Issues and Problems Facing Native Americans today


Issues and Problems Facing Native Americans Today

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/13-native-american-issues_n_55b7d801e4b0074ba5a6869c?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANou_s97LcrroQoEtn9W52_mWldgsW5b0XgGwmCvrL48AXJ_6D7nKwN1D1MyDpG01XXVIfne6XrF2dtBgIlAilL6W7f7nI6s4NkIf6GCp76rjpLTAo5WBy9t7z0AITkp7Aki1B7o89l3qayZR5-VjEMmoJlHF40BkMqr1RcK5JUY 


The Unites States today is a mixing pot of all different kinds of cultures, from Italians to Indians, African Americans and Chinese. But the first communities, even before the Europeans were Native Americans. Although being first and native to the New Land, Native Americans have gone through what some people could call a genocide. Still today, Native Americans are the most persecuted and decriminalized ethnicity in the US.

According to this article by Huff Post from July 30th 2015 by Julian Brave NoiseCat, there are 13 important issues that Native Americans face today, from economic ones to social ones.

The article starts by stating the issues most popular to the media that Natives are confronted to, Native American sports mascots, the casino problem and some other controversies. But Native Americans deal with even more scandalous issues daily that not many people talk or know about.

To start, it is explained that each recognized tribe has its own government and so the relationship between the US government and these tribes are international or government to government relations, but most of these issues are spread through out the United States and target every tribe/native.

For instance, Native Americans face mass incarceration and police brutality. While they are only 1 percent of the US population, they are victims of 2 percent of all police killings and are a big percentage of american jails.
High rates to poverty are also one of the problems they face with unemployment rates sometimes up to 60 percent. To add, Native American houses are very often overcrowded and of poor quality, have bad or no healthcare.
The US government is also taking away sacred territory from Natives and exploiting natural resources from these territories. But these territories do not really own to Natives and are "loaned" to them by the US which makes it near impossible to start businesses etc. It is also extremely difficult for Native Americans to vote as there are no polling places. Furthermore, many native tribes are not recognized as natives, so do not have access to native rights.
Native American women and children also face the most chances of between sexually assaulted, raped or abused. This percentage is higher than any other ethnicity in the US. They also have extremely high levels of PTSD and an alarmingly high amount of youth suicide. Children are also failing school and do not tend to graduate high school.
Natives languages are becoming extinct and the culture is dying. 

In a nutshell, Native Americans face one to many issues. These issues could be linked to the modern idea of the myth of the good savage. This myth putting Natives in an image of inferiority and the racist and xenophobic culture behind this myth and its historic context can explain some of theses problems. All is rooted in the idea that Natives come from a primitive and "savage and uncivilized" society. Unconscious bias can sometimes link theses ideas together, as so the history of theses tribes will often be seen as negative. These issues can be seen as the descendant or modern version of the myth.

Comments

  1. Philippe ThivillierOctober 8, 2019 at 12:32 PM

    OK, Hadil. This looks interesting but why did you not insert any pictures at all?.

    ReplyDelete

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