Posted on 04/09/2015 11:19:06 AM PDT by drewh
On Wednesday, First Lady Michelle Obama addressed a gathering at the White House that focused on the topic of creating opportunity for Native American youth. The White House posted her prepared remarks online.
The full speech, as posted by the White House, can be read by clicking here. Here is an excerpt from the First Lady's remarks:
You see, we need to be very clear about where the challenges in this community first started.
Folks in Indian Country didn’t just wake up one day with addiction problems. Poverty and violence didn’t just randomly happen to this community. These issues are the result of a long history of systematic discrimination and abuse.
Let me offer just a few examples from our past, starting with how, back in 1830, we passed a law removing Native Americans from their homes and forcibly re-locating them to barren lands out west. The Trail of Tears was part of this process. Then we began separating children from their families and sending them to boarding schools designed to strip them of all traces of their culture, language and history. And then our government started issuing what were known as “Civilization Regulations” – regulations that outlawed Indian religions, ceremonies and practices – so we literally made their culture illegal.
And these are just a few examples. I could continue on like this for hours.
So given this history, we shouldn’t be surprised at the challenges that kids in Indian Country are facing today. And we should never forget that we played a role in this. Make no mistake about it – we own this.
And we can’t just invest a million here and a million there, or come up with some five year or ten-year plan and think we’re going to make a real impact. This is truly about nation-building, and it will require fresh thinking and a massive infusion of resources over generations. That’s right, not just years, but generations.
While all those things are true, the problem in the Indian community is their inability to see themselves as Americans.
Yes, I know they are part of a tribe but, most do not live on a reservation.
There is a way out and up. Be an American, not a victim.
If you don’t want to be an American then be a problem solver.
Fix your nation.
Wilma Mankiller did and the Cherokee thrive, owning many businesses that employ Indians, lifting them out of poverty and a long exile.
But, please stop saying we decimated the Indians, like they all lived together in peace.
They didn’t.
In fact, there was no collective identity for American Indians until the last century.
Before that you belonged to a clan, a band or were part of a tribe. That’s not to say that clans and tribes weren’t also part of a tribe, they were but, their relationship was more genetic.
They still competed with other Indians and made treaty with others and that’s true only of the Cherokee and Iroquois, to a large extent.
Today’s problems cannot be explained rationally, anymore that blacks can rightly claim they are being held back by society.
So, make your nation stronger, like the Cherokee or get off the reservation, as it were and be somebody.
In America you can be whoever you want.
The First Wookie is doing her part to further divide us along the lines of race and class.
LOTS more.
My Irish ancestors are just sh*t-out-of-luck with the reparations scam. Heh.
Just give it another 100 years and they will be able to claim reparations. The way this country is going the Christians will be in reeducation camps soon enough.
How can it be your fault, Michele....weren’t you yourself a slave in the early 1800’s?
“Sacagawea is on the dollar coin , but do you use it , nope”
Perfect for poker.
Yeah?
What are they complaining about anyway?
We gave them running water, sewage, ice, cold beer, the wheel and all they do is bitch and complain.
I could get on the rolls of the Cherokee Nation. My nephews and a niece are on the rolls but, F.U. I prefer to be on the winning team and I’m an American.
That’s right “A U.S. M.A.L.E.” as Elvis would say.
And they can stop acting like we overwhelmed them with technology, because they sure would have used the same things if they had thought of it.
Come to think, they did adapt pretty well to lever rifles, dynamite and horses.
And aren’t they so much more comfortable in Levi’s than they would be with a blanket covering their butt?
Roof over their head? Yeah, and it stays in place, right along with the rest of yer stuff.
Hot water, flip a switch to create heat for cooking and to warm up on a cold winters night?
Way effin easier than rubbing two sticks together and faster.
Tell me they wouldn’t have invented that stuff if they could because fk me if they don’t also use the Internet.
Shouldn’t they be thanking Al Gore for free porn and the ability to get news instantly, instead of waiting for an envelope delivered by some guy on a horse, if he lived through the route?
I’ve seen a few of these chumps on airplanes too.
Besides Cowboy and Indian movies and a fun game of 52 pick up thats been rebranded as Cowboys and Indians, WTF have Indian Tribes or individuals contributed to the world?
They can choose to be a victim just as easily as they can choose to win.
I lose, I win, I lose, I win all day long and working for winning beats moping and losing.
And it pays way better...
I’ve located them and sold em stuff but, that’s about it.
Particularly Green Country.
Your words are all too prophetic.
You stupid Wookie. PS: Indians owned slaves.
I tore the cover off Glamour magazine the other day when I received it in the mail because MO in all her Photoshop ugliness was on the cover. It’s bad enough, to turn the pages of other fashion magazines and be shocked to see her hateful face, but to have her on the cover, is just too much pandering to the empress as an example of style and beauty.
“Indians had garbage dumps too”
Called middens in polite society ...
The Mandan liked to farm. The Lakota Sioux liked to hunt. The Lakota viewed the Mandan and related tribes as collaborators with the whites simply because their lifestyles were closer. The didn't mix very well at all.
That's one reason the heroic Franciscan Junipero Serra --- founder of the California mission system --- worked so tirelessly to keep the Spanish soldiers away from his flock. They were intentionally using alcohol to break down Indian resistance.
Zactly.
Which tribe pushed the other out of Canaduh and “said” loser now claims the Black Hills as ancestoral land, even though they’ve only been there 250 years?
"They were first!"
"They were worst!"
At lease we did not behead them
Michelle, I am a direct descendant and I want reparations.
Rev. John Roads or Rhodes, a Mennonite minister, and his family were among the first pioneers in Massanutten in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in the early 1700s. For more than 20 years, the settlers lived in peace with the native Indians, but as the white population grew, the Indians became more hostile and aggressive. By 1754, raids and attacks on the settlers’ homesteads were frequent. In August 1764, eight Indians and one white man attacked the Roads’ home. Rev. Roads was killed in the doorway and his wife and a son were killed as they ran for the house. Another son climbed a tree, but was discovered and shot, while another was killed when he attempted to cross a stream. One of the daughters grabbed her baby sister and they escaped to a neighbor’s house. Four of the children, two boys and two girls, were captured and led away. One of the boys and both girls were killed on the march. The surviving boy, Michael, was held captive for three years.A Pioneer and Christian father, who with his wife and six of his thirteen children, was a victim of the last Indian massacre in Page County.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.