Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 1 June 1995 — Page 11

The Muncie Times, Thursday, 1 June 1995, Page 11

► cMl rights journal! ^ American Indians have been relegated to U.S. bantustans

by Bernice Powell Jackson I worked against South Africa’s racist apartheid regime for two decades. I traveled to South Africa many times, including to the socalled homelands, where the government relocated tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of black South Africans. These bantustans were in the most desolate, unarable lands, far from the eyes of the white South Africans and the rest of the world. There were no jobs, little or no food and only the barest of housing was available in the homelands. Now I have seen America’s homelands—we call them reservations. I now understand that many of the policies of the apartheid government of South Africa were learned from our own government and its policies toward Native Americans. The major difference is that millions of Indians in our country were killed through wars, smallpox and forced marches, while the black South Africans were not eradicated and remain the majority today. America’s first inhabitants have experienced 500 years of colonization, racism, ridicule and genocide. Today they face overwhelming odds. As we enter the Information Age, Native Americans are less educated than other Americans—only 65 percent complete high school. Nine percent complete college. They are more likely to die of tuber^losis, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, accidents, diabetes, homicide, pneumonia and suicide than are other Americans. Like many of those living in our inner cities. Native Americans on the reservation live in an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair. This, in turn, helps to account for high rates of alcoholism and suicide faced by the Indian people. Indeed, Native Americans are five times more likely to die of alcoholism and nearly one and half times more likely to commit suicide. The figures can differ when looking at regional, area, and tribe specifics. Most of the reservations are located in sparsely populated, little-traveled areas. Many have little industry or sources of jobs outside of the casinos, which many Indian governments have resorted to as sources of income. Many have inadequate housing and health care facilities, inferior education and little or no public transportation. Some have toxic waste sites or power plants located nearby. Those Native Americans living in our cities cafe similar problems, often combined with a feeling of separation from the land. Many of them, or their parents, were relocated by our

Bernice Powell Jackson

government in the 1950s in an effort to “integrate” Indian people into the larger population. Most Americans will never travel to a

reservation. They will never experience the paradoxes of the beauty of the land and dignity of the people on the one hand and despair and hopelessness on the other. Most Americans have only the cowboys and Indians Hollywood image of Native Americans and no sense of what has been inflicted on the Indians or the problems they face today. All Americans have a responsibility to understand that Native Americans are a people whose culture and life are in danger of becoming extinct. We must change that adage, so that out of sight is not out of mind.

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