[2012-Feb-19] We're sorry for taking this awesome land

[Soliloquy]

It's good to know that I'm not the only one who's bothered by this. Everyone says how sorry they are that the Americans mistreated the natives and stole their land.

At the same time, there is no way in hell anyone would seriously consider giving them their land back.

It's got to seem about as sincere as stealing someone's car, then later driving up to them in their car and telling them how horrible it was to steal it, and driving off again.

So, yeah... I don't think we're as sorry for stealing the land as we pretened to be.

[DonRetrasado]

Do you know an aboriginal person?

[Right]

Stop crying natives, if you really wanted your land you wouldn't have got murdered so much.

[ChaoticBrain]

If they had just invented a better use for the wheel than as a children's toy in the thousands of years between crossing the ice and getting invaded by the whiteys, things would have worked out so much better for them.

[sh4]

The reality is that most of the native American population was decimated by foreign diseases to which they had no immunity. So, historically accurate cowboys-and-Indians games should involve infecting friends with flu, small pox, bubonic plague, and such.

I would love to see Cartoonsmith Weiner drawing this for us!

[ChaoticBrain]

I would love to see Cartoonsmith Weiner drawing this for us!

I thought his name was Zach.

[Boredman]

One of the problems with giving them their land back is that "they", meaning the specific persons who lost their land during their lives, are no longer around, nor are the ones who actually took their land.

Also, the date for the news post says February 20th. UNACCEPTABLE I AM TAKING MY BUSINESS ELSEWHERE YOU SHOULD FEEL ASHAMED

[smiley_cow]

I love that this was posted the day before Louis Riel Day. Which, for you non-Manitobans, is all about Metis rights. Why is it whenever we talk about native issues it's always about how affects white people. I'm pretty sure it barely affects white people.

One of the problems with giving them their land back is that "they", meaning the specific persons who lost their land during their lives, are no longer around, nor are the ones who actually took their land.

No, but their descendants are still getting a pretty rotten deal because of what what happened generations ago. It's nice of you to say 'well it was years ago, and I happened to come out on top, so whatever.' But I really doubt you'd be saying this if you lived in a typical reserve without clean drinking water or proper housing. Yeah, you didn't steal the land in the first place, but you're benefiting from someone else's crime while other people are suffering for it.

[Kaharz]

Bah, I've been to reserves in the US, they're fine. They have the tons of dirt, rocks and plants that even goats prefer not to eat. What more could you want? Arable land and water are so overrated.

[topher]

I really doubt you'd be saying this if you lived in a typical reserve without clean drinking water or proper housing.

Pretty sure the native American infrastructure is no worse than it was before the evil Europeans invaded. If native Americans choose to live with the rest of the population they would have access to the same stuff. If they choose to live on reservations surely they are responsible for building their own "proper housing".

Also not sure if the comic is suggesting that Americans should stop feeling guilty, or should pack up and move on-mass back to Europe?

[smiley_cow]

I really doubt you'd be saying this if you lived in a typical reserve without clean drinking water or proper housing.

Pretty sure the native American infrastructure is no worse than it was before the evil Europeans invaded. If native Americans choose to live with the rest of the population they would have access to the same stuff. If they choose to live on reservations surely they are responsible for building their own "proper housing".

Actually Native Americans had a pretty decent standard of living before first contact. Most of the problems I mentioned are new starting from the last hundred years or so. And there's a long and complicated history that leads to why Native Americans are where they are now, a lot of it has to do with governments that tried to wipe them out, and when that didn't work tried to assimilate them into the general population as second class citizens. In fact, I feel pretty confident in saying that had Europeans never came and stayed on this continent, Aboriginal people today would be better off for it. So maybe telling them it's their own fault they've gotten the crap end of the stick isn't the most cricket thing to say.

As for choosing the live on reserves, that's a fair bit more complicated than you're making it out to be. If you're born and raised on a reserve, that's not you who chose that. A lot of reserves in this province are often completely inaccessible except by winter roads* and by plane, which is expensive.** The idea that someone from one of those reserves (and some of those northern reserves are some of the worst) could just pack up and move to the city is a bit ridiculous. Especially considering the high poverty rates. And that's just two examples. This isn't even getting into issues of culture and assimilation which is also often brought up when people say 'why don't natives just move off the reserves.'

Also not sure if the comic is suggesting that Americans should stop feeling guilty, or should pack up and move on-mass back to Europe?

Careful, all I said about the comic was that it's interesting that native issues are always looked at from the point of view of how it affects people of European decent. I never talked about who should feel guilty, or solutions. That's all you reading into it.

*which are only accessible half the year, and can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing
**In fact, it would be cheaper for me to fly to France than it would be to get to a lot of northern areas in my province.

[Sahan]

Nothing to add to this discussion, just 'Woo, go Smiley!"

[Nathanyel]

In the strip #2525, if guilt was still alive...

[topher]

Also not sure if the comic is suggesting that Americans should stop feeling guilty, or should pack up and move on-mass back to Europe?

Careful, all I said about the comic was that it's interesting that native issues are always looked at from the point of view of how it affects people of European decent. I never talked about who should feel guilty, or solutions. That's all you reading into it.

*which are only accessible half the year, and can be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing
**In fact, it would be cheaper for me to fly to France than it would be to get to a lot of northern areas in my province.

Hi smiley, my second point was directed straight at the comic itself, not at any of the discussion about it. i.e. The comic says to me that the collective ancestral guilt felt by the modern day inhabitants of the Americas is pointless unless they're going to do something about it. So is Zach suggesting that the white people of North America and the Hispanics of South and central America should drop it and move on? Or that control and ownership of the Americas should be handed over to the remaining tribes?

[Kaharz]

Pretty sure the native American infrastructure is no worse than it was before the evil Europeans invaded.

So are you saying European colonization merely kept aboriginal societies at the level of infrastructure that it was 500 years ago?*

If native Americans urban poor choose to live with the rest of the population in the middle class suburbs they would have access to the same stuff. If they choose to live on reservations in inner-city ghettos surely they are responsible for building their own "proper housing".

You have an incredibly naive viewpoint. When you are part of a class of people who has poor access to social institutions, wealth and resources, you can't just choose to have a better life and have it. When you live in the middle of nowhere with little to farm other than rocks and dirt, you aren't going to be able to buy a decent house or even the materials to build a decent house yourself. Give up all your wealth and most of your possessions and move to a desert where there is poor healthcare, worse schools, no jobs and not enough crappy land available to subsistence farm much less farm for profit. See how well your children and the generations that follow them do. Housing, and everything else costs money.

Also not sure if the comic is suggesting that Americans should stop feeling guilty, or should pack up and move on-mass back to Europe?

I think the comic is just saying that paying lip service is useless and insulting. There is a lot people can do for the underprivileged in the world and if people were truly sorry for the part their ancestors played in making certain people underprivileged then they should actually do those things.

*I'm aware this is probably not what you were trying to say. I'm just being snide