MovieChat Forums > A Dry White Season (1989) Discussion > Apartheid/American Indian

Apartheid/American Indian

posted 16 years ago by seoll
12 replies | jump to latest

Apartheid/American Indian or Native Americans

Anyone else find any parallels between the American Indian/Native Americans and apartheid, in the rawest sense. Apartheid was the result of Dutch and British colonialism in South Africa and how they dealt with the native people of Africa.

We had our own apartheid with the American Indians. The American Indian was oppressed, slaughtered, discriminated against and forced off their land.

Apartheid, after relentless pressure from around the world including the United States, was rightly abolished in 1994. I am not sure that the situation with the American Indians has ever really been addressed and resolved like that of apartheid. The situation in South Africa is not perfect and they still have many problems with desegregation but the issue has been met head on.

The American solution was to try to sweep it under the carpet and isolate the American Indian by urging them onto reservations.

If the American Indian issue were to occur in today’s environment, the US would be in for a vicious round of public outcry from around the world and could never get away with what they did to these native American peoples. We got off very easy.

Whenever I hear the self righteous American rhetoric about human rights and Democracy, I always think of the American Indian and how they were treated during the formation period.

How hypocritical of the US to publicly claim how righteous they are when all one has to do is look at our own skeletons in the closet.

It is terrible that apartheid went on for as long as it did and we are right to standup against this type of
Government. I just hope that not too many dig deep into our governments past behavior, because it is very embarrassing sometimes.

[–] daboss216 16 years ago

I think the treatment of the Indians was similar to that of the native S.Africans in that they were both thought of as racial inferiors and, therefore, unworthy of being treated fairly. However, apartheid was the rule of a relatively few whites over a majority native population that saw itself as one people. The American Indians saw themselves as many different tribes. This allowed white America to "divide and conquer". Eventually, whites vastly outnumbered the Indians and their subjugation became inevitable. By the time reservations came into being, the USA was a country thats white population outnumbered the native.

[–] grahammichaelburns-1 16 years ago

"apartheid was the rule of a relatively few whites over a majority native population that saw itself as one people"

Daboss, this is completely wrong, as divide and conquer was also used extensively by the apartheid regime, and by every other colonial power in Africa. You only have to look at its most horrific manifestations that resulted in the Ruanda genocide and ANC v Zulu Inkata bloodshed in the run up to the first democratic elections in South Africa.
You are right though, that the demographics are very different in the America and South African cases.

[–] monty-57 14 years ago

>Anyone else find any parallels between the American Indian/Native Americans and apartheid, in the rawest sense.

It's probably why Brando decided to do this movie.

[–] anfeargal 13 years ago

There are some key differences. Some American Indians were allowed to assimilate -- from very early on. We had many political leaders with American Indian Ancestry in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Charles Curtis (a US VP in the 1920s) was 1/2 American Indian. American Indians served with whites in combat in WWII and were integrated in baseball well before blacks. Unlike South Africa, American Indians were not the majority in what is the USA for quite sometime (they are the majority in Mexico, Bolivia and maybe Paraguay and Peru). So, as American Indians were a relatively small minority by the mid 19th Century -- they were not a real threat to power (though they still had weapons). As American Indians are "racially" more similar to "whites" -- intermarriage was more accepted (the children often "look white"). In my own distant American Indian family, the people were assimilated pretty quickly in one generation -- it appeared not to pose a problem to the children of that marriage. Keeping language/religion/names was a challenge for American Indians -- the European cultures were pushed on them for more than 100 years. It is one of the reasons I am perplexed when Mexican Indians come to the USA and we insist that we should learn "their language" when many of them speak an Indian language as a first language (and the Spanish were their oppressors).

Certainly, SA was close to the USA South under Jim Crow era.

[–] thesnowleopard 11 years ago

So, as American Indians were a relatively small minority by the mid 19th Century

This is not true. Native Americans and First Nations people were the majority by far in many parts of the North American frontier for most of the 19th century. If not for the huge epidemics that occurred, starting with De Soto's infamous 16th century journey through what is now the Southeastern U.S. and not hitting Canada until the mid-to-late 19th century (Tribes in BC were enduring them in the 1820s and the Metis in Manitoba were devastated by a largely European-created famine between 1870 and their second revolt in 1885), they would still be the majority in many areas. This kind of demographic collapse never occurred in South Africa.

This is not even taking into account the fact that many Native Americans assimilated into White society and that the actual percentage of the American genome that is of Native American/First Nations descent is probably greatly under-reported, especially if you were to apply, say, the infamous One-Drop Rule to Native Americans.

Innsmouth Free Press http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com

[–] guy_in_west_houston 13 years ago

I wish you race-card playing cry babies would look at a calender and realize it's 2011. Quit blaming your chip-on-the-shoulder attitude on events occurring 200 years ago. Are we to believe Indians didn't fight and kill each other when establishing their territories? Are we to believe there were no Indians who owned slaves? You can't turn the clock back so wake up and face the new day.

[–] kenburke0627 13 years ago

Do not forget the other abuses they sufferd - the "mission schools", designed to destroy American Indian culture and the source of repeated sex crimes against American Indian children.

[–] ibbi 12 years ago

Of course there are parallels. Brando's involvement alone would be testament to that.

hope in our heart, and wings on our heels

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] PoppyTransfusion 10 years ago

I wish for once that the sufferings of a people would be allowed its own space without being used to explain or expound on the sufferings of another, particularly where it then turns the conversation into one about America, as in the USA. I find it offensive.

Movement ends, intent continues;
Intent ends, spirit continues

[–] vantikaci 10 years ago

why do you find it offensive?

[–] bear022013-588-696101 9 years ago

Now White people are hacked to death by the thousands/little White babies heads cut off and kept on heads of spears and the Zionist press says nothing.