(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

A couple weeks before Americans elected a new president, Joe Biden left the White House and flew to Arizona. He was there for two reasons: campaign for his vice president, Kamala Harris, who hoped to become the 48th president of the U.S., but fell short; and, apologize to the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix.

Native Americans comprise six percent of Arizona’s voters…a demographic not to be overlooked in a close election. But, more importantly, Biden had never never been on a Native American reservation as president. Indeed, he was the first American president to apologize for the abuses on the federal government’s watch for more more than 150 years.

From the early 1800s through the 1960s, the U.S. government took Native children from their families and homes and put them in remote boarding schools to erase tribal ties and cultural practices…make them more white…more American. It sounds stupid…silly…and yet, 37 U.S. presidents did little to stop the reckless and shameful disregard of the people’s government for humanity.

Some 19,000 Native American children were taken from moms and dads…documentation proves 973 of them never returned…they died. That number is likely well short of the actual number of dead children, Biden admitted. Thousands of other Native American children survived but were abused…physically, sexually and mentally…then left to deal with the abuses on their own…to raise families and often pass along what they had learned.

“I’m heading to do something that should have been done a long time ago, to make a formal apology to the Indian nations for the way we treated their children for so many years,” Biden explained as he boarded Air Force One.

Deb Haaland, a Pueblo of Laguna citizen and America’s first Native American Secretary of Interior, who accompanied Biden, said that even in her lifetime, the notion that the government might apologize to survivors and their descendants was “far-fetched”.

Biden apologized - more sincerely than any Native American ever heard from a Washington official - and spoke about the legislation he signed that delivered more than $45 billion in federal money toward tribal nations…mostly for infrastructure and health systems on reservations. The Gila River Indian Community outside of Phoenix got more than $80 million in federal funds for a pipeline to irrigate crops during drought conditions.

Still, the damage done wasn’t just single events frozen in time…thousands of families were destroyed…a culture was nearly destroyed. There’s never been a government investigation of the genocide…never a hint of an apology before Biden’s…only a pittance of economic investment in reservations where Native Americans were forced to live.

Forget any guilt…there should be money…and lots of it…channeled to help Native Americans gain some of what they lost. The relatively poor position so many Native Americans are in compared to other Americans…is due solely to 150 years of atrocious mistreatment.

Canada continues to wrestle with its treatment of Indigenous people, but are years ahead of the U.S. in acknowledging the government’s role…essentially bureaucratic abandonment.

We can’t go back and change things that were done to people…things done solely based on the colour of their skin and the perception of those who ruled…that Native Americans were inferior. But we can and should do more to help an entire group of people…Native American descendants who still suffer…who remain relegated to a life of less simply because we forced that lifestyle on their ancestors and them.

The comment, “I never treated a Native American badly” is like the defensive argument, “I never owned slaves.” True enough, but we all benefitted for generations from better healthcare, better education, better economic opportunities…just about every aspect of life…and it’s a lie to act like it was the victims’ faults.

Both Canada and America are better than that…maybe…or we should stop telling the world we are better. 

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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