# What can be done to help Native Americans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 2, 2017, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290 "2017-09-02T01:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/21 "2017-09-03T06:32:55Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Native Americans mostly weren’t hunter-gatherers before Euros arrived, and they aren’t ‘subsistence’ farmers or hunters today. Not that I really disagree with anything you have said but: a) I didn’t say that all nor most Native Americans were hunter gatherers when the Europeans came. In fact, I made no attempt to break out the division between farmers and hunter gatherers at all, simply noting that both existed. b) While there were significant farming civilizations among the Native Americans, in North, South, and Central America, there were also large swaths of lands that were principally occupied by nomadic peoples. E.g. [this list of Plain’s tribes](http://www.historyonthenet.com/native-americans-tribesnations) or, while I have only heard excerpts from them, I understand that Spanish tales of sailing around South America or down the Amazon featured wide varieties of small, hunter gatherer tribes. Overall, I suspect that a full study of farmer versus hunter gatherer society, covering the entirety of the Americas, including the islands, would either come out 50/50 or in favor of nomadic lifestyles. But even if that is not correct, see point **a** above. c) I did not, anywhere in my post, describe how modern day Native Americans live, other than by mentioning that they get last choice infrastructure and build casinos in the reservations, neither of which seems like a reasonable start point to inferring that I somehow think that modern Native Americans are living a Neolithic lifestyle. > [@](#): > > Most Native Americans today also use modern medicine, live in normal houses, go to school and watch TV, so all I can say is you have a strange idea of what modern conditions are like. While I will grant that I did not specify that Native Americans are no longer living in the “traditional” way, given that that’s **the subject of the thread** seemed like it should have made that sufficiently clear to anyone reading the thread. So, yes, you are correct. But, no, that’s a bizarre reading of my words. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/22 "2017-09-03T06:38:49Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > This may seem a somewhat insensitive statement but, to a large extent, Native American culture is dying because it sucks. While not stated in the most diplomatic language, this. While the American culture has done a lot of bad things to Native Americans (like genocide, for example) it has also tried just about every good thing. Recently, in a wonderful bit of serendipity, Native Americans were given the right to operate casinos. Have you seen an improvement in their lot? We may argue as to how we got in this situation, but here we are. Native American culture is close to dead and cannot be saved. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/23 "2017-09-03T06:50:56Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Are the reservations ‘theirs’? Do they actually own them? Can they borrow against, mortgage, sell or develop them as they so choose? > > I think not. No one is going to invest in development on your spread of land if you’re not the title holder. How much do you expect the natives themselves to invest in developing that land, when it can, and historically HAS, been taken away should it prove of any value? > > Maybe that’s a good place to start? My understanding is that one of the problems with reservations is not that there’s much concern that the US government is going to take them away, but that the land is all owned by the “tribe”, and the Native Americans don’t really own their own land, so there’s no incentive to improve it or build anything of value on it. Basically, all the problems you outlined, except the entity that’s causing the problems is the tribal government, not the US government. IANAI, so all of this is second-hand information. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/24 "2017-09-03T06:56:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Big checks to every inhabitant of any locality would indeed change that small town. If everyone in a shitty place suddenly has money to spend, then businesses will come to sell things they want. Those businesses will have jobs. And so on. > > Maybe not a panacea, but big inputs of money really can change a place. I did a project with a credit union that worked almost exclusively with a tribe. Every adult member of the tribe received a substantial pay-out every month thanks to the casino. It was basically the closest I’ve seen to something like a UBI, and their lives were still a mess. “Just throw more money at it” doesn’t seem like a complete solution. Here, take a look at [this Slate article](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2007/03/cherokee_perks.html) > [@](#): > > The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, for example, has paid its members $30,000 per month from casino earnings. They’re basically Sweden, but still a shitty place to live. