American Indians Confront 'Savage Anxieties'

Earlier this month, as part of the $585 billion defense bill for 2015, Congress passed a measure that would give lands sacred to American Indians in Arizona to a foreign company. This week, Bill speaks with Robert A. Williams Jr., a professor specializing in American Indian law, about how such deals are a part of American Indian's tragic history of dispossession.

[Yourismouter]

great program and like the interview with Sherman Alexie I found it extremely wonderful and its raised my respect for Mr.Moyers on a bigger level because the issues surrounding the plight of Native Americans is one of the most suppressed issues in the US that even independent journalism doesn't seem to touch or should touch more. So it was great that on Mr.Moyer's second to last show he shed light on Native Americans. America is still very much a country with institutional racism even if its not explicitly inscribed in any law. While most focusing and rightfully so speak out against racism towards black and Latinos and Hollywood films and TV shows shed light on it, no group has been oppressed more then the First Americans. If the US is very much a caste system and the Native Americans are the untouchables I feel. Whether its celebrating Thanksgiving Day or Columbus Day, or the 4th of July which celebrates the stealing of land and banishment of the Native people or the popular Hollywood and TV shows which denigrate Native Americans or even rewrite history like Pocahontas which showed John Smith as a good guy when he was a mass murderer and showed the Natives and White settlers as living happily ever after when really it was only true for the settlers, or the celebration of racist Western films or TV shows like Shameless or the Sopranos that get away with racism against Native Americans its just disgraceful plus their image being used as caricatures in sports. The fact of the matter is Jim Crow laws may have been removed against blacks and all people of color, The US is a melting pot of cultures, and this is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world, and entertainment media has shown the bloody history of segregation, racist laws, White power groups, slavery and so fourth. But all these accomplishments are only half won until the Jim Crow laws are removed from Native Americans such as the government reserves they are forced to live in which basic human rights are denied to them, apologies are given for the genocide, the theft of their land, the Residential School Programs and so fourth, and justice and honoring of the Treaties is given to the Native Americans. They deserve reparations more then anyone who has been wronged by white supremacy and I found it shocking when that journalist for the Atlantic who talked about how black people are owned reparations for the stages of injustices inflicted on them by White America, he's been on Moyers and Company twice, when he was on the Colbert Report and Stephen asked him 'what about Native Americans/Indians' he answer was 'ehh possibly'. I thought that was disgraceful 'possibly more like 'right on'. As the great John Pilger said about the Aboriginals in Australia 'for until we give them back their nationhood we can never claim our own'.
thank you Bill Moyers for being that rare journalist to highlight this issue along with Abby Martin of RT US, Keith Olbermann, John Pilger, Thomas Hartmann, Aloyna formerly of RT US now Huffington Post, the late Howard Zinn, and the late Johnny Cash (though he's not a journalist).

[justgivemethetruth]

A very important subject.  There were few subjects in my studies, or indoctrinations of history as the story of the Native Americans.  We have the story of Thanksgiving counterposed against the story of the Little Big Horn.  We have pictures of mountains of dead buffalo, and we know that few of us every meet native Americans in our lives in this day and age.

But almost what is worse, if there could be, than the horrors of the past is that the same patterns keep going and these people and any possible source of wealth or revenue is still being exploited by our political system and anyone who can bend it to their will.

[japandata]

John Handcock: Since you asked about the Buddhist view, I'll tell you that compassion and understanding should drive the process. It's time our country validate the culture of native Americans, along with blacks, latinos and Asians, and realize that stereotypes under any guise is wrong. Native Americans are treated as third-class in our country and that view has forced them into deep poverty.

[davideischens]

We watched this in our Federal Indian Law course. Very sad and ugly history that dont get told in the public school system. Real truths and history that are hidden because they're ashamed and dont want this part of history acknowledged let alone told.
We are the seeds they couldn't kill off. We are the relatives who will ensure our ancestors didnt die in vain.

[thys_roes]

What a very interesting topic, thanks for having Mr Williams on! One note: not all colonialism was based on spreading Western civilization. There was a strong economic and a slight scientific interest. There was arrogance and ignorance there in strong forms as well, but some decisions are better understood when looking through an economic perspective.

[mastermindlinguistics]

12:00 sedece ? He prononuces 'sedece' with 'k' ? Never heard of that one.

