazlo This is the second time you mentioned the dogs on the reservation. Do they drink too?
I have two rescued rez dogs out of New Mexico and they both seem to like me and are grateful in a festive manner….fa la la…la la, la la
I’ve done Washington State Arts Commission music gigs on several Indian reservations in the state of Washington. The schools were brand spanking new and the students were ill-behaved brats.
I’m guessing we wiped out all of the warrior Indians who had any dignity and racial pride, and the depleted gene pool that is left has been breeding in a downward spiral toward extinction ever since then. Kinda like what seems to have happened to the Germans because of WW2.
I could be wrong.
Awww so sad.
Where were these brave warriors when the gubmint first started moving in on their territory? The tribes were fighting each other and not paying attention, and in some cases helping our and other national gubmints to wipe out their enemies. so much for the great Indian Nation, eh?
That being said, absolutely nothing stops these tribe members from integrating into the rest of America and not be involved or living in these bullshit ghettos the gumbint set up for them. You can still speak your native language, wear your feathers, go to casinos and live out in the city, just like every other person who lives in America.
And I wish people would stop with the ‘poor natives’ bullshit. You know what? Everybody’s culture has been invaded, enslaved and or taken over. Okay? If the Jews have to get over it, if the Blacks have to get over it, if the Christians have to get over it, you do too. You ain’t special. Not at all.
Speaking as a third native Am, black and white person- Quit whining and join the rest of us.
We have cookies! 🙂
When a stone-age culture meets a “modern” culture, the stone-age culture will dissolve. Grow or die. They were, of course, “helped” along the path of destruction by their own ignorance and the duplicity of their conquerors.
Too many “good deeds” along the way made their annihilation inevitable.
(Wounded Knee was Lakota and Trail of Tears was Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw – but I get the metaphor)
Poor Liz Warren … she must be sad …
izlamo delenda est …
trail of beers?
@MJA: Good point. Hey, there’s something I want to bring up here that I have been curious about for years: I always thought that the old stories about the Indians going crazy with “firewater” were just myths. However, when I was in the Army I knew two different guys who were more than half Indian, and neither one of them could handle alcohol worth a damn. Changed their whole personality when they drank, and made them mean. I realize this happens to many non-Indians too, so it may just be a coinkydink. Anybody else have an observation or opinion on this? Do Indians have some genetic predisposition to problems with booze?
P.S. – I can’t ask any Liberals about this because I would immediately be branded a racist, but I figure I’m safe with you guys.
🙂
MJA….quite true. The Iroquois pretty much wiped out their neighbors by mid-1700s. They made cruel war on the series, Hurons, Algonguins, etc. Their is a reason they are called savages in the Declaration of Independence.
A 18th & 19th century Settler had about as much love for an Indian as a 1940 Jew has for the Nazi SS.
Vietvet- Alcoholism and meth is a problem on Indian res in the lower states, but also a problem with Alaskan natives as well. A friend of mine in AK has told me the young women are strung out on gubmint welfare and unwed motherhood. But this happens to anyone who uses the feds as their daddy or wet nurse. I don’t know about ‘going crazy’, but I remember my mom telling me about hating living in NM (near the Texas border) because there would always be passed out Mexicans and Natives on the neighborhood lawns. lol. We only lived there about 2 years.
I’m pretty sure they have a genetically lower tolerance to alcohol, due to much lower alcohol dehydrogenase than Caucasians, but that’s strictly going from memory.
Vietvet
Very much so. I have seen them in Minnesota & NY. They drink and get rowdy until in a stupor. I do believe it is genetic. I have met quite a few who have recovered from alcoholism and have told me as much.
Thanks, guys – it’s something I’ve always wondered about, but never knew for sure.
I’ve got a lot of Cherokee and Choctaw, as well as some Sac and Fox in me, and I have zero tolerance to alcohol or drugs. None. One beer on an empty stomach, and I see double. Yes, it’s genetic, and it’s because people from the Europe and the near east were imbibing 3,000 years ago. Indians, no drinking until the white man drifted in with the tide.
A helluva lot more Indians have been killed with a bottle than a bullet.
i am shocked – SHOCKED!!! – to find out you are such a rayciss, vietvet…….shame shame shame……..
…………….. 🙂
Reply to VietVet and others: I live in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. The North American native(Indian, First Nations – whatever) are genetically descended from the peoples of Asia. A large percentage of Asians are not able to metabolize alcohol – this is very much in evidence in Canada. The Dry Reserves do much better for their populations than the reserves which allow alcohol. I also agree with other commentators about moving on from the supposed wrongs done to you. “S**T happens to every group of people – my maternal grandparents left Ireland during the height of the “troubles” in 1924 at the ages of 65 for my grandfather and 45 for my grandmother. My grandfather’s trucking business had 3 trucks blown up. He had to start all over again as a tenant farmer in SE Saskatchewan and then the “dirty 30’s” hit and then WWII came after.
I have great sympathy for groups of people who have been blighted with government interference, and aren’t able to pull themselves up from the morass. As I said before, the mean IQs for those in the Native American pop is much lower, overall. Adding to the unemployment due to government handouts, access to drugs and alcohol, cultural isolation, and I’m being frank with you guys, the future looks very grim. It i a sad, sad situation, but throwing money at the problem can’t fix that which cannot be fixed. Education, real education not liberal BS, based on basic life skills and teaching a morality and dignity of character starting with the parents, is the only possibility of improving the future.