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/25 "2017-09-03T07:23:27Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > While not stated in the most diplomatic language, this. While the American culture has done a lot of bad things to Native Americans (like genocide, for example) it has also tried just about every good thing. Recently, in a wonderful bit of serendipity, Native Americans were given the right to operate casinos. Have you seen an improvement in their lot? > > We may argue as to how we got in this situation, but here we are. Native American culture is close to dead and cannot be saved. It reminds me of species which have gotten so low in numbers that they’re below a critical threshold and are doomed. I don’t know how far we can take the analogy between genetics, culture and economy though. I’m also curious about what it means to preserve native cultures. Rely on 15th century economic activity? That’s gonna suck. Speak the same language and have the same cultural references? It might be difficult to get people to produce and consume cultural goods for/from a small base. Culture and especially language are subject to network effects. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/26 "2017-09-03T07:24:52Z")
As to actually helping Native Americans live better (rather than helping them reclaim their culture), a very specific recommendation that I could suggest would be that the tribes team up and start issuing a “complementary currency” to the US Dollar for rural areas. They can pitch it as an alternative currency that allows monetarist intervention to stabilize the economy separately from the big business of the cities, helping to prevent the sort of issue that Greece ran into in the EU of being too different economically from the factory and high tech nations, but unable to set monetary policy in a way that made sense for their needs. Being spread around nationally, but almost universally in rural areas, and having partial sovereignty, makes native lands an ideal place to provide banking services and starting the initial stores and outlets that work natively in Native currency. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/27 "2017-09-03T08:48:06Z")
An intrastate economic union of the various tribes would be great. Also, do the various reservations have full political autonomy? If not, they should; they should be actual separate nation-states. ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/28 "2017-09-03T09:13:14Z")
How many of you commenting have spent significant time on a reservation? Because I have. I worked for over a year at a business located on a reservation in Washington state. And it was the sorriest, most depressing place I have ever seen. Adult men visibly drunk, standing on streets during work hours. All the real farm land owned and operated by 6th generation white men, who employ illegal immigrants to farm it. You want to know what “reparations” would be like? Look at what happens when some trailer park denizen wins the lottery. It would be useless at best and more harmful at worst. The best way to help Native Americans is to abandon the fiction that they aren’t Americans. Stop throwing them scraps and tell them to jump in and participate as citizens. Reservations are an insulting lie. They have no real authority other than the condescending paternalism that US law enforcement chooses to give them at their convenience. Lose the whole reservation garbage and tell them to sink or swim like every other American. This will fix it. Yeah, it’s a painful dose of medicine that might cause some short term suffering. But the reservation system is a cancer that needs to be cut out for long term benefit. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/29 "2017-09-03T09:40:15Z")
> [@Smitty](#): > > How many of you commenting have spent significant time on a reservation? I have not, though I did grow up near a community of non-reservation holding Native Americans and their town was generally avoided by everyone due to general fear of drunkenness and violence. About a decade ago, a reservation was summoned into existence in the area, for a casino to be put on that had no relation to the local tribe and was not granted to them. > [@](#): > > The best way to help Native Americans is to abandon the fiction that they aren’t Americans. Stop throwing them scraps and tell them to jump in and participate as citizens. Reservations are an insulting lie. They have no real authority other than the condescending paternalism that US law enforcement chooses to give them at their convenience. Lose the whole reservation garbage and tell them to sink or swim like every other American. This will fix it. While I agree with the sentiment, I am simply too loath to believe that there aren’t legal loopholes that can be baked in to the reservation system. While it may be that the reservation system has largely hurt the communities, if there is to be anything that can end up directly supporting them, I would have to believe that this would be the nucleus. Removing the reservations in whole still isn’t going to put them on desirable land, it’s not going to make them a large voting block, it’s not going to put them near commercial centers, etc. It doesn’t really advantage them in any way in a practical sense. They’re still in bumfuck nowhere with no jobs and a remote government that won’t give a shit. At least with the reservations, there might be a chance that they can take advantage of their bizarre legal status in a way that benefits them in a way that can lead to actual jobs. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/30 "2017-09-03T12:24:42Z")
