101–110 of 180 posts
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Given the violence, dispossession, and virulent racism indigenous people are and we’re forced to bear, isn’t the alcoholism another symptom, not the cause?
Dr. Gabor Maté talks a lot about trauma and how it can get "preserved" over generations (he is himself a survivor of the Holocaust).
The history of alcoholism and suicide in Alaska goes back to the time of first contact with outsiders. When westerners first contacted Alaska Native tribes, those "explorers" tended to be people who were after valuable furs, and missionaries. These people were usually a mix of Russians from the west and Americans from the south. The outsiders brought with them diseases like tuberculosis and influenza, and these disea…
What you're recounting seems (from the article) to be the Canadian government's side of the story. The 12th paragraph of the article begins the Inuit's description of what happened. > Most Inuit look back very differently on this period. Their version begins shortly after World War II, when the US and Canada jointly established a line of radar stations across the Arctic in order to spy on the Soviets and monitor the…
Anyway, if you're interested in more about what FNMI life is like in Canada, the APTN First Contact show is a pretty great place to start:
In case any one doesn't know: Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, oversaw these residential schools, the last of which were only dismantled in the 90s under a different government. This is a dark chapter in the history of Canada.
Former Alaskan here. I wasn't shocked to find out Greenland and Nunavut which are also very high north have high suicide rates. The long dark winters can really mess with you after a while which can lead to substance abuse.
I think it is too easy to just make it about the environment. If you read the article it claims the suicide rate wasn't always this high. Something cultural got lost when they transitioned away from their nomadic lifestyle.
> Something cultural got lost when they transitioned away from their nomadic lifestyle.
As with many problems, the cause is likely mosaic.
I can tell you anecdotally that I would surely devolve into substance abuse and suicide were I to live in an Alaskan / Canadian environment like that. Just working from home on a permanent basis was enough to send me out to the bar on a daily basis. Similarly, when I spent time unemployed my only solace was substance. I cannot imagine being stuck in such an environment, little contact and little to do.
Some people just can't handle a certain lifestyle.
One wonders were we to leave the natives to their nomadic lifestyle if we wouldn't be seeing criticisms for any inevitable fallout and suffering that lifestyle might bring to members of the population.
For comparison, here are a few of the highest rates per 100k in the US: 98.7 - Kusilvak Census Area, AK; 75.1 - Nome Census Area, AK; 64.2 - Sioux County, ND; 58.9 - Buffalo County, SD; 49.3 - Carbon County, UT https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa Extend the list and you see lots of high latitudes, low incomes, remote rural settings, and indigenous American populations (e.g. Yupik and Inupiaq in Alaska, Siou…
The history of alcoholism and suicide in Alaska goes back to the time of first contact with outsiders. When westerners first contacted Alaska Native tribes, those "explorers" tended to be people who were after valuable furs, and missionaries. These people were usually a mix of Russians from the west and Americans from the south. The outsiders brought with them diseases like tuberculosis and influenza, and these disea…
> Almost all of the missionaries blamed the survivors for what happened. They said their people died because they worshipped the devil. They took the surviving children away, telling parents they weren't fit to raise their own children. They banned the use of Native languages, and all aspects of Native culture such as dancing, regalia, ceremonies, and more. All of this has led to despair and a disconnect with a rich…
I'm not really sure about Alaska in particular, but the Catholic Church for example was definitely complicit in the attempted cultural genocide undertaking by the Canadian government against indigenous peoples (and resists issuing a formal apology for that role, even to this day: https://globalnews.ca/news/4110276/canada-residential-school...).
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Alcoholism is always rampant when a population is first introduced to the drug. Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it, since people who drink themselves to death don't tend to reproduce. The population that has had access to alcohol for the longest (8000 years, according to a guess I saw somewhere) is the Chinese, where the "asian red flush" gene has developed as a protection against…
Well, I'm confused. Something seems off. Evolutionary pressures / adaptations over 8000 years would just as likely make a population less likely to suffer adverse effects from, for example, alcohol. (see sickle cell tradeoffs in malaria-risky areas). This genetic syndrome you reference makes damage from alcohol 4x more likely over time . We'd expect long-time drinking societies to have higher alcohol tolerance to bet…
That said, the surviving populations probably also have a higher alcohol tolerance than their sober ancestors. That seems hard to measure though.
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Alcoholism is always rampant when a population is first introduced to the drug. Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it, since people who drink themselves to death don't tend to reproduce. The population that has had access to alcohol for the longest (8000 years, according to a guess I saw somewhere) is the Chinese, where the "asian red flush" gene has developed as a protection against…
I don't believe this is the case, do you have any sources to back it up?
I don't have any source links handy. Do you have any sources for your disbelief? :)
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> Anecdotally, I've heard Scandinavia has a similarly high rate, for the same reason. Why are you posting your anecdotes like this? You have access to the internet after all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... For example, on that list the US rates _worse_ than Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and are about the same as Finland.
The US is a large, heterogeneous nation and comparisons with small homogenous nations are misleading.
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lower standards only applies if you think about money. In every other respect, life is more pleasant in the mediterranean than in nordic countries. Source: I'm from the mediterranean and I think life in California is shit, even if I make way more money than before.
>In every other respect, life is more pleasant in the mediterranean than in nordic countries. Only if you have money. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a mass migration of youths from the Mediterranean moving for work in the Nordics.