The Lost Black Fawn E-Book

Ellias Aghili Dehnavi

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 126

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Among the ethnic groups, the poorest one in the USA is American Indians. Some of the realities and problems of American Indians include lower opportunities for education, a high rate of unemployment, homelessness, issues of permanent residency, psychological problems, geographic isolation, and drug abuse. For instance, 27% of American Indian households are below the poverty level, while it is about 11.6% among whites in the world. In addition, American Indians tolerate more violent crime compared to other ethnic groups in the United States. They are subject to such crimes like murder, aggression, gang violence, human and drug trafficking, and illegal migration through tribal lands. They also experience the highest rate of imprisonment in the USA. The Indians also face a lack of respectfulness to their culture from other ethnic groups, specifically from the whites. Such cultural incompetency or lack of cultural respect is partly originated from racial discrimination that is imposed on American Indians. Using discrimination theory, we can understand the relation between racial discrimination and the social challenges faced by American Indians. If Native Americans retrieve their cultural competences, the challenges they face can be mitigated. We have done our best to present some feasible results in order to solidify our problem and subject matter using mass surveys which have been done previously by Mary G Findling, Logan S. Casey, Stephanie A. Fryberg, Steven Hafner, Robert J. Blendon, John M. Benson, Justin M. Sayde, and Carolyn Miller from the universities of Harvard, Michigan and North Texas.

Leseprobe

Ellias Aghili Dehnavi,Seyed Mohammad Tabatabaei

The Lost BlackFawn

U.S. Domestic Policy Regarding Native Americans

© 2020 Ellias Aghili Dehnavi, Seyed Mohammad Tabatabaei

Publisher: tredition GmbH, Halenreie 40-44, 22359Hamburg, Germany

ISBN

Paperback:

978-3-347-14167-4

Hardcover:

978-3-347-14168-1

eBook:

978-3-347-14169-8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Abstract

Among the ethnic groups, the poorest one in the USA is American Indians. Some of the realities and problems of American Indians include lower opportunities for education, a high rate of unemployment, homelessness, issues of permanent residency, psychological problems, geographic isolation, and drug abuse. For instance, 27% of American Indian households are below the poverty level, while it is about 11.6% among whites in the world. In addition, American Indians tolerate more violent crime compared to other ethnic groups in the United States. They are subject to such crimes like murder, aggression, gang violence, human and drug trafficking, and illegal migration through tribal lands. They also experience the highest rate of imprisonment in the USA. The Indians also face a lack of respectfulness to their culture from other ethnic groups, specifically from the whites.

Such cultural incompetency or lack of cultural respect is partly originated from racial discrimination that is imposed on American Indians. Using discrimination theory, we can understand the relation between racial discrimination and the social challenges faced by American Indians. If Native Americans retrieve their cultural competences, the challenges they face can be mitigated.

We have done our best to present some feasible results in order to solidify our problem and subject matter using mass surveys which have been done previously by Mary G Findling, Logan S. Casey, Stephanie A. Fryberg, Steven Hafner, Robert J. Blendon, John M. Benson, Justin M. Sayde, Carolyn Miller from the universities of Harvard, Michigan and North Texas.

"I advise those who think that they would be thriving and glad by allowing the government taking care of them to contemplate carefully the Native Americans." - Henry Ford

Introduction (main topic)

American Indians, or The Native Americans, experience various social challenges that make a calamitous environment with the direct effects on their life. Some of the realities and problems of American Indians include lower opportunities for education, a high rate of unemployment, homelessness, issues of permanent residency, psychological problems, geographic isolation, and drug abuse. For instance, 27% of the Native American households have a living below the poverty level, while it is about 11.6% among whites in the world (Macartney, 2013). Even worst, the poverty rates among American Indians in Maine, Arizona, Minnesota, Nebraska, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, South Dakota, and North Dakota is above 30% (Macartney, 2013).

Besides, American Indians tolerate more violent crime compared to other ethnic groups in the United States. They are subject to such crimes like murder, aggression, gang violence, drug and human trafficking, and illegal migration through tribal lands. They also experience the highest rate of imprisonment in the country (Crane-Murdoch, 2013; Perry, 2004; Bell, 2013; Williams, 2012). In the present work, some studies recently carried out at the jail of Marion County in Salem, Oregon, are reviewed. It was found that the number of American Indians in jail of Marion County showed an increase from 7% in 2005 to 11.1% in 2011.

The challenges of Native Americans are compounded by hostility exhibited by the community of whites or the violence that whites impose on American Indians (National Research Council, 2007). As reported by Susy Buchanan, the figures of FBI (2005) on hatred crimes presented to police indicate that despite Alaska Natives and Native Americans include 1% of the United States population, they comprise 2% of racial crime victims (Buchanan, 2006).

A ten-year study by United States Department of Justice, ‘American Indians and Crime in 2004’ showed an "alarming account of the victimization of the Alaska Natives and Native Americans" (Perry, 2004).

The combination of the challenges faced by American Indians and their ever-changing environment, including their immigration to urban areas for finding employment opportunities, leads to a terrifying threat to maintenance of their cultural identities, ancient tribal practices, and traditions.

