Why am I to blame for native american injustice, and why I am to pay for compensation?

Except that there is no finishing date and no limit to this debt, which was made in a war that is past. A war which was inevitable, where most people died from a disease neither side could prevent. I argue more of this in this post: https://similarworlds.com/story?fid=8678722&tid=521741&sort=1&name=I-Want-To-Talk-About-The-Thing-No-One-Wants-To-Tal

@mar3sword: A war implies two sides engaged in an agreed upon battle. This is more comparable to the Holocaust. Something was stolen that can't (won't) ever be returned. At least the country is attempting to make restitution to the Native Americans. They've never made things right regarding the descendants of African slaves.

@bijouxbroussard: There was a war and people on both sides died. Natives killed settlers and trappers as well as soldiers. Settlers and soldiers killed more natives due to better technology and more resources, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a war.

And like I said elsewhere, most of the deaths were a result of diseases that the westerners had little knowledge of themselves. Diseases that were shared as a result of initial contact and trade. New diseases that the natives didn't have any antibodies or immunity to. However these diseases had killed many more westerners over the centuries.

Again I am not excusing the things that were done. I am saying we should move past them as neither the people that experienced that pain and suffering or the people that dealt it are alive. I am not to blame for them, my ancestors weren't even a part of it. You are judging me on the basis of my skin color.

@mar3sword: only whites pay reparations ? That's not true. Everyone who pays taxes pays towards it. Moreover, since one does not have to be 100% Native, people who are legally "white" are receiving checks. My former brother in law who is Tlingit and Irish receives reparations. But who's to say when such debts are truly paid in full ?

@bijouxbroussard: I didn't say only whites pay. This isn't a racial issue unless we are talking about the blaming. Yes, and this is what I am talking about. People should accept history and move past. We live in a world with a high standard of living if you work for it. We don't need more taxes.

Give a foot up to the native people, not a never ending debt paying. A pay out to help people get a house and a job and then that is it. Over, get everything else like everyone else, through work and pay the same taxes everyone else has to. Why because you are living in the same country and have the same opportunity.

@mar3sword: You assume these are the same opportunities, but you don't know that for certain. The settlers stole the land and pushed people off. They committed [b]genocide[/b]. There are tribes who no longer exist because of the Europeans' need for more land. That is the comparison to the Holocaust and why it is not such a different ballgame, except for whom it involved.

The Holocaust was a rounding up and mass execution of citizens of the various countries based on ethnicity.

The European takeover of North America was a few more powerful nations conquering many less powerful nations as has happened throughout history. At the time this was the way things worked, in Europe too. It was a war because natives fought back. Yes, there were elements of genocide after that. Terrible things like the trail of tears and other such movements. I am not defending those. I am saying that they are passed. The way of life that the Natives had was never going to last upon contact with Europe. And it was not one that offered a very high standard of living either.

They are the same opportunities that every other citizen of each region is offered. The modern world is different than that of the 17th century. Jobs are different, housing is different, education is different. The past is so often glorified from the present. But the past was not so glorious. There was a lot more death and people were a lot more familiar with it.

And again the Holocaust is a different ball game because of the time it took place!

@mar3sword: It's only different because whites were involved. No one dares tell Jewish people to "move on". In fact, their motto is "Never Forget".

Never forget in terms of let it not happen again. Not in terms of holding it against the modern generations who had nothing to do with it.

@mar3sword: Like I said, we're not giving the land back to Native Americans not are we giving them another homeland. So the reparations for the hundreds of years of occupation and oppression is "rent". You have no way of knowing who has what opportunities and who may not. Your filter is strictly that of one of the privileged---in that you share the race of the ruling class and the "establishment" so you assume all is equal now. I'm not saying this with resentment, btw. It is simply the facts.

I am fairly well versed in history, I could still learn a lot and try to do so. It was a take over and there is not really any other way it could have gone at the time.

The "establishment" now has people from all walks of life. Again you are judging me on the basis of my skin color. My family came from very poor backgrounds in the UK.

I am looking at the mindset behind the "rent" idea. Is it really helpful? Will there be progress forward to overcoming disadvantages if the system is propped up from outside?

The idea that westerners can have a say because they can't understand because they are privileged is very harmful. People can study something and have a good understanding of it without experiencing it. And nobody alive today experienced it.

@mar3sword: I understand it as an African-American. You'd be amazed at what white people have told me I couldn't possibly have experienced in my 57 years of living. They've told my father, who is 85, nobody who's living has ever met a slave. News to him, since as a child he met relatives born into slavery and those stories have been passed down. Pop lived during what we call the lynching days and as a child remembers having to come inside from playing because the Klan was trashing the neighborhood and snatching people off the street. My maternal grandfather, who was Choctaw and French, told me about going with his brothers to help black families cut down bodies of family members---men, women, occasionally [b]children[/b]. These are stories they don't discuss in school. It's not a question of being bitter, just impatient when people imply none of that has affected how things are now.

Those things do affect what happens now and are without a doubt terrible. And that is a whole nother topic way bigger than I am.

That stuff has influenced the BLM movement and the ongoing issues attached to African-American culture. High crime rates, lower literacy rates...and on. But to say that white people are responsible for all these things and should fix them is unrealistic. But again, I am not trying to come at this from a racial perspective. When a solution to help everyone live a better life is the topic why should race matter? To come up with a real solution the problem must be understood. And again we are getting into another topic. Not my original, "don't blame me for things i didn't do"

@mar3sword: I'm basically saying I empathize with the situation for Native Americans because there are parallels. At one point during Reconstruction there was the proposal to give the newly freed slaves "40 acres and a mule" per family by way of reparations for unpaid labor going back to the late 1600s. But Lincoln's successor Andrew Jackson was a southern sympathizer and to say the least, it didn't happen. During his administration the laws that had been established to protect the freed slaves from vengeful whites were dismantled and, with the help of the KKK, blacks were driven out of towns, homes and properties were burned down or "confiscated ", and people were lynched by the hundreds.

@bijouxbroussard: And I agree that the compensation should have happened and wish it had. I also wish that the KKK wasn't a thing. Those people are evil and despicable.

What I am saying is that I think that a one time limited payout be part of the solution to get people on their feet if their past is holding them down. Not an eternal limitless debt. However, people have the right to languish in the past instead of standing on their feet. If they do then their is nobody else to blame but themselves.

@mar3sword: And that belief assumes all is now equal. It isn't. And the divide is widening.

@bijouxbroussard: that belief is based in the fact that the legal system has made all legal rights equal. Society is changing and the divide widening is often do to people wanting to be separate.

@mar3sword: And I'm not sure you understand. People who want to be separate are often trying to feel safe. And legal rights depend solely on who's enforcing them.

@bijouxbroussard: The media loves cases where they are screwed up. But the perspective is skewed. There are far more successful cases of good law enforcement working properly. Those cases where it is handled badly need to be dealt with from higher up and for the most part are.

@mar3sword: perhaps but it doesn't change the facts. There are cases the media doesn't ever see, and what they're highlighting hasn't just begun happening in the last 16 years. Rodney King was unusual only because someone videotaped what happened. And in the end the jury didn't care.

@bijouxbroussard: My point is that it is on the mend and that policies and laws are in favour of correcting these things.