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

But how can you blame the person, who didn't steal it and doesn't buy it from the person who stole it, for it?

The US government might be the government that was involved with some of it. But the government has had many many changes since that happened.

Doesn't mean it's not accountable. And a lot of these complaints aren't as old as they may seem too. Some tribes only got the right to recognize their own members as recently as the 90s. Up until then, the federal government was telling them who can and can't be a tribe member. But like I said, it's not about individuals, it's about social entities that live far longer than individual humans do. In this case, tribal entities and the federal government. You didn't personally do those things, but the government did, and you're a subject of the government. Same as how your taxes pay for services you may never personally use, such as disaster relief, emergency medical and fire services, police, social security, bridges to nowhere in Alaska, and so on, some of them also pay for grievances against the government, even if you're not directly responsible. Kind of like how if your boss crashes the company into the ground, you end up jobless even though it's not your fault. Life is like that.

@Xuan12: Well stated...

It's a fair enough argument, what happened was indeed terrible, but you weren't even alive when it happened, you don't need to say sorry in any way.

@bijouxbroussard: Of course the past affects the present and the future. Our history affects who we are. However, hanging onto wrongs that happened a long time ago doesn't help anybody. I am not trivializing the wrongs, they were horrendous. They were also very common throughout history.

@mar3sword: That is dismissive. "It wasn't just you." In any other situation this is how you tell someone their pain is not important. And that is why people are still angry, and are likely to always be. This is the eternally mortgaged home in which your ancestors chose to move. It's not your fault. It's not the fault of Native Americans that you are resentful.

@bijouxbroussard: 'Their pain'? Nobody alive experienced it. I am pointing out that this historical event is not isolated. Every piece of land in the world is covered in blood.

I don't resent them. I resent the blame, and the idea that because of my skin color my thoughts are crazy because there is no way I could possibly understand. And not just me, but much smarter more educated people.

Yes, it bothers me a bit that some people are special citizens. And I am suggesting that the best way for the modern world to move on from the dark history is for people to move on from it. For people to stop tossing around blame and expecting compensation for pain they didn't experience from people who didn't inflict the pain. For people to accept that the world is the way it is and that the way forward is through education and making a home for oneself.

This question applies to the US and Australia as well...

@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.