‘Their Spirits Were Trapped in Those Masks’ | Hacker News Reader

‘Their Spirits Were Trapped in Those Masks’

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49 pointssamclemens11 comments

It doesnt seem as poorly documented as it is made out to be. Perhaps if you compare it with other history in general but when it comes to errasing a people this event is wel documented. We are kinda clueless howmany times we did one of these? If you take basic population growth the numer of dieoffs must be horrific.

Thanks for posting that. We should never forget that we attempted genocide against the native americans. We aren't that different today in our attitudes towards muslims, allowing the creation of secret prisons where we tortured people.

I have to object to the use of the word "we" to describe the actions of people many generations ago. Basically nobody today would approve of the first case, and proponents of the second case aren't part of the "we" who would be reading this comment.

The institutions through which we perpetrated those atrocities are still intact, and we continue to comprise them.

The US federal government continues to violate treaties by providing substandard services to reservations. Additionally, the US continues to steal sacred lands (ie DAPL - the pipeline could easily have been built through a primarily white town with no religious significance to anyone).

US state governments continue to use history textbooks which gloss over the Native American genocide and usually don’t mention the 20th century Native American Movement at all.

I think that’s enough American institutions continuing the oppression of Native Americans to justify the use of the word “we.”

As a white man, I also objected to the US invasion of federally protected lands, both because of the legal contract we have with the remaining Native American tribes, and because I believe protecting nature is the highest duty of mankind, and there is not nearly enough profit in the oil industry to justify the rape of the land.

So, lets not try to be reverse racist, okay? This is HN, not reddit.

We had a policy of forcibily sterlizing Native American women through the 1970s, so it's not exactly 'many generations ago'.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_of_Native_Amer...

Again with the "we". You had no part in that I assume, nor did I, nor did most/all of the people here. It makes our language and our causes weaker to say that "we" "had" a policy that none present actually had.

Not to absolve the whites for their (our) crimes in the new world, but please recall that the native american tribes were at war with each other and often initiated war with the whites. It wasn't all one way. Further recall that the great preponderance of the loss of life on the native american side was the result of lack of immunity to diseases brought - without malice or even awareness - from europe.

"our crimes in the new world"

Considering an entire race / skin color "guilty" is dangerous thinking

even if you consider the son guilty of the fathers sins, it doesn't take into account the enormous number of post-1900 european immigrants who had nothing to do with any of that at any point in history.

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