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U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#121

Why not everyone assimilate? It is no longer "United States" when we split states off for special treatment for minorities. These minorities will further regress and never get out of the poor living conditions. Reservations are one of the most impoverished regions in the US. We should then probably go back to Genghis Khan times and challenge the whole Eurasia, Persian inlands and a bunch of other areas around the wor…

> Why not everyone assimilate? Recognized Native American tribes are sovereign nations . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_Unit... You might as well ask why European settlers aren't forced to assimilate into them.

I wonder about that. Right now, the fact that the Nations don’t have direct representation in Congress (yes, I understand citizens can vote in the state the reservation resides in) makes them appear more like subjects of an Empire than as coequals in a Republic. I think a lot about how to improve this. I think a lot about how to truly reckon with genocide and yet coexist. If anyone has resources about how to improve this, let me know!

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#122

Are all the other treaties going to be reviewed? What percentage of the USA would become reservation land if all the treaties were honored? If it was >50% would we still call them reservations?

This doesn't answer your question directly but its fascinating [1]

[1] https://www.whose.land/en/

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#123

Honestly after all the Native Americans went through, give them the whole state at least. People in the United States speak and reflect often about the atrocities of slavery. We need to equally reflect on and remember the atrocities against Native Americans.

What do you mean "them"? You do realize that there were many different tribes who had very drastically different interactions with the US, right?

This is correct. People treat native Americans as some sort of monolithic bloc when they were anything but. The tribes themselves had many warring feuds going back centuries and developed competing alliances with imperial forces when they arrived, some allying with the French, others with the British or Spanish.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not everyone assimilate? Recognized Native American tribes are sovereign nations . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribal_sovereignty_in_the_Unit... You might as well ask why European settlers aren't forced to assimilate into them.

I wonder about that. Right now, the fact that the Nations don’t have direct representation in Congress (yes, I understand citizens can vote in the state the reservation resides in) makes them appear more like subjects of an Empire than as coequals in a Republic. I think a lot about how to improve this. I think a lot about how to truly reckon with genocide and yet coexist. If anyone has resources about how to improve…

> the fact that the Nations don’t have direct representation in Congress

The EU doesn't have representation in Congress either

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not from US, so i am not very clued in to this, but a State or mini-state would sound a lot better than a 'reservation'

In Canada we use the term "nation".

In Northern Arizona, where I'm from, we often say Navajo Nation. I think partly that's because of the alliteration.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#126
post #47

Dumb question... but can I still move to Tulsa?

you're right, that is a dumb question

Well, sorry, I don't know anything about native American reservations... but I assume people just can't move into them willy nilly.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#127
post #31

Can someone explain why America has reservations? From what I know, Native Indians had this land almost 2+ centuries ago. Why have a special, looks like an autonomous, region and special treatment to people that are a few generations down from when this happened? How far back into the history should we go?

These rights existing because the US government signed treaties with independent foreign nations. Those treaties are valid law until the Congress withdraws from them.

Did the US government ever acknowledge them as independent foreign nations? The War of Independence was partly fought to get away from the British proclamation of 1763 that said you couldn't settle west of the Appalachians without a treaty.

Oklahoma was part of the Louisiana purchase, the US considered it their land for that reason.

The US signed treaties with the indigeneous population in an attempt to secure peace, not out of any sort of acknowledgement that they had to.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#128
"We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so."

As with so many controversial court rulings like the ACA mandate case, our courts keep getting put into the decision because of the massive failure that congress is. Congress should either fulfill the promise or not, or whatever. instead the judicial bodies end up making legal judgements with big ramifcations that largely should be left to the legislative body.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can someone explain why America has reservations? Because we signed treaties with the tribes, which are now semi-sovereign entities as a result.

That's not 'why', that's 'how'. I'm not American, so don't know the topic in details. I have found this online: " The main goals of Indian reservations were to bring Native Americans under U.S. government control, minimize conflict between Indians and settlers and encourage Native Americans to take on the ways of the white man. " [1] [1] https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/india...

Arguably, the treaties are not only "how" but also "why" us modern Americans, detached from the times in which those reservations were established, should uphold them, as they are lawful.

We could certainly look at why the treaties were signed, but the original comment basically asked why we, modernly, should care.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation

#130
Just a couple notes here from a person of tribal descent (I am Wasq'u, a tribe in the PNW), for those trying to make sense of it.

This ruling, as I understand it, resolves a narrow technicality—but that technicality has potentially enormous implications.

The Court has only decided that the federal [EDIT: state! sorry!] government has no prosecutorial jurisdiction against citizens of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" in about half of OK—this is what the press means when it calls this territory "Indian reservations." They did not decide things like: Do the tribes get the taxes from people living in Tulsa? Do non-natives have to abide by rules of the respective nations? Does the tribal government have the ability to reclaim land through land-for-trust? And so on.

Further narrowing the ruling, my understanding is that this only applies when all persons involved in the crime (e.g., the victim) are also tribal citizens.

But, this ruling does open the door to a lot of those types of questions. It is possible we see several cases related to the sovereignty of these nations over the next few years, possibly greatly expanding the scope of the jurisdiction of the tribal governments.

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