A couple months ago I was happy to see Elizabeth Warren state that she thought Native Americans should be included in the conversation about whether minority groups should get reparations from the government. According to the article she is the only democrat who has entertained the idea, which is rather disappointing.
Few, if any, Americans know the real history of Native Americans in this country. We are fed a narrative since elementary school of a peaceful friendship between Pilgrims and Indians on Thanksgiving day, and then believe the stereotypes as we get older that most Native Americans are casino owners and alcoholics. We get annoyed when groups tell us to change football team logos and names because of their racist nature and tell Native Americans to "get over it."
But based on the history of violence that our own government has perpetrated on the Native American people I believe that changing football team names is the absolute LEAST we could do to make amends...I think we should be doing so much more.
To give a brief history...pretty much since the moment Europeans landed on American soil there has been violence committed against Native Americans. Whether that was by literally slaughtering tribes to take over their lands, forcing them to convert to christianity and forget their culture, or infecting them with diseases the damage done has been vast. I believe one could look back over that time period and justifiably say it was genocide. The shamefulness of it all is that it was done by the hands of our government, and there has been little if any reparations given to amend these atrocities. Many try to dismiss the need for the government to do anything by saying it was a "long time ago" but I see that as a lazy and frankly insulting excuse. The effects of those violent acts continue to harm Native Americans today. Their culture and traditions and languages are disappearing more and more. We continue to desecrate their lands by forcing oil pipelines through them.
It is time as a country to show our remorse and start valuing Native American lives. We can do that by demanding the government give tribes reparations. We can do this by demanding more laws to be passed that protect their lands. We can do this by demanding our schools to be more honest about our country's history in relation to Native Americans. We do them (and us) a disservice by sugar coating it.
I believe it can be done, and I look forward to see whether Elizabeth Warren sticks to her promise, and I hope many other politicians will follow her lead.
