With all of the injustices that the Native American population of North America has faced in the centuries since European settlers first set foot on their soil, it is easy to lose hope for any solace in solution. From the mass incarceration and police violence faced by Native youth, to the poverty and unemployment running rampant on reservations, to the continued dispossession and exploitation of natural resources of Native lands, to the sexual violence against Native women by non-Native attackers, to the health issues and youth suicide rates on reservations, there is no dearth of problems faced by the community. Finding a solid solution and implementing that will be extremely difficult – one cannot simply undo over two hundred years of subjugation and genocide. However, it can be and must be done.
With regard to police violence, a movement inspired by Black Lives Matter, called Native Lives Matter, is beginning to call attention to the problem that pervades reservation life. According to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, Native Americans are the most likely racial group to be killed by the police, followed closely by African Americans. Despite this very few media outlets, other than Native American-centric ones, do not report on this pattern of violence. Mainstream America suffers from “willful blindness” when it comes to most issues regarding Native Americans due to the whole genocide debacle, and a reason for this might be because of the perception that Native Americans are a population in decline. While there are only 5.2 million Native Americans compared to 45 million African Americans and Native Americans have been systemically isolated to reservations that are far removed from non-Native society, their issues are not any less important. An easy and important solution to this blindness is simply media coverage and education, similar to that advocated for by Black Lives Matter. Native Americans are speaking up against systemic police violence through Native Lives Matter, and it is time that their message is also carried by major new sources, not in competition but conjecture with Black Lives Matter.
Another issue faced by Native Americans is the fact that First Nation tribes are classified as “dependent domestic nations,” meaning that they are sovereign groups on federally-owned and controlled land. This means that while they are responsible for setting up tribal governments and tribal police forces, they remain dependent on the federal government for funding and much of their infrastructure, and this means that the federal government can cease their land and resources whenever they desire. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is meant to take care of the reservations and protect Native Americans, but the Supreme Court and the rest of the government usually uses it simply to exploit the First Nations peoples that have already been robbed of so much. There is no easy solution to this problem, as it is rooted in a system of bureaucratic nonsense, but there are two main camps that propose two very different solutions. The first solution is that the Department of the Interior and the President can reform the Bureau so that Native American problems are actually addressed and solved; the second is that the government can give complete sovereignty back to the tribes, a solution that likely will never occur due to the logistic and geopolitical issues that it would create.
Finally, many tribal leaders promote the idea of cultural education. They believe that if Native Americans and non-Natives alike have a better understanding of cultural traditions and history, then problems will be known, and solutions will be worked towards. This could be achieved by preserving powwow ceremonies, more spiritual rituals, and tribal languages.
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