Native Americans deserve better
Native Americans have been vilified, cheated, brutalized and ignored by mainstream American society. During a road trip through the Southwest, it seemed as if their situation has worsened in this country. The lies and propaganda against Native Americans by the news media and entertainment industry is disappointing. The way America abuses Native Americans is a reflection of the corruption of American society.
By Ray Hanania
Published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group August 3, 2017
As I ended a road trip to America’s majestic Southwest, I came away with some unexpected feelings, including some I already believed and others that were surprising.
I flew to Las Vegas then drove back through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming before entering the far less visually exciting “Great Plaines” of Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois.
I was surprised at how it seemed that there were so many more foreigners enjoying the tourist sites rather than Americans themselves.
Most tourists I saw at the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and many Dinosaur discovery sites like the Moenkopi T-Rex and Velociraptor footprint site were from countries like France, England, Germany, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and a lot from Japan. (The observation is anecdotal, but someone should do a study to determine the facts.)
I was also disappointed to see tourists pack places with so much less culture, or nutrition, like McDonald’s and Taco Bell. They were everywhere.
Lastly, I was reminded of what I already knew. How terribly this country treats the original Americans, “Native Americans” from Indian tribes or “Nations” that include the Cherokee, Crow, Navajo and others.
Native Americans worked some of the big tourist places where I stopped. But most were owned by others.
Worse, when I went to purchase cultural novelties, I discovered many were “Made in China.” Why would anyone want a little “handmade” doll of a Native American dressed in cultural garb that is “Made in China?”
The focus wasn’t on American history or Native American culture. It was all about the money.
I had the same uneasy feeling about this country while visiting Hawaii several years ago for the first time.
Don’t get me wrong, all of these places in the Southwest and Hawaii take your breath away. But in Hawaii, I also made the mistake of shattering myths, reading history books that contradicted the tourist messages: White Europeans stole everything from the “Natives” in America.
In Hawaii, many native Hawaiians won’t speak to White tourists – although the largest tourist group isn’t American or families of World War II veterans, but Japanese. I knew it was bad, but when you see how much was stolen from Native Hawaiians and Native Americans, you realize how bad it really is.
Throughout the trip, I saw clusters of tattered, dusty tents clustered on the road side with sparse displays of jewelry handmade by Native Americans from Navajo Tribes. Old women and children sat nearby almost begging for business. I spoke with many Native Americans and they seemed resigned to their fate.
The Grand Canyon is really grand. The huge and tall standing stone mountains in Monument Valley are awe-inspiring. Driving through mountain ranges and valleys as high as 10,603 feet in Denver is impressive. It reminded me how beautiful this country is, geographically. But I was left with a bad taste.
History I read on the trip exposed ugly truths, such as exaggerated reputations of people like General George Armstrong Custer. He’s no hero. He was a brutal crook. Custer’s “discovery” of Gold prompted the Government to break more than one treaty with Native American tribes that ignited even more land theft from the Native American Tribes.
Our real history is all about profits, money and greed. In treaty after treaty, we immigrants abused Native Americans and stole their lands. We massacred their people and when they fought back, we used that to portray them as “savages.”
Sorry folks. We’re the savages. And our history is filled with lies.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and former Chicago City Hall reporter. Email him at rghanania@gmail.com)
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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Yet one more alleged journalist that is U.S. Constitution stupid!
Politicians that are equally U.S. Constitution stupid are to blame for the ‘fraud upon the U.S. Constitution’ housed in Title 25-INDIANS beginning with the 14th Amendment’s ‘equal protection’ clause!
It never ceases to amaze me that non-Indian U.S./State citizens like Mr. Hanania are so easily ‘dumb-down,’ as ‘gullible’ by politicians into believing that they-politicians-can enact common law to make distinguishable the health, welfare, safety and benefits of a select group of U.S./State citizen because of their “Indian ancestry/race” post the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924!
Mr. Hanania’s article is an astonishing piece of a deplorable lack of journalist curiosity regarding U.S./State citizens with “Indian ancestry/race” since The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924! That single Indian Citizenship
Act of 1924, made null all previous common law-state and federal-including Presidential Executive Orders, Commerce Clause and Treaty Clause alleged Indian Treaties (if any U.S. Senate confirmed Indian treaties actually existed pre-1924 Citizenship) regarding U.S./State citizens with “Indian ancestry/race” so often touted by politicians and Indian advocates as being legitimate law.
And yet, politicians and MSM continue to perpetuate willful blindness to the Constitutional absurdity that Congress, Presidents/Governors, Initiatives and Referendums can make distinguishable the capacities, metes and boundaries of a select group of U.S./State citizens with “Indian ancestry/race” post citizenship.
The United States Constitution makes for no provisions for:
1. Indian sovereign nations. None of the asserted tribes possess any of the attributes of being a ‘sovereign nation:’ a. No U.S. Constitution recognition b. No international recognition c. No fixed borders d. No military e. No currency f. No postal system g. No passports h. et al
2. Treaties with its own constituency
3. Indian reservations whereby a select group of U.S./State citizens with “Indian ancestry/race” reside exclusively and to the exclusion of all others, on land-with rare exception-that is owned by the People of the United States according to federal documents readily available on-line that notes rights of renters as ‘occupancy and use’ by these distinguished U.S./State citizens with “Indian ancestry/race” only with the land owned by the People of the United States.
4. Recognition of ‘Indian citizenship’ asserted by various tribes. There is no international/U.S. Constitution
recognition of “Indian citizenship” as there is no ‘nation-state’ from which citizenship is derived.
A simple question for Mr. Hanania, politicians and MSM to answer…a question so simple, it is hard:
“Where is the proclamation ratified by the voters of the United States that amends the Constitution to make the health, welfare, safety and benefits of a select group of U.S./State citizens distinguishable because of their “Indian ancestry/race?”