fancy_shawls_225

Affirmative action is a way to correct historical injustices. Think of all the injustices against us and is affirmative action a correct way to justify this from the governement? What do you want the governement to do to correct these wrongs? What can be done to "improve" the system. What do you want done about land claims, treaty rights, governemnt policies...all these, what is your take on them?

AngelFeather

These are all good things to think about but unfortunately have no easy answers.
My feeling is that we as Native people need to come together first in order to fix such injustices. I think we need to go inside ourselves and fix that first, meaning that there are alot of injustices towards our people by our own people. I think if those things are fixed first then it is only then we will be taken seriously because no longer will we be divided as a people rather we will stand as individual Nations with a common purpose and that is to hang onto what is ours, hang onto that which our Ancestors fought so hard for, and to make people understand that we are human beings and we have much to offer the world. We are a strong people we have proven that, but we would be So much stronger once banned together speaking the same language (figuratively speaking).

WocusWoman

The US government has done such a good job over the past 200 years dividing all the tribes that still exist apart! What could they do; they went in telling and promising every tribe something different, because they had no intention on following through on their empty promises, and treaties. I guess they figure a couple beads, blankets, and lies would be enough to suffice the poor stupid savages of this land? Too bad for us, they didn't figure on seeing any of us natives surviving in this day and age I guess. The best thing to do would be to come together as one people; look what happened back then, the tribes for the most part were taking on the govt. individualing and sometimes not at all, look where it got them then.

fancy_shawls_225

I would think that in Canada there is slowly some good things happening inside, such as Phil Fontaine, even though east and west are divided by him...he isn't I think elected by everyone...I'm not sure how that works, but some say that Aff. Action is working against whatever we try to do to unite us and provides more stereotypes and obstacles that seem even larger than before. SO is aff. action the way to go?

AngelFeather

WOW, this is an awesome thread and has had me thinking for quite a few days and still has me thinking.

I think we are on the right path... and we will eventually become stronger and people will listen because I believe Native people have alot of the answers to the worlds dilemmas. We dont consider ourselves above mother earth's laws and her creations as do other cultures and thats where we are ahead of the game and once that is recognized by the opposition they will understand and they will be the ones to learn from us. The more we learn from each other the stronger we will become, it will happen but in anything in life there is always an opposition that we must face and we cant give up.

The road has sumwhat been paved for us by others that had the courage to stand up and speak out against injustices. They didnt just talk about them they actually took action, maybe it wasnt the right kind of action in all cases but nontheless they stood up for what they believed in.

nc silent quiver

The white man did not defeat us, Rather we defeated ourselfs. If you do not believe it look at what we accomplished when we stood together. Custer is a good start of what can be done when we mass our strength. Or look at the other side of the coin that we never like to talk about but, when the white man could not track is, trap us, or beat us who did he "hire"? Thats right other tribes and waring nations. The sooner we learn from the past the better life our children will have in the future. There is strength in numbers.

__________________
one of my favorite quotes:

"What we do in life.
Follows us into eternity"

(Gladiator)

crazywolf

Boozhoo niji,

Been reading this thread, and I have heard the same thing from pretty much everyone. We must unite before we are taken seriously, and once that is in place, we can start answering on what we are owed, if we can agree on that. And I believe the phrase "Agree to disagree" need not be applied here.

So the first step is pretty obvious... to come together. This seems like a monumental task. So how do we do it? How do we all come together, and how do we keep it together? Do the different tribes pick delegates and meet someplace, if we could agree on the place to meet? Or does every single NDN need to come together in a big mega pow wow? Ok so that last question is a little silly, but seriously, we all talk about this and write posts, when the hell are we going to actually get around to doing something about it?

Derek

AngelFeather

I hear where youre coming from Derek... It isnt something that will happen over night. It sounds easy on the offset but when you take a better look at the magnitude of such a task thats when people get frustrated and angry and eventually give up. Thats where we must start, within ourselves... to have the courage to keep going even when times do get frustrating... we must start within our own communitites a little at a time a step at a time. There are many out there that have begun the process and youre exactly right when you ask how do we stay there? I think we stay there by supporting those that start such steps instead of being afraid.
An example... here on our rez.. we had a chief and council that werent doing what they shouldve be doing... spending monies that could have gone to better things... there were those that felt strongly and passionately that our people were gettin the raw end of the stick... they went around to schools, colleges.. any place they could go to get the message out, asking for support to remove our chief and council. He made alot of sense to alot of people and well unfortunately many people were afraid to back him up for reasons that it may affect thier jobs, thier funding and thier lives so they would back down and remain silent unwilling to sign petitions to make change. It is that in which i refer to, if we keep being afraid then we will never progress we will never be heard.
Our ancestors didnt back down they knew that thier battles would be hard and long but still they never waiverd in thier beliefs... they fought.. and that my friend is what i refer to.
It begins with the individual, and having the courage, then those individuals becoming a collective group and not backing down. I dont think we will see total unification in our life times.. but we can sure start the process for our children and our grandchildren; teach them so that they can carry on the fight. Teach them to be strong and not to be afraid. In some ways I believe this process has begun and agreed we have a long way to go. Its frustrating but it is right.

This is just my perception on things and only what I can understand.