No, they DONT own the land. And they have historically been unceremoniously removed to less valuable land at the whim of those in power. First we valued fertile fields for growing crops and shifted them to forests. When we wanted timber we shifted them to useless rock outcrops. When we needed ores or oil we just shifted them again. And if we need the resources beneath where we have them now we WILL simply shift them off to whatever we deem to be useless land without hesitation. Because we own the land, not them. Part of why we can force a pipeline on them at the point of a gun. As it’s always been, shamefully. If you want to fix things consider fixing this first. They only get to have casinos because we let them. How wrong is that? Would you be invested in fixing or building up your land if it could be snatched from you anytime? And has been, repeatedly throughout history. Would you build homes and businesses on land you don’t own? Truth has to come before reconciliation. And the truth is if this was any other minority being denied outright ownership of land that, by treaty, they should properly own, the UN would be involved I should think. Canada has enough crown land to make good on every treaty with the First Nations peoples, ten times over. No, we can’t return Vancouver island to them, but we could make them whole with an equal number of acres of virgin forests, mountains and valleys. Are we doing so? No, instead were considering a deep water port just off Haida Gwai. An absolute outright crime, in my humble opinion! ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/31 "2017-09-03T18:01:01Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > This may seem a somewhat insensitive statement but, to a large extent, Native American culture is dying because it sucks. > > Despite what Fern Gully and Avatar might say, sleeping on a dirt floor, practicing subsistence farming or hunting/gathering, having your illnesses tended to by a man whose only real medical ability is to sing and dance, having no TV or radio, no school, no equality of the sexes, no democratic process, etc. all suck. > > After all, consider the throngs of hippies just rushing to go enter the forest and live a Neolithic life. There ain’t no one stopping any of you from swapping out your Levis for a thong, grabbing a sharp stone, and trying to find a nice chunk of natural clay near a stream that doesn’t give you dysentery too often. Don’t worry, you’ll learn to love the 30% infant mortality rate! > > Native Americans are, unfortunately, in a bad place. They feel like they’re not supposed to abandon their traditions, at the same time as realizing that the life that was stolen from them would have been worse than the one they were forced to have. But by virtue of not being part of the country and through prejudice on the part of the white governments through most of history, they’ve always gotten last rate everything in terms of schools and infrastructure. > > Their population has stayed small and isolated to undesirable locations. Widespread alcoholism has kept crime high and the desire for someone to start a factory, farm, or other sort of serious business low. > > Effectively, they tried to walk a middle path and that failed them. Now that the outside world has stopped being hostile to them, it also has become a clearly better place than the old dream, but the middle path and centuries of hostility has left them in a poor place to start building. Taking advantage of reservation sovereignty afforded them some opportunities to create tax havens, etc. but so far that hasn’t panned out terribly well. Casinos seemed like they might start to help the communities, but that just seems to have caused the states to start legalizing gambling all over the country, by proclaiming any old land “Native Territory” and granting some white guy ownership. This is sad but true. Some tribes found oil or gambling to make a living, but the culture and people seem to lack a desire to do better. Where I live the Seminole tribe has the Hard Rock Casino, and each tribe member of 100% blood gets $10,000.00 a month! They are born with a winning lottery ticket. The bad news is there is little incentive to work. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/32 "2017-09-03T18:26:46Z")
If the majority of Native Americans don’t want to or can’t be bothered to “save” their culture, then why should a bunch of white people care in the least if it disappears? All cultures have to adapt to changing conditions or die. Cultural evolution is a harsh mistress. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/33 "2017-09-03T20:44:48Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > This is sad but true. Some tribes found oil or gambling to make a living, but the culture and people seem to lack a desire to do better. Here in central CA, the challenge seems to be that the tribe keeps throwing people out of the tribe to give the remaining pool a larger paycheck. (Table mountain Rancheria) Or in one case a real live shootout at the casino between opposing political factions within the tribe over who should be in charge… (chukchansi gold casino) ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/34 "2017-09-03T21:09:22Z")
