Reflecting on Native Americans in the US

On July 4, I wrote a post talking about Native Americans and how they have been treated by the United States government and people. Upon reflection the last couple of weeks, I wanted to put together a more dedicated, articulate, and hopefully productive post.

Over the last few years, I have started to educate myself on the history of the Native Americans, their culture, and the difficulties that they face today. Part of this was due to my job at Stanford: Native Americans, particularly Natives who have grown up on reservations, are one of the most at-risk populations in higher education with respect to dropping out and depression. But a large part of this was also due to my almost comprehensive lack of knowledge about these topics.

The treatment of Native Americans by the United States government over the years has been deplorable at best and genocidal at worst. The number of times that we have broken treaties with different tribes is shameful and yet these past actions have not influenced our national consciousness in recent interactions. As you probably know, the tribes that were placed onto reservations (and not utterly decimated) have been largely put on the worst lands in the country. These lands often did not meet the needs or culture of the tribe and in many cases the land was very difficult to cultivate through farming.

Unfortunately, it is easy to categorize these actions as things of the past and that we surely could not be continuing such racist actions/policies today. Some will say that American Indians DID sign treaties on behalf of their people, but often times, these were individuals who were not recognized as tribal leaders and were often bribed. It would be akin to the US speaking to a Cuban émigré, making him an offer to have all the Cubans leave Cuba, getting him to sign an agreement, and then the US taking over the island “legally.”

Others may be aware that the US government set up the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior to be an advocate for Native American peoples and tribes. The reality is that the BIA has wavered in effectiveness, at times being a vocal advocate and at other times being a complete sham. In fact, it seems that the BIA is only effective when there isn’t something the US government really wants from American Indians.

What boggles my mind is why we as non-Native Americans are so unreceptive to their wishes. For example, there has been a strong push to remove American Indian mascots from universities and sports teams. One of the most offensive of these mascots is the Washington Redskins (in football). The term “redskin” itself is a derogatory term. Aside from our 50-year tradition with football, why wouldn’t we just say, “After everything that we have done to Native Americans, the least we can do is grant them this dignity”? My own alma mater, Stanford University, faced a similar decision almost 40 years ago and decided to change its mascot from the Stanford Indians to the Stanford Cardinal. Yet when I go to home football games, there is still a noticeable number of alumni who wear their Stanford Indians apparel defiantly. And I won’t even get into the Tomahawk Chop used by the Atlanta Braves.

So let me ask you, what is our problem here? What are we giving up by changing our names and traditions that gets anywhere close to what Native Americans have been forced to give up?

Are we being forced to relocate off our lands? Are we being forced to adopt a new religion so that we lose our culture? Are we being forcibly walked hundreds of miles to relocate (Trail of Tears)? The answer to all of these is obviously no, yet we still cannot get ourselves to concede even the slightest of accommodations to them.

I have heard the arguments not to change mascots, too. They normally revolve around two points: 1) not all American Indians care about changing the name, in fact it’s only a small minority of Indians who do care and 2) the name is our way of honoring American Indians (which still doesn’t explain the Washington Redskins). Even if it is a small minority of American Indians who want the name changed and don’t find this “honoring” to be dignified, what does it matter? Plus, there have been no Native American groups that have fought to keep the mascot names, many of them are simply indifferent. In other words, they are saying, “I won’t let this injustice bother me any more – this is not the battle I want to fight.” And furthermore with argument #2, why don’t we listen to how American Indians want their heritage to be honored?

And changing team names in sports is the most minor of concessions. When I was at Devil’s Tower, a sacred site for Natives, I learned that they had requested that rock climbers not climb the monument during the month of June. They had not sought a legal injunction, just asked that we respect their wishes. While the vast majority of groups have done so, there was and still is a small minority that has asserted their right to climb the monument, resulting in this 1999 appellate court decision. I understand that the Department of the Interior backed American Indians on this one, but the bigger question for me is why don’t we have it in our national consciousness to acknowledge our numerous previous injustices and let some of this go without a fight or roadblock?

In my earlier post, I made a comparison to Germany and their national consciousness and guilt about Nazism and the Holocaust. It is as if we as a country lack the ability to say that we are sorry about forced relocation of American Indians, about slavery, and about numerous other injustices (anti-miscegenation laws, for one). Instead, we seem to say, “aren’t you over that yet?”

I have been reading Cadillac Desert, a book that documents the overuse of water in the west and in one part, Marc Reisner documents the Ice Harbor Dam on the Columbia River that was built in the 1950s that flooded reservation lands. The reservation was displaced and moved to worse lands. When they asked for the smallest of concessions (a miniscule amount of water rights to use to irrigate their newer (and poorer lands) and the right to the timber on their reservation that would be destroyed by the creation of the dam), these concessions were denied. The name of lake created by the dam? Lake Sacajawea. Classy move.

If you are interested in learning more about Native American history or culture, I would recommend the following books and authors:

On the Rez, Ian Frazier (a book by a White man who has spent a large amount of time on the Pine Ridge Reservation)

Where White Men Fear To Tread, The Autobiography of Russell Means (just a fascinating book documenting the failures of the BIA and his clashes with the US government from the 60s to the 90s)

Reservation Blues, The Toughest Indian In The World, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven – all by Sherman Alexie (Sherman Alexie is a very gifted writer and mixes Native humor, the overwhelming sense of tragedy, and non-linear time into brilliant story-telling who also wrote the screenplays for Smoke Signals and The Business of Fancydancing)

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.