I'm watching the series Longmire, and in it they paint quite the picture of the situation between white Americans and native Americans.
What I get from the series -which is set in Wyoming close to an Indian reservation, it's not much different from white Americans and African Americans. Lot of finger pointing and blaming and victimizing themselves. Stuff like "You're picking on me because I'm an Indian."
I spose based on many white people treating them like dirt still?

I'm wondering, is the situation really that bad?

When traveling from Oregon to Cardston, Canada, the
train left us at Browning, Montana, to wait for a
pick-up by family.

They were late crossing the border and were horrified
that we had been left alone and unprotected at the
station, which turns out is in the middle of an
Indian reservation.

As we had no idea, we were chatting with all the
'locals' who magically did not plunder us.

Seems those who live close to reservations have a
somewhat different perspective than those of us
who live with tribal members all around us at the
Casino in town.

I have always thought the Indians got a rough deal
and are slowly taking it back with casinos.

They are like the Amish, they do their own thing.

Yeah, they did get a very rough deal!
Maybe it's like the older Indians have less of a problem with it than youngsters?
That was the case in Australia with the Aboriginals. Somehow the youngsters seem to feel more discriminated against than the older ones. Maybe because younger generations feel the loss of the ways of their own people more. The older ones still have the old ways, the younger ones not so much. And they're stuck between the old ways and finding a way with 'white man's world' so to speak. Not really belonging in either world?

It's always odd though, cos even if you're totally accepting of other people and don't care about the colour of their skin, you often still get discriminated by them.
And in a way I can understand, all that has happened to them ain't particularly pretty, and the memories won't easily be erased (kind of like what we got with the Germans). And I figure they still get treated like chit by many white people.
But then why be so blinded by it all that you can't respect the ones that totally respect you? I never get that sort of attitude ...

I'm white and native american so someone got along lol...study up on the trail of tears, the buffalo, what whites did to natives cultures...history wants to paint the natives as savages which is obscene... most tribes when feuding would skirmish have it out a Lil but if anyone got seriously injured the fighting halted because no one wanted death...whitey comes along and now you have marauding war tribes, scalping, tongues and eyes being removed you name it. tribes lived in peace with the earth and each other with no concept of time or money, or greed...everything was based upon observation of nature... if you're interested in the subject look into some of the native american folklore so its called...amazing tales which give insight into how Indians viewed the world... a book called "god is red" is a good eye opener...

Because everything differs from state to state some native tribes were treated worse than others...but I can say it was a shame to watch a lot of natives get given a nice patch of land to only sell it for less then its value to the white man...only to complain twenty years later that too many white people are on the reservation ...I have a lot of native friends and I told so many of them to not sell...but free stuff is easy to get rid of..

Ok,

I appriciate this thread. It's nice to see whites taking a genuine intrest in the way Native Americans feel. I salute you with all sincerity.

I guess it's intresting to hear of someone commenting that natives gave away their land with out the realty knowledge that most whites have. Well that's because ownership of planet earth is a white concept. This is not your fault, and please don't feel attacked. Natives to the Americas grew up sharing the land. When the first Europeans came along with the concept of we would like to buy your land, natives could not wrap their mind around it. The land is a gift from the great spirit. So the whites saw an advantages and stabbed the natives in the jugular. Has it changed? No. The moment uranium, gold or platinum is found on these reservations, they just shoved the natives out. So you what to know if things are ok now? Well sadly they are not. I don't know about the natives in Australia, but in the states the old and the young feel the same. Natives are treated as invisible people. We don't want to look at them, we say they are screwing themselves, when planet wide whites have done nothing to them but strip them of their humanity. I was with a tribe for a couple of years and in the sweat lodges a spiritual man shared with me that the whites were cursed. For all the lands they have stolen. For all the women they have raped. For all the children they have killed. For all the tribes they have erased. And for the failure to help the scattered remains, their world will fall in time. I remember shuddering when he said this because he had his hand on my forearm. By the time he was done talking, he was clenching my arm.

The attitude of whites is, I didn't have anything to do with that. Well the sins of the fathers are visited up to 4 and 5 generations. My family is part Native and part Chinese part Mexican. Mexicans hunted natives down also. They were not loved by natives. I have worked with natives to help them up. I've hired natives in the computer gigs I've worked on. It's not much, but it is something. If whites would look out for someone other than themselves there would not be this anomosity.

Well I hope you will take this in the spirit it is meant. To bring healing and understanding.

America is like any other country. Some people are racists. Some aren't. In some parts of the country native Americans are looked upon as being second class people by some people. And there are a lot of Native Americans who live in abject poverty and have to deal with the problems associated with it. The same can be said for many other peoples, the Mexican Americans, the African Americans, and others.
In-spite of that some people have managed to make a success out of their lives.