As noted by Thomas Hayden, in a similar way to other Americans, the Native Americans have been moving to the cities for excitement, educational opportunities, and a good job, which is the most lacked thing in reservations. It is not an easy thing to move from rural life to urban life. Nevertheless, American Indians usually experience additional problems, including lack of education, cultural adaptation, and discrimination. A simple body gesture can even cold be problematic; many American Indians feel it rude to look in others’ eyes; their down glances can seem dishonest or misleading (Hayden, 2004).

Racial discrimination theory will be utilized here for explaining the effects of discriminatory actions of the white community imposing on the American Indians. As a result of these discriminatory actions (that is, unjust treatment) opportunities of American Indians for maintaining advantages of cultural competence as an ethnic group are reduced. These advantages are cultural integrity, prosperity, high self-esteem, etc. Based on the discrimination theory, racial discrimination has subtle, institutional, and overt forms. “Although there is a general agreement that explicit racism is disgusting, there might exist still biased attitudes, which are rooted partly in past history of overt prejudice in the United States” (Blank, 2013).

The above-mentioned social challenges create similar problems for other ethnic groups. Nevertheless, there are some unique factors that are specific to American Indians, including distinctive legal and jurisdictional complexities (for example, treaty agreements and treaty violations and policies of the Federal Government), traditional historical issues associated with culture and heritage of American Indians, and cultural competencies.

We, the authors, felt the necessity to also depict a general image of the Native American's life-style (those who live in the North America of course) for our readers who do not have any knowledge about this great ethnic group; for our readers in the European countries, middle-east and eastern Asia.

Let us now start our book with a set of necessary and crucial questions and answers! Then we will shine light on some important contributions that the Native Americans shared with the American society.

Did you know that Native Americans have had significant roles in today’s American lifestyle? They have been using and doing for numerous years the things that we use or do now.

Mostly, people only remember the negative things about Native Americans, however, they had a role in numerous positive things needing to be remembered. We mainly only think regarding the things readily recognizable as representing Native Americans like their fine artwork. Yes-the South westerns are famous for their beautiful turquoise jewelry and silver and the people of the Northwest Coast are famous for their fantastic woodcarvings. The beautiful beadwork of the Plains Indians is well-known.

However, in addition to art, the Native Americans have affected many areas of American life, some of which began long prior to the advent of the European settlers on North American land.

DID YOU KNOW THAT ECOLOGY is ONE OF THE MOST IMPERATIVE ASPECTS OF NATIVE AMERICAN LIVES? This is the question of people today. The Native Americans have always possessed deep respect for the land and loved every form of life. They could not kill anything they did not use and never killed an animal or a fish pleasure and the did fishing and hunting to survive. The Native Americans living in coordination with nature did not misuse the natural world. Native Americans were ecologists long prior to they were ever utilized. There is no word like “Conservation” among Anishinaabe people since it is an assumed way of life without a special word.

DID YOU KNOW THAT OUR TODAY FOODS WERE FIRST PLANTED BY NATIVE AMERICANS? Native Americans learned to plant and utilize several types of food for today's people, never considering that they first came from Native Americans including potatoes, corn, beans, peanuts, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, squash, nuts, sunflower seeds, and melons. They also assisted the European settlers to survive in the New World by sharing the farming approaches.

DID YOU KNOW THAT MOST OF OUR PRESENT GAMES MADE BY FROM NATIVE AMERICANS? Canoeing, tobogganing, snowshoeing, lacrosse, tug-of-war, relay races, and ball games are some of the games played by early Native Americans and still enjoy today. Several youths like Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA Guides, and Campfire have programs based on largely Native American lore and crafts.

DID YOU KNOW THAT THE NATIVE AMERICANS ADOPTED THE IDEA FOR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT? According to Benjamin Franklin, the idea of the federal government was borrowed from the system of government utilized by the Iroquoian League of Nations with definite powers given to a central government and all other powers reserved for the states.

DID YOU KNOW THAT MOST OF OUR ROUTINE WORDS CAME FROM NATIVE AMERICANS? As the everyday part of our language, we use numerous Native American words and inventions including barbecue, caribou, woodchuck, chipmunk, toboggan, hammock, skunk, mahogany, moccasin, and hurricane. Several towns, cities, and rivers have origin Native American names such as Seattle, Yakima, Spokane, Pocatello, Flathead Lake, Chinook, Milwaukee, Miami, Ottawa, Wichita, and Kalispell.

DID YOU KNOW THAT SIGN LANGUAGE WAS DE-VELOPED AND COMMUNICATED BY NATIVE AMERI-CANS? To facilitate trade and communicate between different tribal groups and later between Native Americas and trappers and traders, a system of hand signals was established. Today, the same idea is utilized for communication with those who are unable to speak and are deaf. The signs are various; however, the idea is the same.

DID YOU KNOW THAT DURING WORLD WAR I, WORLD WAR II, AND OTHER CAMPAIGNS NUME-ROUS NATIVE AMERICANS SERVED? Over 8,000 Native Americans volunteered and served during World War I though most of them were not even citizens. During World War II, well over 24,000 served. The service of the Navajo Code Talkers was one of the most remarkable contributions within World War II where a special group of volunteers did topsecret work utilizing a non-breakable secret code in Navajo.

