There are a few tribes that hit it big with the casinos but most people on the reservations live in poverty like nobody else in this country knows.
This best thing my grandfather ever did was walk off the rez and make sure his children were never on the rolls. Our family has done well, my cousins are living like Bangladesh on the reservation. The feds put them on welfare using rifles and cannons then left them to starve like animals.
These lawsuits are based on legal contracts that the Feds did not fulfill in an ethical manor.”
So what's holding them on the reservation? Are they not allowed to leave? Are they not allowed to get an education or get a job or start their own business?
I'm not trying to be rude but I think this says more about the people that choose to stay there and live in poverty than the government that established the reservations in the first place. If they are living in poverty, it's there own doing not anyone Else's. Kudos to your grandfather and your family to take charge of their lives and reap the benefits of freedom in this country.
Living the tradional life is not my thing, but there are those that feel strongly that it is their obligation to keep the culture alive.
I think that there is a very good argument that the true culture died out with our great-great granfathers. But that being said, your message would be taken with same attitude as a group of Christians being told to give up their religion because the time for religion has passed.
There are many things holding people to the reservations. There is a sense that leaving is an insult to the ancestors. There is a feeling among the poorest people in the nation that if they leave the rez, they will leave the only thing they actually own. And it is hard to leave every body and everything you know for a culture that doesn’t particularly like or trust you.
Think about Obama taking your house to build windmills, he offers you a smaller replacement house but offers a stipend to make up the difference. Then after taking your house, he puts you in Detroit and doesn’t pay the money.