> [@Smitty](#): > > How many of you commenting have spent significant time on a reservation? Because I have. I worked for over a year at a business located on a reservation in Washington state. And it was the sorriest, most depressing place I have ever seen. Adult men visibly drunk, standing on streets during work hours. All the real farm land owned and operated by 6th generation white men, who employ illegal immigrants to farm it. You want to know what “reparations” would be like? Look at what happens when some trailer park denizen wins the lottery. It would be useless at best and more harmful at worst. > > The best way to help Native Americans is to abandon the fiction that they aren’t Americans. Stop throwing them scraps and tell them to jump in and participate as citizens. Reservations are an insulting lie. They have no real authority other than the condescending paternalism that US law enforcement chooses to give them at their convenience. Lose the whole reservation garbage and tell them to sink or swim like every other American. This will fix it. > > Yeah, it’s a painful dose of medicine that might cause some short term suffering. But the reservation system is a cancer that needs to be cut out for long term benefit. Do you think, though, that they can assimilate fully (be told to “sink or swim” as you put it) without losing their identities fully? I mean in terms of the language, culture, etc. I’m not arguing for a reset to their state in 1500 or so, that would be impossible and would be unfair. But I also don’t believe the culture is dying because it “sucks” as someone else said. They’ve been beaten down time and time again. And I feel like, from what you’re saying, it’s kind of lose-lose for them. Which makes me really sad. The nature of the treatment of the Natives is one of the saddest things in history to me. It’s even sadder than the Holocaust. The Holocaust was systematic murder and horrific, but the Jews at least retained their culture, their historic languages, their customs; they were able to bounce back as a people; Israel didn’t become a giant reservation. The fact that the Native was so crushed, and so broken, by the repeated assaults on them is so heart-breaking. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/35 "2017-09-03T21:11:09Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > If the majority of Native Americans don’t want to or can’t be bothered to “save” their culture, then why should a bunch of white people care in the least if it disappears? All cultures have to adapt to changing conditions or die. Cultural evolution is a harsh mistress. Because the whole reason their culture is so decimated is kind of our/white people’s fault. That may sound paternalistic, but, how many times were they lied to, betrayed, had land stolen from them by force, were treated like utter shit? Why should we not care, when our predecessors had a big hand in shaping their current lot? ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/36 "2017-09-03T21:12:12Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > While not stated in the most diplomatic language, this. While the American culture has done a lot of bad things to Native Americans (like genocide, for example) it has also tried just about every good thing. Recently, in a wonderful bit of serendipity, Native Americans were given the right to operate casinos. Have you seen an improvement in their lot? > > We may argue as to how we got in this situation, but here we are. Native American culture is close to dead and cannot be saved. Let me ask you something: Why do you think the measures taken that you mention haven’t helped? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/37 "2017-09-03T21:31:48Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > Because the whole reason their culture is so decimated is kind of our/white people’s fault. That may sound paternalistic, but, how many times were they lied to, betrayed, had land stolen from them by force, were treated like utter shit? Why should we not care, when our predecessors had a big hand in shaping their current lot? So what, and no. Sucks to be them, but that’s what conquering nations do. Do you think Julius Caesar said “I came, I saw, I felt really bad about it?” (Thank you, Jane!) If you want to be really paternalistic, you give them opportunities to assimilate. After that, they are on their own. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/38 "2017-09-03T22:14:26Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > … > If this is true, what can be done to save the Native American peoples, and what remains of their identities and cultures? > … I’ll re-ask the question I asked earlier, but in a different way. Earlier I asked \*how \*we might do this if we had magic-level powers. Now I’ll take a different tack. What _outcome_ would constitute “saving?” What would “save / preserve / improve / strengthen their identity” look like? What would “save / preserve / improve / strengthen their culture” look like? Which of those 4 action words is the one that best describes what we’re doing? Or is there some other word you (any you) prefer to pursue? It’s a truism in management that you can’t manage to a goal until you can specify the goal. Until we can choose a destination we can’t navigate. Nor figure out what vehicle / process might move us from here to there. So let’s start with the easy part: defining the goal. Then we can think about vehicles and paths that might work to take us from current reality to the goal state. Is the end state something like Quebec, a distinct fully modern culture within a larger country that even speaks a different language? Or like Puerto Rico culturally distinct and sorta-within the USA and sorta-not? Or more like the concentration of Chinese in