Just another way to get votes...Honestly, it shoudn't have to take a ceremony to make a difference period, let alone in indian affairs...
HEY, BASSO Just trying to get your attention because I would really like an answer to the question I asked on page 1 of this thread, so here is a repost... Aren't you ashamed of the way our forefathers treated the native Americans? Genocide is something to be ashamed of IMO.
batman, i've given myself a good talkin' to. i will hence forth stop calling hillary a b**** and now refer to her, with all due respect, as: COCKROACH
As someone who is a member of a tribe, I can't tell you how cool I think this is. I have grown up in a family where my heritage as an American Indian has been a point of emphasis and from a symbolic standpoint this is really cool. While a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, arguably the tribe with the most successful transition to an Anglicized nation, I have spent time living on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in remote Arizona. My father formerly worked as a principal of a boarding school in Fort Apache, Arizona that was run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The school was for American Indian students in 6th through 8th grade. I lived there from kindergarten through third grade and was the "whitest" student at the elementary school I went to. While fairly dark skinned in comparison to some Caucasians, nearly everyone on the White Mountain reservation was still full blood. It was a truly unique experience. I was viewed as a white person by all of my classmates. I can't start to describe with accuracy the poverty and despair that many of my classmates were forced to live in. There was no hope at all for many of the people on the tribe. When I look back at some of the stuff we were working on in third grade, it was stuff that you'd probably be doing in kindergarten in most public schools in Texas. The kids were just so far behind. Unfortunately, despite the recent successful development of tribal casinos, many tribes are still severely mismanaged and have corrupt governments. The image of a "Rich Indian" is severely exagerated. There are still many tribes that don't operate casinos and even more that only have modest casino revenue due to their remote geographic location. If Obama does any work at all with American Indian tribes, I think it is a huge step forward for both the United States and the sovereign Indian nations that exist in this country. Full blood American Indians are slowly disappearing due to intermarriage and disease, but there's no reason we should forget to honor, remember, and strive to improve the lives of those people still living on and off of reservations. I think the most important things that Obama can do as a president would be to place an emphasis on providing college education to American Indian students, improving local grade school education, reducing alcoholism on American Indian tribes, reducing restrictions on tribal gaming (specifically, reducing the role that states have in negotiating gaming compacts with tribes), and promoting strong tribal governments led by responsible tribal politicians. If any of you are ever interested in learning more about the history and present culture of American Indian tribes, I would recommend the following books: Killing the White Man's Indian by Fergus Bordewich Native American Testimony: A Chronicle of Indian-White Relations from Prophecy to the Present, 1942-2000 by Vine Deloria Jr. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty by Vine Deloria Jr. Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr. Heck, pretty much anything by Vine Deloria is a great read, albeit very often controversial.
I've worked on fires there several times. Really good people. The Ft. Apache Hot Shots are easily one of the top 3 crews in the country and I would argue the best. The way they build fireline is beautiful to watch and they can do it so fast, you literally have to jog to stay up with them... and what's amazing is that they're all under 6 foot and under 200 lbs., but they can work all day long at an incredibly fast pace. Great, great, great book. Every American should read it.