DID YOU KNOW THAT INDIANS AS CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN EXCELLED IN MANY FIELDS? Some examples are Billy Mills (athlete), Jim Thorpe (athlete), Charles Curtis (vice president of U.S.), Johnny Bench (athlete), Maria Tallchief (ballerina), Buffy St. Marie (musician), Will Rogers (entertainer) and Johnny Cash (entertainer). The list could be extended with some research to involve the people in every area and part of life.

The contributions of the American Indian are well- known for numerous students and adults that cover an extensive spectrum of American culture. Hence, it is important to make the children aware of such information for erasing generalizations and make them aware of the prominence of the Native Americans in the contemporary and historical settling of American.

Table 1. foods and products

FOODS

PRODUCTS

Corn

Canoe Popcorn

Toboggan Wild rice

Snow

shoes Bean (14 varieties)

Moccasins

Squash

Tipi

Pumpkins

Kayak

Cranberries

Fringed buckskin jacket

Maple sugar and syrup

Coonskin caps

Potatoes (white and sweet)

Mukluks Turkeys

Lacrosse

Clam bakes

Cradle boards (baby carriers)

Pemmican

Tomahawk

Jerky

Tobacco

Tomatoes

Cigars Pineapples

Pipe smoking Avocado

Cotton Tapioca (Manioc)

Rubber

Chocolate (Cacao)

Quinine Peanuts

Chewing gum

Vanilla

Wild rice

Sixty percent of today's food supply is originated from the American Indians’ agriculture, mainly including the so-called “Irish” potatoes and corn. There are thousands of American Indian names in the maps in states, cities, lakes, counties, rivers, and mountains, moreover, hundreds of Indian names are utilized as trade names for modern manufactured products.

Modern design, architecture, and music are strongly influenced by Indian art, designs, and styles.

Indian lore, arts and crafts, character building and outdoor camp craft, and living are all basis for modern youth groups such as Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls, Girl Scouts, and the YMCA Indian Guides.

Most of our democratic government kinds have been affected by Past American Indian civilizations (Inca, Mayan, and Aztec) plus the Iroquois Confederacy, the Iroquois Confederacy being copied by Benjamin Franklin when he drafted our Federation of States. We may state our form of government as “American.”

Moreover, the most important contribution is the Indian value system among the recognized contributions like corn and squash. They mainly concentrated on:

• Respect for Fellow Man (No Prejudice), Respect for Mother Earth (Ecology),

• Respect for the Great Spirit (God), sharing (no material acquisitions), generosity, honest leadership selection, bravery, courage,

• Respect for the aged, family tradition, No religious animosity,

• No major wars (no Indian nation destroyed another), moreover, there were thousands of years of peace (before 1492);

• No tranquilizers, alcohol, drugs, ulcers,

• No poor, no rich,

• No insane asylums,

• No jails, lawyers, prisons, taxes, boundaries or borders,

• No germ warfare (smallpox infected blankets),

• and no complete annihilation weapons (Hydrogen bomb).

Numerous areas of the American way of life, from art and music to law and government are affected by the Native American including:

1 Guides were served by Indians in the early exploration of this hemisphere. Their Trails made the roads and railroads toward the advancement of the settlers searching the new homes.

2 The log cabin was adapted from the Indian log or longhouse.

3 Sites of Indian villages located advantageously on trails and waterways were trading posts, then villages. They became the modern cities of Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Pocatello, Pittsburgh, and countless others, later.

4 Indian villages were visited by fur traders and rendezvous was held. The land-hungry and adventurous people were encouraged by their reports to travel farther and farther inland.

5 The Indians helped the English, Spanish, French, and peoples of other European countries in the struggle for controlling the novel country.

6 The Indian has been immortalized in song, sculpture, art, and painting.

7 A prominent place in developing modern design has been occupied by symbols such as the totem pole, thunderbird, sun and tepees, and the Indian’s love for color.

8 Indian knowledge of areas with fine clays utilized in making pottery and china has been transferred to the white man, which was the beginning of the fine porcelain ware manufacturing.

9 Numerous plants have been planted and developed by Indians that are very important in today's world including white and sweet potatoes, corn, chocolate, beans, tobacco, peanuts, cotton, gum, and rubber. Plants were also utilized for medicines, dyes, soap, shelters, baskets, and clothes.

10 The origin of numerous places in the United States is Indian and about half of our states have Indian titles.

11 Some Idaho Indian origin names are Pocatello, Tendoy, Camas, Bannock, Shoshone, Lemhi, Inkom, Kamiah, Nez Perce, Potlatch, Minidoka and Oneida.

12 A part of the English language includes numerous Indian words including barbecue, caribou, cannibal, chocolate, chipmunk, hammock, cougar, hurricane, moose, mahogany, potato, opossum, squash, skunk, woodchuck and toboggan.

13 Recreational activities and games have been developed by Indians including canoeing, snowshoeing, tobogganing, lacrosse, bull roar, and cat’s cradle.

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