[professorsassafras]

All I got to say is.... regardless of my opinion or anyone else's.
There's real evidence of native Americans in the past participating in slavery, child sacrifice, and there's evidence of them slaughtering tons of colonists. I'm not preaching to you or anything, and you all hold your own views. But when people who chose to call native Americans savages in the information articles confront me with this evidence. It's kind of hard for me to argue against it.
I like to give them the benefit of the doubt as surely not EVERYONE was doing this, but it's kind of hard for me to just blindly ignore the evidence . Especially when they leave it right in front of my face

[karencrutcher]

The Pope recently denounced the Doctrine of Discovery...

[justgivemethetruth]

I wonder if there is any way to separate the Native American ethos to allow racial non-Native American in to support it.  I would imagine that there are many regular Americans who would like an alternative to what our society and economy has become.  If they could petition the government to expand the Indian reservations to include those who wanted to live in peace with the land in a different way under a different kind of democracy?  

[justgivemethetruth]

I'd redefine this guy's statement of the problem as NOT being that the West, as he defines it does not recognize Native American rights to govern themselves, but instead that the Western system, while great in theory, is crappy for everyone but a few in practice.  That would supersede the problem of Native Americans, or rather the problems that the West has pushed onto all indigenous people.


The system and philosophy of the West is great, and there is no sense in every tribe or group in the world having their own government to evolve and change over time when we have the structure and system in place that would work for all - if it would just get fixed.

[devingentry]

As a strong advocate for indigenous peoples as well as a long time Moyers fan who enjoyed earlier reporting on native issues, I was looking forward to this video which proved rather disappointing. What is happening today is outrageous by any standard, but you are a poor student of history if you are shocked by racist language in 19th century Supreme Court decisions. Mr. Williams is washing over much of early North American history and seems to be equating the injustice of the legal code with a systemic moral failure of European civilization. He also ignores the fact that the Chinese for example have a similar conception of the civilized and the savage which even permeates its legal code today. He thinks erroneously that this is somehow a Western phenomena or that Native Americans did not have disparaging and supremacist remarks for Europeans as well. This is true of all cultures encountering the other not just western.

A closer look at American history will show that the majority of Europeans who had direct contact with Native Americans, learned their languages, and dealt regularly with them were sympathetic to the indigenous peoples, expressed admiration for their cultures, and many even advocated for them against imperious legal actions which one does not see in Chinese history.

It is wrong to equate thoughtless, self-serving actions taken by a distant government to those of the people they supposedly represent which is what Mr. Williams seems to be implying by looking through the narrow lens of the law from which only so much can be inferred. The history of exchange between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of North America is far more complex than the all too simplistic explanations that circulate in the American psyche which he is simply reinforcing though that is not to deny the very real racism and conflict that did and does still exist.

[southerncross]

6:01 - 8:55

Says it all IMO. Thumbs down.

Correct if I'm wrong here, but didn't the early European settlers in the US leave their homes because they were fairly treated and were land owners back in Europe?

Or did they leave because they felt "persecuted"  or were landless"?

And yet they appear to be absolute hypopcrites, by inflicting the same conditions on the native American Indians (as they suffered back home) in order to satisfy their greed by taking land from others. Thumbsdown.

Rest assured that the capilist system that the invaders now all live under has replaced serfs with "minimum wage earners".

"What goes around comes around"

Mick

[justgivemethetruth]

I never heard of this before. 10:09 The Doctrine of Discovery, European Countries could take land that was inhabited by so-called barbarians.

[AvangionQ]

After watching this video, makes me feel like I have to ask, what century is this?

[sandrayoung]

Are mother earth Will get you all there today prayer 🙏 Ojibway stand with my navie tribes canada

[jackjones]

now I now, , , "document of discovery"

[sandrayoung]

It's all navie land today come on wake up USA

[eddiej]

Fight evermore  the corporate stooge, all the while
with harp on mute, carry tales of betidings fit for a King
in ever more layers of guilt ensnarement, hoping for liberation,
but offering only an unending suburban outrage of ruling guilt.
Little by little, gnaw at the skin, the structure, the very bones that hold it all.

Would be it  righteous if the fox came from the woods, and the chicken from the coup
but who to guard themselves from first, or even last, or perhaps from both, as
its easier to see black from white when both are held up to the cooling light of reality, and not illusion.
Strike now with eye and mind, drop the veil to see the fox, to see the chicken.

[DECRAFTS]

how can this country tolerate the natives, america is one country and the indians are to conscious of passed transgressions and dont want to integrate so what can be done;?