I am part Native but mostly White. I have attended Pow-Wows and had heart to heart discussions with those who live on the reservations. It depends a lot on where you happen to be. Natives in Alaska have it pretty good. Other places, not so much.

There are programs to give help in college education, etc., but peer pressure and lack of interest holds many back. The US government has interfered with life to the degree that self determination is more difficult than it should be.

A study of American Indian culture is enlightening and shows how man could co-exist with nature much better than he does now.

Native Americans where basically living in the stone age when the white men landed. They had a give and take relationship with nature; they had to. White folks had only a take relation with nature. In their eyes nature was something that needed to be tamed, and they had the tools and knowledge to do it.

...the Browning reservation is one of the worst in our state...it's on a flood plain and they have been hit hard over time...my ex son inlaw is Blackfeet and the tribe has had its ups and downs...

Sad but that is fact of life.

I remembered being in the Town Square at Drammen. A group of Native American playing their ethnic musics and songs. Strangely, I do not understand their language but I felt strongly their frustrations, passions, their lost of freedom and lands. Songs that had been brought down from generation to generation.
Every beat of the drum spelled their emotions.

I like the series Longmire
Does it depict the native american interaction correctly? I would say it only grazes the surface..,(and its not really a show about that anyway).
Walt and Henry's relationship in the show would be an anomoly in real life IMHO..
What I remember learning is that hundreds of years ago before white man came to NA, there were many, many tribes (east coast) and they all fought each other, slowly killing each other off..so many tribe names are no longer.
White man comes, takes over and we all know where that led.. I am OK with them standing up for their rights and our environment..

Is that getting glacier run-off, is that where all the water
comes from there?

It seemed quite barren to me, but quiet and peaceful
in the middle of nowhere.

What makes it bad?

That is really sad ... It should've been made impossible to sell.
White people on a reservation?

Must have been quite some experience!
I don't think white man is cursed. Or any man for that matter. What went down is not really related to colour, although white man did what it did based on colour. It was related to patriarchal culture. And thank goodness that is starting to change.
Maybe the man who spoke to you was just bitter. It is not a very wise, spiritual approach ...
I do think white man's society will change entirely. That is already happening. And some may feel that is the end of the world. I'm not one of them. That's more the conservative -and often very religious- people's view, who deep down fear change. I don't. Change is good. The world has always changed. Life means change. Change means life. The moment things stop changing is when we've come to an end as a species. Not the end of the world, the end of us. The world doesn't need us to exist.
More and more people are beginning to understand that.

Double What can I say, my mouse hasn't fully recovered from its open heart surgery ... sometimes its buttons do weird things

I appreciate your stories :)
Does give quite a wide view of it all.

Funny isn't it, that if you look back at history, all mankind seems to have been doing is fight and kill each other.
We judge the Indians for not living in peace together, and killing each other off anyways, but that's not different from what we ourselves did in Europe. Don't know if you know European history ... but there's the Celts, the Romans, the Goths, the Franks, the Anglos, the Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans etc
And later on we had the Russians, the French, the Spanish, the Germans, the English (but we gave them a good beating at Chatham, destroying their fleet!!), Austrians and lord knows what else. The Vatican. Let's not forget the Vatican.

I really love the series too!
I do wonder how far fetched such a relationship between Walt & Henry is. All it requires is mutual respect and understanding and an open heart.
Doesn't sound like a really big deal ... About time mankind can close such gaps!

I don't know much personally about the intersection of so-called whites, and native Americans. I've read plenty of histories, and paid attention to all the news of the day about such things.

I do want to suggest a couple of things.

There are LOTS of variations of people, especially these days, where one group sees another group as being nasty to them, or inherently defective. The native American vs European American thing is just one of them. Some are even recent inventions.

It seems to me, that there's more than one kind of conflict with this kind of thing, because people are complicated.

And lots of transference goes on. People transfer their fury at an individual to an entire group of people, often because it makes them feel more righteous to condemn a race or a social group, than they feel if they just face the one or two people they are having trouble with.

I think that SOME of the trouble between NA's and WA's is of relatively recent vintage, born of modern political resentments being filtered through the past wrongs.

In other words, I suspect that SOME of the modern friction between peoples, really isn't directly connected to the wrongs and lies of the past. The real wrongs and lies of the past, are instead being used to explain and excuse, much more recently discovered or created resentments.

...most of my knowledge of the problems over there are hearsay from members of the Blackfeet ...they just say that the tribal leaders misdirected money and the town is going bankrupt...and they have a lot of black mold issues due to flooding in the past...very sad because the area has potential...just poor leadership...go figure ...