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An Australian friend and I were having a conversation about aboriginals in Australia. She is very resentful about how they get additional money for various reasons.
I brought up how Native Americans and Inuits get additional money for various reasons but I feel no resentment at all. She seemed to think I am unusual and that she believes that the majority of Americans must be resentful.
I don't know much about the aboriginals. Where they placed in reservations out in the middle of no-wheres also? There are a lot of problems in many reservations today.... alcoholism, poverty, etc. I have a friend that goes out every year with a group and helps repair homes, etc. He's told me some of the stories about how hard life is there. I don't see anything to be resentful about.... not a thing.
I don't "resent" the fact that Natives receive monetary compensation in the wake of historical atrocities against their ancestors, but I do think that it has served virtually no purpose in bettering their socio-economic situation overall (but then again, you can also thank a lot of the localized tribal management for stagnation/declination in that area).
An Australian friend and I were having a conversation about aboriginals in Australia. She is very resentful about how they get additional money for various reasons.
I brought up how Native Americans and Inuits get additional money for various reasons but I feel no resentment at all. She seemed to think I am unusual and that she believes that the majority of Americans must be resentful.
So I am asking.
Nope.
Actually, the ones that I know are resentful are also the ones who believe white people are suffering the "real and true" racism in the US today. (So in other words, not at all any of the majority.)
Within the Australian context, Aborigines occupy both the social position of Native Americans and African Americans. This is because until relatively recently, there was a "White Australia" policy which kept out nonwhite immigrants, and the Aborigines were the only nonwhite underclass. Thus a lot of things which show up in part in anti-black animus in the U.S. (moral panic about unwed mothers, concern about welfare, or public housing, etc), are put onto Aborigines.
In addition, in the vast majority of the U.S. (besides some parts of the West) Native Americans are so rare that people never have to consider the abject poverty and squalor which still exists on many reservations - we have plenty of examples of nearly as bad poverty closer to home after all.
I don't "resent" the fact that Natives receive monetary compensation in the wake of historical atrocities against their ancestors, but I do think that it has served virtually no purpose in bettering their socio-economic situation overall (but then again, you can also thank a lot of the localized tribal management for stagnation/declination in that area).
I agree with this. It seems like government handouts (what little they get) seems to devalue their worth, not just as Natives, but as human beings. The tribes seem somewhat scattered, so what few Native Americans that are left struggle for representation within the Federal government and against the corruption within their own reservations.
There are few if any full-blooded native Americans left in the US outside of Alaskan Inuit peoples. Even most of those who live on reservations have European ancestry mixed in. They were basically wiped off the face of the planet after Europeans arrived on the continent. Not so much because of violence/atrocities from explorers (though that did occur) as it was the fact that they brought over diseases that the natives had zero immunity to.
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