IF WE PAY REPARATIONS TO BLACKS, SHOULDN'T WE ALSO PAY THEM TO AMERICA'S INDIANS?

Every inch of American soil was stolen from the Indians who were forced onto reservations that barely sustained life and they are truly suffering because of it today

By Howie Katz

 

Big Jolly Times

January 31, 2021

When I wrote my article about Sheila Jackson Lee's Second Amendment shredding Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act, I mentioned that she also introduced H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act.

While Jackson Lee's crazy gun control act is not likely to see the light of day, her reparation bill has a good chance of passing in the Democrat controlled House.  Although H.R. 40 does not call for reparations, the commission to study them is the precursor  for doing exactly that. 

You can bet the commission will recommend the payment of reparations on the grounds that today's plight of African-Americans is the result of slavery and Jim Crow laws.   In other words, those blacks who are living near or in poverty are poor because of slavery and Jim Crowism.  One could even say that the Bloods, Crips and other black street gangs are shooting up black neighborhoods because of slavery.

But if we pay reparations to blacks for the wrongs whites exacted on them, what about the American Indians?  Every inch of American soil was stolen from them by whites.  In the Western United States, the government forced them onto reservations that barely sustained life.  And they are truly suffering because of it today. 

I've been to several Indian reservations in Arizona and Riverside County, California and the living conditions there are absolutely deplorable.

There are few jobs and alcoholism is rampant.

 

Of course not all Indians lice in abject poverty.  The Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians are well off because Palm Springs sits on their reservation.  And a number of reservations now have casinos which have improved the lives of the Indians residing thereon.  

 

Texas has three federally-recognized Indian tribes: The Alabama-Coushatta Tribe in Livingston, the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe in Eagle Pass and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo tribe of Tigua Indians in El Paso.  Only the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino has been allowed to operate.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has shut down casinos run by the Tiguas and the Alabama-Coushatta tribe.  And Gov. Greg Abbott has publicly stated that he opposes gaming establishments on tribal lands. 

 

Meanwhile residents of the Dallas-Fort Worth area and those of the Houston-Galveston area are improving the lives of Oklahoma and Louisiana Indians by spending millions of dollars at nearby Indian casinos in those states.

 

While reparations for blacks is debatable, if any group is deserving of any reparations, it is the American Indians.