Going Native
Conversations tend to escalate. People get uptight from time to time and wonder why immigrants can't, to quote Avenue Q, "learn to speak goddamn English". Certain other people, from time to time, reply with a certain smug, self-satisfied air that the English-speakers weren't the first one here, and if we're going to be like that, why don't we learn to speak Choctaw or Cherokee?
To which I would respond -- the Choctaws and Cherokees weren't here first either. They lived and died on land they took from other people, who took it from the people before them, back down the line to when there were no people here or anywhere in a reasonable proximity.
I acknowledge that certainly, terrible things were done (on both sides, but mostly by Us -- or at least that seems to be the current historical consensus) in the relationship between the burgeoning settlers of this brave new land and the people who already lived in it -- things which should, in point of fact, have not been done. The Trail of Tears comes to mind, as an obvious example.
And yet our disgust at 'our' treatment of the indigenous tribes (I say 'our' because none of us was alive, so far as I know, during the periods of most relevant conflict) is purely civilized, and of a brand peculiar to this day and age. Do we recoil with horror and disgust at the vast and bloody expansion of the Roman Empire? For the greater part, we do not. Why not? Because they brought light to a world beset with ignorance and barbarism?
I'm not saying the peoples who lived here before the Europeans and their compatriots came in force didn't get a raw deal -- because, of course, they did. What I am saying is that this incident is not peculiar in history -- civilizations have been marginalizing and assimilating other civilizations since the advent of the institution, after all. The Americas were not an innocent Eden before the advent of Europeans -- in truth, the only real change to come with the dominance of European colonization was the general skin tone of the predominant barbarian.
Further, I do not address the current situation of the descendants of the aforementioned tribes. What I mean is simply that I am tired of people getting upset over the fate of people groups that did precisely the same thing to other such groups. That's the nature of the beast, and the nature of the beast means that our civilization, too, faces eventual assimilation by whatever group eventually becomes dominant, although the domination we face may well be cultural or economic rather than military.
Nothing new, folks.
To which I would respond -- the Choctaws and Cherokees weren't here first either. They lived and died on land they took from other people, who took it from the people before them, back down the line to when there were no people here or anywhere in a reasonable proximity.
I acknowledge that certainly, terrible things were done (on both sides, but mostly by Us -- or at least that seems to be the current historical consensus) in the relationship between the burgeoning settlers of this brave new land and the people who already lived in it -- things which should, in point of fact, have not been done. The Trail of Tears comes to mind, as an obvious example.
And yet our disgust at 'our' treatment of the indigenous tribes (I say 'our' because none of us was alive, so far as I know, during the periods of most relevant conflict) is purely civilized, and of a brand peculiar to this day and age. Do we recoil with horror and disgust at the vast and bloody expansion of the Roman Empire? For the greater part, we do not. Why not? Because they brought light to a world beset with ignorance and barbarism?
I'm not saying the peoples who lived here before the Europeans and their compatriots came in force didn't get a raw deal -- because, of course, they did. What I am saying is that this incident is not peculiar in history -- civilizations have been marginalizing and assimilating other civilizations since the advent of the institution, after all. The Americas were not an innocent Eden before the advent of Europeans -- in truth, the only real change to come with the dominance of European colonization was the general skin tone of the predominant barbarian.
Further, I do not address the current situation of the descendants of the aforementioned tribes. What I mean is simply that I am tired of people getting upset over the fate of people groups that did precisely the same thing to other such groups. That's the nature of the beast, and the nature of the beast means that our civilization, too, faces eventual assimilation by whatever group eventually becomes dominant, although the domination we face may well be cultural or economic rather than military.
Nothing new, folks.