To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, the Pentagon has gone all out with ceremonies across the United States, from an Air Force-sponsored intertribal powwow in Florida to a celebration of Native American aircraft nose art in Oregon.
The military has also been pumping out feel-good stories about Native American troops: one South Dakota National Guardsman from the Oglala Sioux tribe was allowed to grow out his hair, and an Air National Guardsmen from the District of Columbia who belongs to four different tribes reflected in his Lakota, Seneca, Navajo, and Comanche heritage.
“Acknowledging Native veterans and Native contributions is terrific. And there are a lot of proud Native veterans. But it’s one of those gestures that is nice in theory but is, perhaps, meant to whitewash how we understand Native American history and how Native Americans ended up in the place that we did,.
Another expert on the topic put it more bluntly. “The Army was, bottom line, an instrument of a settler colonial empire that was determined to convert Native lands into private property for mostly white settlers “That was its mission: to carry out a federal government policy that, in practice, often became a genocidal war.”
Yeah, that excuses precisely 0% of what Colonialism did to them and does not absolve the current Powers That Be of that sin, either.
Don’t forget, it’s not our fault, but it is our responsibility.
None of these people are alive anymore. We owe nothing to anyone that we don’t already owe everyone.
I’m not “excusing what colonialism did to them” are you excusing what the tribes did to each other? This is a problem with humanity not a particular country.
So your point is… ? How does their aggression figure into justifying your initial observation on a post related to their continued colonisation?
I’m not trying to justify anything, but I’d say it’s pretty hard to compare some local territorial squabbles to literally sailing hundreds of thousands of foreigners on the lands they inhabited, all but exterminating them all when they (quite correctly, if you ask me) fought back against their conditions and the things done to them, then corralling the ones who were left into almost literal zoos.
My point is the problem is that the human species will take land and resources from eachother using violence. But you’re framing that as “America bad” not humans bad.
No, I’m framing that as “some things are worse than others.” But R.I.P. nuance, I guess.
Right you’re trying to target Americans for something that is problematic with humans across the planet. You’re doing this to frame American behavior as worse than other human behavior.
All little kids get into mischief, fact. Old man Nelson’s truck was eventually going to end up in the lake, fact. Why are you focusing on whether or not I crashed his truck into the lake?
Hello, bad faith argument! I’m out.