and around San Francisco: some immigrants and some 10th generation locals? Like the large and variegated Jewish community in and around NYC? I am clueless on the details of any one tribe’s culture, much less all of them. My grade school-based caricature of their societies is of something much more communal than our 21st Century finance capitalism and disintegrating nuclear families. If so, that’s going to be a tough cultural feature to grow and nurture in the modern world. Last night **Hector\_St\_Clare** introduced a comparison to the Amish. That might be apt. They define themselves by their separateness from the mainstream society; the “English” in their parlance. They pick and choose what aspects of modernity to embrace and what to eschew. Their creed is ascetic, which they believe gives more room for what matters: a relationship with the Earth, with others, and with their god. Does any of that fit any tribes’ molds? Would that be something to model? I know I don’t know. Above all it seems to me that “helping NA culture”, “helping tribe X”, and “helping particular NA person X” may have three very different answers. If they do have different answers, then doing a good job on any one may be antithetical to doing a good job on the others. It takes great fortitude to be Amish. Some Dopers live in Amish country and have written of learning about their Amish neighbors’ struggles with dedicating their lives to doing it the hard way. And with the pain of kids who leave and don’t come back. Maybe the kindest thing to do for some fraction of NA people is to encourage them to simply be American individuals as the rest of us are. I’m not advocating for forced assimilation. I’m questioning whether we have unnecessary barriers to voluntary assimilation that trap people in dead ends they’d rather escape. I know that I don’t know. But I think the OP might want to noodle on what he thinks success would look like. Otherwise we’re likely to be doing “ready shoot aim.” ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/39 "2017-09-03T22:22:37Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I’ll re-ask the question I asked earlier, but in a different way. Earlier I asked \*how \*we might do this if we had magic-level powers. > > Now I’ll take a different tack. What _outcome_ would constitute “saving?” What would “save / preserve / improve / strengthen their identity” look like? What would “save / preserve / improve / strengthen their culture” look like? Which of those 4 action words is the one that best describes what we’re doing? Or is there some other word you (any you) prefer to pursue? Well, from what one guy posted, the reservations are a mess in terms of morale and quality of life. I’ve read from others that the culture is being lost because people are leaving the ranch. It just seems to me like a hellish life. What would it look like? It would look to me like a life where the Native was proud to be a Native, wherein he or she enjoyed prosperity on par with their American counterparts; where the Reservations were united in some monetary way ala the Eurozone; where they had full autonomy. As far as their culture? Perhaps some federal funding to cultural programs to better educate/provide incentives for the youth to learn about their heritage and culture. Improve their quality of life; Improve their sense of pride; Increase their autonomy; Help to increase a unified “Native” sentiment as an identity; Help to protect the historic languages from going extinct; Help to preserve the tales and traditions which make up the various tribal cultures. > [@](#): > > Is the end state something like Quebec, a distinct fully modern culture within a larger country that even speaks a different language? Or like Puerto Rico culturally distinct and sorta-within the USA and sorta-not? Or more like the concentration of Chinese in and around San Francisco: some immigrants and some 10th generation locals? Ideally somewhere between Quebec and Puerto Rico. They deserve full autonomy, with some grandfathered legal protections and status that ends after a certain point. I would ideally love if they could be separate nation states or be given the same status as Puerto Rico, but with greater administrative and legal autonomy. I just want us to make up for what we did. My ancestors weren’t here when the Natives were put to genocide, but I’m sitting on stolen land nonetheless. I don’t feel guilty about it. But I feel there has to be more we can do to meet the objectives I outlined. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/40 "2017-09-03T22:34:25Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > Improve their quality of life; > Improve their sense of pride; > Increase their autonomy; > Help to increase a unified “Native” sentiment as an identity; > Help to protect the historic languages from going extinct; > Help to preserve the tales and traditions which make up the various tribal cultures. In order: Why? More specifically, why _them_? All sorts of groups and people have been fucked over by TPTB. Why should Native Americans get special treatment that others don’t? They can get pride on their own dime. Fuck autonomy. That way lies rebellion, revolution and madness. Assimilate or die. Again, why? See above. Yet again, why? So nobody speaks some Athabasca dialect anymore. Big whoop. Take it to Wiki. Record all the tales and traditions you want. None of my concern. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290.md?page=3)