It is not racist to say that those peoples that were on this continent before the Europeans, should not drink and cannot handle alcohol. It is in many of the treaties that they negotiated with the federal govt. I am of the opinion, that the tribal leaders pushed that, they knew better than anyone the destructiveness of booze on their people.
Everyone knows they shouldn't drink, with Indians it's completely outta control. Maybe I sound racist now, but I have lived in villages. You can't compare natives to whites; for most part (up here) they were a stone age peoples, 50 years back. They don't think, act, or evaluate the world like we do. We begin going wrong when we judge them on our value system, how we were raised. Their culture is so much different than the dominent American culture, add in the 5 generations it takes for a people to assimilate into dominent culture and you see why it is what it is.
Alcohol has become part of their cultural identity up here and they are dissapearing as a people. Our village won't exist in 50 years. Our govt gives them just enough to keep them dying from booze, and refuses to close white run package stores no matter how much the village leadership begs them to be shut down. Almost like govt sponsered genocide.
One village we taught at had protected their lands for a 1000 years, killed a huge Russian expedition in 1840's to the last man. They controlled lands 150 miles in each direction around their village. When white gold miners moved in turn of century, they got along with indians or were run off, don't matter if America bought a Brooklyn Bridge from Russia, Indians were already here. In 1940's Fed govt tried getting Indians to stay put in one permanent village, rather than moving seasonally all over their lands (hunting fishing, ect). Govt couldn't homestead land with Indians moving around, controlling it. Indians would have just killed any homesteaders that didn't respect their rights, any whites on land did that and got along fine. So feds came in right after WWII and took all their kids off them and sent them 800 miles away to schools down Juneau way. Indians didn't see their kids for 2-3 years, many kids died, and many were sexually abused. In 1947, one father begged govt to get their kids back. Govt told them to build a permanent village, get all his relatives to live there and build log cabin school and they'd become proper Americans and we'll give you your kids back if you keep your mouth shut. Indians believed govt and lost 90% of their land holdings as the feds let whites homestead Indian lands. Before they had permanent village, they controlled their lands by seasonal movements. They actually had it stolen off them as they had no legal where with all, nor could read or write. The native kids today drive 5 miles out of village and see whites building houses on their traditional trail to neighboring village and are outraged. THey say: how did this happen, How did they steal my grandmas land? That white guy just built a house on a sacred place and is trashing it. Ton of pent up anger that just keep getting worse. Only answer is to give it back to Indians or hope they all die out from booze, and that's what is occurring.
Ya know, you can never begin to understand the Indian problem up here unless you've been the only white boy in a village for a year, and that reverse in your face racism does everyone some good. Mostly whites up here look down on Indians, Indians feel it and don't like it. I get along fine with Indians, don't give them money, don't get them booze, and don't drink with them, would share anything else in my house with them as they are good people deep inside. Give you the shirt off their back if they like ya. All you got to do is respect the good parts of their culture, respect them as a human being, and treat them as you would want treated and you won't find better people. Just never begin to judge them from our own enthrocentric perspective.