# 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:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**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, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/41 "2017-09-03T22:45:05Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > 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. We’re currently trying to address other mistreated groups. Don’t you think the group that was mistreated first should also get consideration here? You assume it would create rebellion. Assimilate or die? Does that attitude extend to new arrivals here, as well? “Big whoop.” Would you feel the same way if Hebrew was dying out because of the genocide inflicted on the Jewish people? You can’t just say “Big whoop” to an aftereffect of genocide. Do you support BLM? If so, why is that your concern, but the plight of the Native isn’t? ---
**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, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/42 "2017-09-03T23:17:02Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > You assume it would create rebellion. Assimilate or die? Does that attitude extend to new arrivals here, as well? Fucking well right it does. And people who immigrate here know it and support it. It’s only a faction of the white liberal class that thinks every culture needs to be appreciated and nurtured within a country that isn’t where the culture is. OK, that made little sense, but studies and surveys have shown for decades that immigrant parents are the strongest supporters of assimilation. They want their kids to be _Americans_, not wherevertheycamefromers. Your patriarchal and quite frankly condescending attitudes towards Native Americans is what is holding them back, not pushing them forwards. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/43 "2017-09-04T02:00:40Z")
Would it be safe to say that every country on the globe had been conquered at one time or another. How many countries have made special allowances to protect the culture of the country that they took over. We no longer do this and that is a good thing but how can you go back and make some feeble attempt to make reparations to people who have long since died. You just can’t go back and change history. ---
**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 4, 2017, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/44 "2017-09-04T07:34:41Z")
> [@Reddy\_Mercury](#): > > Let me ask you something: > > Why do you think the measures taken that you mention haven’t helped? I do not know. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/45 "2017-09-04T15:35:59Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > 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) > > They’re basically Sweden, but still a shitty place to live. Based on the link below, life for the Santa Ynez Band, at least, has changed drastically: > **[A Life of Payouts, Not Handouts](https://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-chumash3dec0304-story.html)** > > Casino riches recast the Chumash landscape. Tribal members, with spending power like never before, confront new challenges. It doesn’t sound like it’s fixed every single problem, but it has resulted in financial security and drastically improved quality of life, along with many other benefits. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/46 "2017-09-04T17:45:46Z")
One possibility, have more women in charge. Yes you heard it. Thing is most tribes have been run by “Chiefs” and they tend to be corrupt and frankly idiots. When women take over tribal leadership roles it seems things are run better. It was the same in the old days. Yes, the men hunted. Then they brought the food home and it was the women who did all the hard work of preserving meat, tanning hides, and basically taking care of the camp while the men lazed around talking about the glorious days of the hunt. ---
**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 4, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/47 "2017-09-04T17:51:53Z")
Dude, that’s been the solution to any number of Life’s Problems. Get men out of the picture and shit gets _done_. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/48 "2017-09-04T20:12:54Z")
> [@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? > > 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.” With due respect, that’s not what I said. You’re confusing what I said with the comment to which I was responding. My response was this: "Your comparison of the Amish is also sort of weak since in contrast to the Native Americans Amish culture developed largely in reaction to modernity, but in any case the Amish aren’t having any problem replenishing their numbers, quite the opposite. Neither are the Haredim. (In contrast to the Amish and Haredim, Native Americans have the lowest fertility rate of any major ethnic group in America). " I don’t really see Native Americans as analogous to the Amish. Puerto Ricans would be a better analogy. So might one of the many ethno-national groups in Europe, with the exception that Native Americans don’t have an independent country. My more general point was that embracing modern technology and participating the modern economy, at least to a large degree, doesn’t preclude maintaining a distinct culture. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290/49 "2017-09-04T20:45:38Z")
1. Create jobs on or near the reservations. 2. Repurchase privately owned land on reservations and give it back to the tribes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-can-be-done-to-help-native-americans/795290.md?page=2)